SiteGround Affiliate Program Has Been Discontinued for Some Regions
No. The title isn’t a clickbait. SiteGround affiliate program is really going to be discontinued in some regions. After November 5th 2020 you can’t promote SiteGround hosting as an affiliate if you live in specific regions. Many SiteGround affiliates around the world got the email from SiteGround affiliate program today (October 22), which read like this.
Hello,
We would like to inform you that sadly, we’ve decided to discontinue the Affiliate program for your region and we will permanently suspend your SiteGround affiliate account on November 5, 2020.
Why close operations in your region?
Taking this decision was not easy for us as we have many loyal affiliates like you who have partnered with us for years. Unfortunately, due to a combination of poor performance indicators and the growing regulatory complexities in some regions, it becomes ineffective to support the program there.
Poor performance indicators
The affiliate relationship is a pay-for-performance model, where we pay for every sale we generate through our affiliate partners. The commission rates typical for the hosting industry, which we offer to our partners, are among the highest out there and traditionally they exceed the initial sales value.
This is why we closely monitor KPIs such as referred accounts’ lifetime span and value and renewal rates, which determine our ability to secure a fair revenue share for our partners and the long-term sustainability of the program.
Unfortunately, our latest analysis indicates that overall, the sales coming from your region have deteriorating KPIs, including among others alarmingly low renewal rates, higher cancellation rate than program averages, and short life span of the referred accounts.
Regulatory and tax complexities
Another negative trend that we have been monitoring in your region and several others is the heavier regulations and growing tax complexities that impose additional financial and bureaucratic burden on the program.
All these factors impose a growing financial risk for us and we can no longer guarantee the sustainability of the program in the long run. That is why we have taken the hard decision to discontinue operations in your region and several others.
What does this mean for you?
In 14 days time, we will suspend your affiliate account which means that you no longer will be able to log into your Affiliate area. If you are a SiteGround client as well, you will still be able to access the User Area but you will no longer have access to its Affiliate section.
Your outstanding affiliate sales, accumulated prior to the account suspension, will be processed as per our standard terms and conditions. All approved commissions will be duly paid out to you. No commission will be due for sales generated after the suspension date.
We kindly ask you to remove all SiteGround-related information, including banners, logos, reviews, and links from your website prior to November 5, 2020, to prevent generating new affiliate sales and violating the SiteGround Affiliate ToS. As per section 9 of our ToS, we revoke your right to use our trademark and other brand items.
Finally, we would like to say a big thank you for partnering with us and recommending SiteGround! We wish you lots of success with your initiatives in the future!
Regards,
The SiteGround Team
Where To Go From Here?
Looks like the SiteGround web hosting has just now realized that the customers who opt for the renewal at the end of their first hosting term, are very low (which is mostly due to SiteGround’s costly renewal packages).
And because of that, the commissions SiteGround pays to affiliates for each referral isn’t justified. As they said in the email, their customer retention rates have dropped.
As a SiteGround affiliate, there isn’t much you can do if you belong to the so-called ‘region’ where the affiliate program is being discontinued.
We would suggest you to start recommending another web hosting program which is as good as or even better than SiteGround. The one we promote is WPX hosting which is definitely better than SiteGround.
We are really sad for all the fellow affiliates who were solely relying on or were majorly depending on SiteGround affiliate program for earning their living. We would like to say that it isn’t the end of the road. Cheer up and all the best for your next affiliate adventure.
