Denied by Pepperjam

So, in April, I applied to be an affiliate marketer with Pepperjam. I have a friend who is doing well with them, and said they are a good group to work with. I sent in all the paperwork, and waited.

As reported here on October 31, I said that I had still heard nothing, even after sending a request for my status. I sent another email, and was told that I had incorrectly applied to be paid by PayPal, and that they now only pay by check. However, they said that they would manually change that and review my application again.

Yesterday, I received this email: "We are sorry to inform you that your application to Pepperjam Network was rejected."

No explanation. All three of my other blogs are PR 3, with Alexa ranks on two at about 500,000 and the third one at about 100,000, sometimes even lower. I have to wonder what they are looking for that at least one of my blogs doesn't have...

I have no way to look back at my original application to see what I might have entered that they didn't like, since it was a completely on-line form, and I don't seem to have any record of what it said.

And their web page still says that you can select PayPal for your payment option.

Here is what their site says about rejections: "Acceptance to Pepperjam Network is not guaranteed. While we carefully consider every application submitted to Pepperjam Network, applications are typically rejected for the following reasons:
(1) incomplete or false contact information,
(2) invalid business or personal Tax ID (US affiliates only),
(3) failure to disclose promotional methods
(4) unacceptable Web site content, including promotion of activity considered illegal in the United States, and
(5) an inability to verify Web site(s), phone number(s), and e-mail(s).
Therefore, to increase the likelihood of becoming a Pepperjam Network affiliate please fill out this application fully and honestly. Fraudulent activity on Pepperjam Network is not tolerated and will result in immediate account suspension and reversal of commissions."

I wonder which one I did? Pepperjam

web ad income Dec 4 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.08 Adgitize $.87 Project Wonderful $.03 Chitika $.11 Clixsense $.02 My Survey $.50 Neobux $.04 Pinecone $3.00 ______________________ Total: $4.65

Attempts to Become an Affiliate Marketer

I have made two attempts to become an affiliate marketer, and so far neither one has gotten to square one.

In April I applied to Pepperjam on the advice of a friend who was having good luck with them. I filled out the application, and sent in the forms. I heard nothing. In September I contacted them and asked if they could at least tell me if my application had been denied. I got an email saying that my question had been received, but I never heard anything from them.

In September, I applied to become an Affiliate with REI, using my blog Get Off The Couch News, I filled out all the forms, and I'm still waiting. I'll need to contact them again soon.

I'm wondering if companies are getting too many requests of this nature, and are simply ignoring applications.

Getting Started with Pepperjam

web ad income Oct 29 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.54 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.05 My Survey $.10 ______________________ Total: $.75

web ad income Oct 28 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.14 Adgitize $.52 Project Wonderful $.02 Chitika $.08 ______________________ Total: $.76

Getting Started with PepperJam

Thanks to the recommendation of a web friend, I signed up today with Pepperjam Affiliate Marketing. They are a site which allows you to place ads for specific products on your blogs and web sites. I am going to like that because Google Adsense doesn't always do such a great job of targeting their ads as they claim.

The signup process so far has worked, with a couple of glitches. First of all you have to enter a tax ID # (which may be your Social Security number) on an insecure page. I did it, taking a chance that the likelihood that someone was sitting there waiting for that one little transmission was low, but I wasn't happy about it.

The other oddity is that if you click to be paid by PayPal a pop-up appears saying that you must download a form and fax or mail it to Pepperjam. But there is no form??!!! (Don't know why I didn't see the form. Pepperjam has subsequently contacted me and sent the form by email.)

Affiliate marketing is a real business, so you will have to enter real-life information, name, address, telephone, business web site, and that tax ID number (and VAT number if you are in the EU). You choose up to three ways that you want to display affiliate ads. I chose blogs and web sites, but the list includes things like coupons, email, loyalty programs, eBay, Squidoo, comparison shopping and more. I don't even know what some of the choices might mean. And then you must choose up to three categories, labeled "company categories." I am assuming that means the categories of products you wish to promote. This is the normal type category list. At first glance, hiking and outdoor equipment seems to be missing, but I've seen Pepperjam ads for those products. (That's part of the reason I'm choosing Pepperjam.) Therefore, I'm assuming they are in Sports / Fitness.

I promptly received an email with a verification code. Now I need to wait, up to 72 hours, for the application to be processed and hopefully approved.

I'll keep you posted.

web ad income today (4 blogs, 2 web sites): Adsense $.11 Adgitize $.75 Project Wonderful $.01 ______________________ Total: $.87 Total to date in April $1.14 Total in March $4.88