Patch reviews

Commission paid out every 4 1/2 months. If you start the last month of the quarter you wont get paid until 5 1/2 months although your manager will get paid for your sales on the next payout. Products get terrible results will archaic tracking from the 90's. An emailed report is sent to the ad managers once a day of CTR's. Ad managers have no access to tracking reports. Share of voice is a bad idea on a community site. Universal rate card for Patch sites based on their age instead of traffic. So basically the rate is the same for 2 sites that have been around the same amount of time regardless if the other site gets a significantly lower amount of traffic. The site constantly has outages and errors with some ads not even showing. Goals should be based off of area not universal. Some areas will have much lower AVO's so your quota's should reflect the area. The infastructure was not thought out well. They're pushing websites like this is 2004. Have vision, mobile is where its going, sell mobile websites as well as desktop sites. They interview for professional seasoned folks, but pay entry level salary.

Freelancers are paid next to nothing and at similar levels, even if they have obviously more skill. Despite having a journalism degree and able to report on complex topics I would be paid the same amount as a different freelancer who covered a local library event or wrote a "frugal family" column about a couple locations to save money in the community. The editors struggle to keep up with their day-to-day tasks, particularly the mandates from the New York offices and have little time to anything but spot reporting journalism. No way to pay writers who think up and report on complicated features or shoot really good photos. The comment streams on their website should be monitored and promoted. They have yet to figure out how to handle those. Lack of ability to be promoted in the company. The company started a hiring spree in early 2009, which has largely dissipated except for the three areas where Queen Huff is interested in (South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire). So even if you are qualified freelancer who understands his or her community very well, has the capability to write and report better than other editors in the area, the chance of moving up in the company is slim right now. Whoever is selling ads in this company should fired. So many sites are wildly popular in their communities and still don't sell ads. This company could be making so much more money than it is.