I recently became acquainted with the Headway Theme for WordPress and purchased it for use on a client’s site. I like the theme a lot – it’s visual editor kicks butt and blows doors on the Thesis theme.I would, however, recommend that you avoid the Headway Theme affiliate program like the plague. I know for a fact that at least one person has purchased the Headway theme using my affiliate code – yet Headway is not giving me any credit for it (I am supposed to be getting 33% of every sale I deliver). What makes this worse, is that each time I have contacted them, I have been totally ignored. You might not want to ignore the Headway theme for WordPress, but if I were you I would not even waste my time with their tested and untrue affiliate program. Shame on you Headway Themes! How dare you?
My Advice: Avoid the Headway Theme Affiliate Program
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- Connect with Joe:
While I appreciate your post, please allow me to clarify some misinformation floating around.
What most forget is the fact sometimes people don’t visit a site for the first time from the site they think they are buying the product from. If someone had gone to someone else’s site first, clicked on a Headway affiliate link and visited the site, that cookie is what controls. If they then come here, click on your affiliate link and buy the product, the first cookie rules. This is the only fair way to do it. In other words, we have a first in, get paid setting.
If you would like to email me the payment receipt from the person who claims to have purchased Headway from you affiliate link, I would be happy to look into this for you.
Hi Joe,
I’m like you in that I had a question over the affiliate payments. I’ve been one since the beginning (back in July last year), and always found them to be fair.
Yet I noticed a payment didn’t appear, even though I knew a theme had been bought via my link. I emailed Grant Griffiths (co-founder) who explained:
“The Headway affiliate payments are given on a “first come, first served basis based on cookie activity for 90 days.”
Basically, whatever link someone first looks at Headway through, that’s valid for 90 days. It rewards the person that first makes someone aware of the Headway theme. Looking at it, it does seem the fairest way, as someone may have clicked on a link previously, checked out the theme but been unsure. Then they might have seen another theme using it, liked what they saw, and bought then.
If it was given to the second link, the “work” that the first referrer may have put in would have been “ignored”. Let’s say the first link was a full-on review of the theme, while the second one was simply a nice customization of Headway. I think you’d agree that the work of the first referral should be the one rewarded?
I’m surprised that you haven’t heard back from the Headway guys, they’re normally pretty bang-on when it comes to replying, especially about affiliate payments – the last thing they want is upset customers.
Hopefully this explains the payment system and your query is resolved soon.
Joe – This is the first time I’ve heard anyone having an issue with the affiliate program. Sorry it happened to you…
The “Headway Theme” link, by the way leads to a 404.
I know this is a dated post, but since you’re on the first page of Google for “headway affiliate”, I felt you needed to be addressed.
Joe — I can appreciate your opinion, I feel that it’s very unfair to the guys at Headway (Particularly Grant as he responded here) to not have any Update or response visible to your readers.
Please respond to Grant, as he is the Headway guy, the only person you’d need to talk to, rather than leaving the readers misinformed of your total experience.
It seems like they want to straighten it out for you, so at least be a straight shooter with the rest of us.
I did get a response from Grant, only saying that they tracked it properly – which did not address the problem at all. I don’t work with their affiliate program any more, because I KNOW I purchased headway using my affiliate link and did not get paid (or any money back).
The headway theme has had so many updates in the past 6 months that every time I go to one of my sites I have to update it. I know you have to fix major problems as they come up, but shouldn’t there be lots of testing before something is released? I’ve kind of quit using my blogs a lot, because the theme has been so problematic. I’m thinking about changing to a more reliable theme.
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