Affiliate Shaving Question

When affiliate networks shave, how does it look? For instance, if someone completes and offer, will it show up in my affiliate account, and then they just pay me less? Or will it not even show in the account?

I am running similar offers with two different networks, and one is converting WAY higher than the other, with equal traffic to the ads. Both ads are very compelling.

How do I know when I'm being shaved? Or is it not that obvious?

no they redirect your link to another link

so check your link every damn day

so they straight up hijack the link? Do they do that permanently or just here and there?

yeah there are different kind of shaving..

and no its not permanently just here and there..

cause 1 time i caught that my email submit link are being redirected to education offer..

if you caught them just email them.. sometimes actually its the advertisers who's doing that..

Generally speaking, does anyone know which networks are more notorious shavers than others? Any REALLY bad ones I should watch out for?

Keep in mind a lot of "shaving" happeneds just because advertisers don't pay them for the lead. So they get no money, you get no money.

crisis23 said:

no they redirect your link to another link
so check your link every damn day

Click to expand...

I'm glad I read this. I had a well converting offer running and all of the sudden the clicks on the stat page stopped increasing. Usually they will taper off with my method but the clicks don't just stop. I didn't think to check the link but just did and they were redirecting it.

So who would be doing that, the advertiser or the affiliate network that pays me?

My aff network sent a email today saying they were canceling some offers because of shaving and mine that was redirected was one of them so I assume its the advertiser that does it? At least my aff network noticed and canned them right away.

I look in my statistics page, and I show hits on campaigns that I have never promoted, or even looked at for that matter. Things that aren't in my country. It's like a hit here, 2 there, but spread out over 10 or so offers I wouldn't even bother looking at. I sometimes wonder if that has anything to do with it.

I have a really high converting offer...like 30-40% conversion...but one CPA company is showing me I only convert 9%. Their offer page is legit...at this point I'm chalking this up to Sweeny-Todd status shaving. I pulled their banners last night.

There are many different reasons why your conversions will differ before you should even consider shaving:
- Which network has the offer direct, and which has it brokered through 3 different networks. The former will always have a better conversion rate.
- The tracking system will make a huge difference. Maybe the one network has a terrible GEO-IP DB that hasn't been updated in ages... thus denying perfectly good clicks to the offer.
- You said "similar offers". This is like comparing apples to oranges. It's definitely not a fair comparison when you're dealing with different offers/advertisers.

You could ask networks to place your own pixels to help keep track of things on your own. Use a 3rd party tracking system like Prosper202 or something like it. This will at least help you keep everyone honest, but by no means will it be the only solution to prevent shaving.

Fact of the matter is, networks aren't the main shaving culprits. Advertisers are often the biggest offenders.

lukem said:

Advertisers are often the biggest offenders.

Click to expand...

So true. I ran into an issue with an advertiser not liking my traffic, twice (I was promoting this advertiser through two different networks). The first time I got popped they took 20% of my earnings, and I was paid the 80%. No biggie.

The 2nd time, they refused to pay me outright. Bastards. Between the first 20% and the second 100% they took, it's nearly $2,000. Fuckers! So, I learned an expensive lesson, talked to my AMs, and focused on different advertisers who weren't going to scrutinize my leads so bad.

Moral of the story?

Just because an advertiser is offering a high payout, doesn't mean they actually pay the most. I made more with other advertisers with lower payouts, that were more lenient as to the traffic source.

If your using blackhat methods cant complain to much if they shave