SPRU Live Spirulina review for UpPromote Affiliate Marketing

July 22, 2024

MISLEADING APP DESCRIPTION After being assured that UpPromote included a referral feature I installed the app and started setting it up. After 25 years as an online marketing consultant to companies in 40+ countries, I understand the clear distinction between an AFFILIATE and a REFERRAL APP: A referral app provides once-off rewards to existing customers for introducing new customers - if the new customer places an order then a reward or commission is granted to both parties ON THE FIRST ORDER ONLY. An affiliate app may provide a once-off reward new customers introduced by the affiliate, but the affiliate continues to earn rewards (normally a commission) on all that new customer's purchases for a fixed period or indefinitely. Because Referral Rewards are only paid out once, they can be very large 9even loss-making) as they only happen once and are regarded as the cost of acquiring the new customer. Having signed up for a $29/mo paid UpPromote plan I discovered that the "Referral" program they were providing only allowed rewards that repeated on all future purchase by the new client. This is DISHONEST MARKETING - that is not a referral program but rather an affiliate program. I queried this and they demanded I triple my monthly payment to $89 to enable a referral program with once-off rewards. Then the company claimed that as their customers often incorrectly referred to an affiliate program as a referral program, they felt justified in also incorrectly labeling their $29 plan as a referral program. I have over the years used dozens of both affiliate and referral apps and was delighted to find a combined app, but BEWARE - this company is being dishonest (and IMHO perhaps fraudulent in their marketing claims. I lost faith in this company and no longer trust them or want to do business with them and am now uninstalling UpPromote from my Shopify store. Now the company is asking for a meeting - I wasted so many hours setting the app up and testing it to find it did not do what they promised that am not inclined to waste more time teaching them what it should do.