DGM gone into administration

domainseller200 · Jul 16, 2010

Just a heads up that DGM have gone into administration, so hope it doesn't affect people from here too much

They owe me a few K but this just justifies even further why I am exiting affiliate marketing permanently !

rob · Jul 16, 2010

Heard the rumour this morning - any public confirmation?

Sustainability is the keyword for everything be it domains, development or aff stuff.

rob · Jul 16, 2010

Not been on A4u recently (more guff and shysters than acorn!) but just looked and saw this from a week ago:

That's some rotten luck you've been having over at DGM recently Patrick:

- Cheques bouncing one week due to insolvency act proceedings.
- BACS computer failing the next week.
- Judging by the lack of response to emails and phone calls, problems with them as well.

Somebody cynical might think DGM had problems and was trying to avoid affiliates.

Ouch.

If it is in admin, then cash may not yet be lost as the administratiors aim is to keep the company running and pay those owed cash. That and rack up massive fees for themselves

Unless they do a prepack jobby, or liquidate ... then you are screwed.

domainseller200 · Jul 16, 2010

I have it on good authority that it has been confirmed and also I know someone has telephoned them and it was answered by the administrators, and they were told the same

Lucky Luke · Jul 16, 2010

domainseller200 said:
They owe me a few K but this just justifies even further why I am exiting affiliate marketing permanently !

Sorry for your financial loss.

If you're exiting affiliate marketing, where are you heading to? Adsense? Domain Name trading? Paid for ads? What's your new revenue? I was heading for affiliate marketing so you've got me worried :?

No need to answer if you don't want, but your quote prompted my question.

Thanks in advance and good luck, Luke

domainseller200 · Jul 16, 2010

I plan on settling in something which has more stability than affiliate marketing. A few ideas I have come up with include :

1. Selling ashtrays for motorbikes
2. Trying to sell lucky heather door to door
3. A yo-yo stringer - always a strong call for yo-yo's as the last 100's of years have shown us
4. Unicycle repair man
5. Hungary Hippos marble packaging technician
6. A newspaper reporter dedicated to Kerry Katona scandals
7. Betamax repair man
8. Commodore 64 replacement tape deck retailer
9. A Raul Moat impersonator

Lucky Luke · Jul 16, 2010

You forgot one:

10. Domain name reseller

Cheers, Luke

domainseller200 · Jul 16, 2010

lol - Pm me if you want Luke

julian · Jul 16, 2010

I have to say thank god for that - they such a lump of shite - I think affiliatefuture.co.uk will prob follow soon and hopefully tradedoubler in a year or so.

Good clear out of the tat is what we need

edo · Jul 17, 2010

Hi Frank.

Sorry to hear you lost a few bob. Surprised to hear you might be getting out of affiliate marketing. Of all the people on here I presumed you were making decent money from it.

As for your new job, a Raoul Moat impersonator would do good business right now, but as Rob said sustainability is the name of the game, so I'd go with an old-time favourite like Fred West or Peter Sutcliffe.

Speaking of which petersutcliffe.co.uk is available to register. fredwest.co.uk isn't!

Cheers,

Ed

GreyWing · Jul 17, 2010

From my short few steps into affliates, I got the sense of mistrust due to lost sales and completions, now people losing money they were entitled to.

What would be great is an affiliate company beyond suspicion, I'll stick with adsense until then, may not be great revenue but I do trust that all the clicks are converted.

anthony · Jul 17, 2010

GreyWing said:
From my short few steps into affliates, I got the sense of mistrust due to lost sales and completions, now people losing money they were entitled to.

What would be great is an affiliate company beyond suspicion, I'll stick with adsense until then, may not be great revenue but I do trust that all the clicks are converted.

'Google Affiliates' perhaps?

bensd · Jul 17, 2010

programmer said:
'Google Affiliates' perhaps?

Don't google already own an affiliate network?

Sound · Jul 17, 2010

I really think its about time that a law was passed to make company's have to Ring Fence money that they owe to affiliates how long have DGM been able to carry on trading by using money that should not be theirs.

I am sure we will see other Affiliate company's hit the wall as percentages are squeezed and budgets cut watch this space.

domainseller200 · Jul 17, 2010

edo said:
Hi Frank.

Sorry to hear you lost a few bob. Surprised to hear you might be getting out of affiliate marketing. Of all the people on here I presumed you were making decent money from it.

As for your new job, a Raoul Moat impersonator would do good business right now, but as Rob said sustainability is the name of the game, so I'd go with an old-time favourite like Fred West or Peter Sutcliffe.

Speaking of which petersutcliffe.co.uk is available to register. fredwest.co.uk isn't!

Cheers,

Ed

Hi Ed

Thanks for your empathy for me losing money - it is never good, but part of life when your involved with affiliate marketing. My comments about me leaving affiliate marketing were not based on how well I am doing (I DO make decent money from it), but rather the fact that I do not want to base my entire business model on something which is controlled and at the fate of a middleman. When the shit hits the fan, they will continue to rack up the sales and let the merchants pay them, just to pay their own debts off and NOT pay the people who actually generated them the sales.

If I use DGM as an example - the affiliates sales you make in April you get paid out at the end of June - a 3 month period (April, May, June)

At the end of June when payments were due, DGM said they were having problems with their BACS systems and payments had been missed due to that. They then said payments would be made first week of July, then the second week of July. Then the announcement yesterday.

So now as an affiliate that is 16-17 weeks with no payment, whilst you are still continuing to send them sales through, which they are getting paid for by the merchants.

I only lost a few K, but imagine the PPC affiliate spending £1k a week ! They won't only have lost out on their commissions owed, but £16-17k out of their own pocket on PPC as well !

I have also been a very diversified person, which works to both my advantage and disadvantage in many ways, so therefore I can afford to take the blow and move on - lots of others will not be so lucky and it's things like this that cause the domino effect of other people going under, through no fault of their own.

I will just be shifting my efforts into different avenues and also establishing one to one relationships with merchants and advertisers, so therefore being able to see for myself if the merchant is struggling, alot sooner than 16-17 weeks down the line with a middleman stringing me along in the mean time. Besides this, you can also get higher payments as you are "cutting out the middleman" also

If you work fulltime in this business, then diversification is a necessity !

Tricky1 · Jul 17, 2010

domainseller200 said:
I will just be shifting my efforts into different avenues and also establishing one to one relationships with merchants and advertisers

That is the perfect scenario, and I do agree 100% with what your saying, the thing that I'm unsure of is how do you track the traffic to your merchant, is there software that do this or are there third party companies that you can use.