The truth behind affiliate networks

[amandine]

Hi all,
I've been working for a while for an affiliate network. I think most of you are aware of that, but just to make the others know...
First, if you are interested in this topic, here are some questions to answer before reading the next part :

- Have you ever been signing up into an affiliate network and have obtained conversion really fast after sending traffic ?
- Since that "First conversion" have you already seen the conversion rate dropping while sending more traffic ?
- With the time and seeing the low ctr, have you ever tried to lower traffic on this network to send traffic to another one, BUT conversions rate suddenly jumped up ?

Here is what I can tell you. The firm I was working for (and competitors where doing the same) was at first giving ALL conversions to affiliates.
Then, when affiliates started to generate revenues, a script was clearly stealing conversions (form 5% to 50 % of conversion depending of affiliate revenues).
If an affiliate started to lower traffic the script stopped working for a while : The affiliate was happy to see conversions coming back, and even if he had decided to leave the network, he was so happy to see such a jump in revenue he was coming back ... And the script restarted his job.
This is a classic psychological manipulation used everywhere ...
I know this might not be a revelation for most of you, but just in case, you are now informed.

@BassTrackerBoats, or any other mod, don't know if this is the best section to post that, so feel free to move this post into the right place

 

[zigzagzig]

I always had a thought that most affiliate managers after talking with affiliates about methods they use and "approving them", simply set something similar on the side for themselves, aside from the possibility of that same network has their crew in backend that buys traffic by using methods taken by the top affiliates. Anyway, just a thought.

 

[amandine]

I always had a thought that most affiliate managers after talking with affiliates about methods they use and "approving them", simply set something similar on the side for themselves, aside from the possibility of that same network has their crew in backend that buys traffic by using methods taken by the top affiliates. Anyway, just a thought.

I never heard of managers doing that for themselves as they were already screwed by the network itself (and they already earned part of their own affiliates revenues, so they had no interest to do so ... But who knows ...).
Yes, we knew how our top affiliates where making cash and it was part of the game to use their methods (but in counterpart, they had the best landing pages, whereas other affiliates only served as test traffic)

 

[zubidoo]

Can you share which affiliate networks are shaving leads?

 

[YoungArt]

It's real. They all shave I just wonder what's the best way to avoid this.

 

[yogev]

Never heard of such thing to be honest

 

[blogzandstuff]

It's real. They all shave I just wonder what's the best way to avoid this.

Dropship the products if you can, I don't do affiliate anymore, suspected something was going on a while ago. I now buy wholesale or dropship

 

[deedee1whoa]

Of course most (if not all) of them shave their users and take a procent we don't know about.
You just gotta find the one that fits you best and stick with it, try to earn as much as possible.
So when they take some more $$$, you don't even notice it.

 

[CarterSpeed]

What affiliate network was that? Most of the big ones would not risk it for sure. So I kinda doubt this could be the truth unless you have entered a dodgy affiliate network.

 

[Vortexads]

It is common among some networks to shave leads and there are only two ways to make the things better:
a) use a tracking software (like Voluum or any other)
b) read reviews and choose trusted networks (!!!)

 

[virtualpurity]

Yesterday i wanted to test CPA with one traffic source that i have.
I was using my own redirect script connected with Maxmind GEOIP and choose Maxbounty for my test.

I started sending traffic to Maxbounty, and from 1850+ hits that i got in an hour or so ( based on my script stats + Maxmind query usage reports ) Maxbounty showed an Amazing 5 HITS on their offers !
I thought that something is wrong with the script or Maxmind not redirecting correctly, so to check things out I instantly changed the offers to another affiliate ( Peerfly ).
To my surprise the stats of Peerfly were 100% accurate and showed the exact amount of hits that i got from my script and maxmind reports.

So as Vortexads said, always do your due diligence and always use your own tracking.

Cheers.

 

[amandine]

Can you share which affiliate networks are shaving leads?

What affiliate network was that? Most of the big ones would not risk it for sure. So I kinda doubt this could be the truth unless you have entered a dodgy affiliate network.

I've already been asked in PM and my answer will remain the same, I won't share any names.

Why wouldn't big network risk this ? Some big networks use auto approval on registration, do you really think they'll pay affiliates manager to handle hundreds (thousands) of low baller generating 0 revenue : that's just free traffic and some easy cash ... And you might think everything is ok as long as you've been fine tuning your trackers and your postback ... But as postback is not a signal from the advertiser himself you'll never know. The only way to spot this is to be an advertiser and a publisher on the same network promoting your own products.

Nevertheless, I'm not saying you won't earn anything, it still is a profitable business being an affiliate if you have good traffic and you can do great cash.

Of course most (if not all) of them shave their users and take a procent we don't know about.
You just gotta find the one that fits you best and stick with it, try to earn as much as possible.
So when they take some more $$$, you don't even notice it.

That's correct, even if the best way would be to use 2/3 networks.

And let's be honest, most big eaners use blackhat methods so it's not really surprising to see networks doing the same.

It's real. They all shave I just wonder what's the best way to avoid this.

If you personnally know your managers you can avoid this certainly. And if you are a top affiliate, you might gain access to custom landing pages, with higer conversion rate and lower the retention rate.

 

[lacifitra]

OP is telling the truth.
Being on good terms with your affiliate manager can save you from that, though.

 

[dennisyu]

Never show a network your real landing page, or even traffic source for that matter. And i'm talking about 100% legit white hat. For example if i'm getting traffic from FB, I will tell them those conversions are coming form Bing, Google, etc.


CPA networks love to preach communication with affiliate managers, and for what? Because the more money you make, the more the network will make.

If you're a top affiliate on an offer you can bet they'll be telling other affiliates to try your traffic source as well. Maybe even give a landing page suggestion, or they could just rip exactly what you are doing and run that offer internally.

On the otherhand, a great network could make that offer exclusive to you, give you landing pages, bump your payout, etc.

Guess it all depends on who you work with.

 

[Mrkoco]

Hi all,
I've been working for a while for an affiliate network. I think most of you are aware of that, but just to make the others know...
First, if you are interested in this topic, here are some questions to answer before reading the next part :

- Have you ever been signing up into an affiliate network and have obtained conversion really fast after sending traffic ?
- Since that "First conversion" have you already seen the conversion rate dropping while sending more traffic ?
- With the time and seeing the low ctr, have you ever tried to lower traffic on this network to send traffic to another one, BUT conversions rate suddenly jumped up ?

Here is what I can tell you. The firm I was working for (and competitors where doing the same) was at first giving ALL conversions to affiliates.
Then, when affiliates started to generate revenues, a script was clearly stealing conversions (form 5% to 50 % of conversion depending of affiliate revenues).
If an affiliate started to lower traffic the script stopped working for a while : The affiliate was happy to see conversions coming back, and even if he had decided to leave the network, he was so happy to see such a jump in revenue he was coming back ... And the script restarted his job.
This is a classic psychological manipulation used everywhere ...
I know this might not be a revelation for most of you, but just in case, you are now informed.

@BassTrackerBoats, or any other mod, don't know if this is the best section to post that, so feel free to move this post into the right place

True Talk , Adverten. Is one network I know that does this crap

 

[Total Noob]

Yesterday i wanted to test CPA with one traffic source that i have.
I was using my own redirect script connected with Maxmind GEOIP and choose Maxbounty for my test.

I started sending traffic to Maxbounty, and from 1850+ hits that i got in an hour or so ( based on my script stats + Maxmind query usage reports ) Maxbounty showed an Amazing 5 HITS on their offers !
I thought that something is wrong with the script or Maxmind not redirecting correctly, so to check things out I instantly changed the offers to another affiliate ( Peerfly ).
To my surprise the stats of Peerfly were 100% accurate and showed the exact amount of hits that i got from my script and maxmind reports.

So as Vortexads said, always do your due diligence and always use your own tracking.

Cheers.

This is asinine

 

[blackh4t]

Yes is true some shady affiliate networks out there but is also good ones that do not do this type of thing.
In mine adult niche is hard to find good (avoid CPA and bongacam as example) but is not all of networks who do it!
Is a reason why many not allow proper conversion tracking ))

 

[bartosimpsonio]

I've seen this first hand with small and brand new CPA networks. Most have disappeared.

Conversions were amazing the first few weeks, with weekly payments. After I was hooked it slowly dropped, though my traffic increased.

Most networks who did this in my past 20+ years in this business have disappeared though. They don't stay in business long doing this.

Publishers can easily test this later on, ask a friend to complete a purchase or something, they end up caught one way or the other.

 

[blackh4t]

CPA networks just rip off most of time.

 

[Bloggerdoe]

I guess they would be losing a lot for shaving and scrubbing your hard earned money. Perhaps smart affiliates have a way to track this BS.