After much frustration trying to handle this on my own, in the most obvious ways, I finally requested the help of the most active group of Internet Marketers on the 'net: The Warriors.
The problem? I cannot seem to unsubscribe from "Nitro Affiliates". I have successfully removed myself from a handful of other lists managed by this group, but I seem to be hopelessly trapped in their affiliate database - with no sign of resolution.
Now you might ask yourself why I would cancel an affiliate account, or unsubscribe from affiliate notifications in the first place...
Its actually been a few years since I promoted a product through NitroAffiliates, and it was the Hypnotic Copywriting Manual. A great product, and a great promotion. But somehow in the process I ended up on 4 or 5 email lists via squeeze pages and contests and I dont even remember what else. And silly me - I managed to sign up for TWO affiliate accounts. Go figure 😛 .
The amount of email I received from the combined subscriptions was simply out of hand. I would get the exact same promotion through all lists, receiving about 6 copies of the exact same message. And none of them being related to the affiliate program or to hypnotic copywriting.
At first I decided I would just unsub from the mailing lists and cancel the one extra affiliate account. That proved to be impossible. I followed the instructions to the detail - three different times. Nothing happened - I still received the emails.
Next I logged in to my affiliate account and checked the box to "opt-out". Check > Save. Still getting emails 😐
At a loss for what to try next, I clicked on over to the Warrior Forum and posted a thread asking How do you unsubscribe from Matt Gill/Nitro Aff? ... and boy did that ever start a discussion!
Here's the kicker - In the last 24 hours alone, I have received over a dozen copies of the exact same message. Its a promotion for a new launch. Again, nothing to do with being their affiliate, and not even mention of an affiliate opp - just a blatant promotion.
Kevin Wilke was kind enough to come and respond to my thread and offer a solution. He said "email Brandy and she will take care of this for you". Great! Done. And as you can see, she replied to me at 6:43am my time this morning:
Guess what? I have received FOUR MORE copies of that same email SINCE THEN:
Nice, huh? 🙄
Either something is seriously wrong with their mailing list manager, or they are relentlessly spamming their affiliates to drain every last possible dollar they can out of this particular promo.
Regardless, this is an obvious violation of the CANSPAM Act. Dangerous territory there, boys...
Of course, the trouble I am having with this, combined with the bad taste for their email marketing tactics, is the reason I decided to remove myself from their affiliate program altogether. This is NOT something I want to recommend, or associate myself with.
Whether or not I can successfully remove myself from their database remains to be seen. Others reported having to change their ISP just to dump Nitro from their Inbox... Stay tuned to the warrior thread for the latest, which will hopefully yield a solution for everyone stuck in their database.
Technorati Tags: nitro marketing, nitro affilaites, matt gill, kevin wilke
About Lynn Terry
Lynn,
I believe something is wrong with their mailing system because I've only signed up for one affiliate account (no other subscriptions that I know of) and I received a total of 6 e-mails with the exact same subject/content yesterday and the day prior. Nothing today, thank goodness, so it seems they may have it under control.
Sorry you have to deal with it; it reminds me of my nightmare with DrugStore.com -- after they refused to honour my request, I simply set up some filters from the server that re-routed all their e-mail back to their customer service address before it even hit my inbox. Maybe that's the next course of action if you truly can't get yourself off the mailing list. 🙂
Good luck.
~ Teli
Lynn,
I've been following that thread at the warrior forum and I just posted saying that you have been very nice trying to work them and even if it's a glitch on their end I suggested you report them to the FTC. The CAN-SPAM law states their remove system must work period. Maybe then they will pay more attention and fix the problem.
Lynn
Funny you should post this, and thanks for the response. I had two affiliate accounts, couldn't unsub, mailed their support with both details, and one was successfully deleted.
The other one still gets mails, and I was going to send a snotty-gram today about it.
I'll monitor the thread,
Andy
Lynn, this is too bad and really worrying when you get trapped to a mailing list and can't just unsubscribe from it.
I have a similar experience with another mailing list for quite some time now. There is just no way to unsubscribe yet the 'gurus' promote this sites.
Maybe I will do the same as you did - post a thread on the warrior or DP to show me how to remove myself.
Great post, Lynn
Interestingly, I havent received another email from them since that last one yesterday. That either means they stopped the loop on this one particular message - or I was successfully unsubscribed. I'd be impressed if it were the latter...
I've never been associated with these guys but I have experienced the 'how the heck to you get out of this?' syndrome with a mailing list before. I do not like it when they don't give you an easy unsubscribe link and ask you to 'Log in and edit your preferences' when it was just a mailing list, not a membership or something more involved.
I just set up a filter and instruct my email to delete their mail.
This is certainly nothing new. In fact, I posted a similar rant back in June. Its getting incredibly frustrating.
Mind you, some of the very people that are really crossing the line... are the same people that taught "list building" and email marketing strategies over the last few years.
Things that come to mind are niche lists (topic focus), relationship marketing, branding, establishing trust - am I alone, or do these phrases ring a bell with you too??
I've also had the problem with so many emails from them and now they all go in the SP*AM folder. The Nitro guys lost my trust a long time ago. They used to have some really good products and marketing. I don't know what happened to them but somewhere they got way off track.
I second that, Sandra...
Frankly, I think it got off track about the time that Joe Vitale ceased involvement, if I'm not mistaken.
The only reason I'd joined the program in the first place was to promote a book, which was later pulled, but now it's back up for sale...put another way, I truly don't even read their e-mails any more.
As for whether you've been unsubscribed or not, I'd hold out until the next mailing comes through (hasn't yet, or at least I haven't received it). I can pop back over to this thread and let you know. If you haven't received anything, that means you're probably unsubbed.
Pretty sad that you should have to go through all of this, though. And those "log in to change settings" always rub me the wrong way, too. Isn't that a violation of the CAN-SPAM act?
~ Teli
I honestly dont know if its a violation when you sign up for their affiliate program - to make you log in to your affiliate account to opt-out, that is. It should be - and it should be a violation to send completely unrelated solicitations.