I've been thinking about filling in some CPA offers on my own. Now ofcourse there are many things that the affiliate networks and the program itself can track to identify that the leads were coming from me. I have not yet tried this technique as I'm trying to make sure I've got everything right before I start.
So I'm trying to compile a list of what to do to make every CPA entry look legitimit. Please add your own ideas and I'll edit them in the original post.
Regular CPA
Email address: Just create a free email address on one of the free services (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, ...). Don't always use the same mail provider and don't always use the same structure for your username ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected]). Optionally set up an automatic forward to one of your regular email addresses to click the confirm mail and perhaps some other mailings to make your lead look less suspicious.
Other personal details (ZIP codes, names, ...): Make something up. Most networks will have access to a database linking IP ranges with physical locations, so watch out on submitting information that is obviously too fake. Choose zipcodes that are roughly in your area.
IP: This is the obvious one that the networks track. CPA leads coming from the same IP will always mean a red flag. You can use anonymous proxies but most networks will know these and discount them. I would go wardriving and submit one lead per different affiliate network per new IP. Or use the free internet from Starbucks, ... Remind yourself that most of these networks are not secure. You can also get a VPN for around 5$ a month that gives you access to quite a lot of different IP's.
Referer: I would use a legitimate looking blog or website to get the referer. I would always click through to the CPA offer through this blog. Just draw some content from a different site, add it to your blog and off you go. This will make your leads look less suspicious than when you blank referer. Also very good if email marketing is not allowed. If they track the visitors on your blog (with a pixel) make sure you send some fake traffic as well.
A good idea is to make your blog look regional. If it seems made for the inhabitants of your area/city, it won't be at all suspicious if all the IP's are seemingly coming from that area as well.
User Agent: An important one as most people won't bother as they don't know that the networks can track them or they don't know how to change it. A user agent basically looks like this: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT x.x; us; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/xxxxxxxxxx Firefox/3.x.x (.NET CLR 3.x.xxxxx)" (x's added for privacy). With so many different versions of browsers and OS's around, you can see that it will be pretty unlikely that two (or more) legitimate leads have the exact same user agent.
Changing browsers will at least do half the trick and will probably suffice. If you really want to play it hardcore, you can change the User Agent manually in Firefox by typing "about:config" in the address bar, right-clicking anywhere, choose New - String, type preference name "general.useragent.override" and then add anything into the next field. This will now be your default user agent. Ofcourse you are better of making it look legit (just play around a bit or look for possible user agents) than just changing it to something random.
To get rid of the override for good, right-click on the item, click reset, close Firefox and you'll be back to normal.
Screen resolution (and window size): This is also easily tracked. Now the screen resolution won't be such a big mess as long as you use the resolutions that are mostly used (1024 x 768 and 1280x1024). However I would suggest occasionally changing this as well in your settings.
It is also possible to track the size of the window that is open at the moment. If you'd want to make sure you're safe, just use full screen browser.
Other browser related stuff: Color depth, javascript, cookie, java, flash player, quicktime, realplayer, encoding acceptance, gateway interface, header acceptance, ... These can also easily be tracked. Most browsers and computers have similar settings though so it won't be very suspicious if any or all of these will be the same.
If you keep all the items above in your mind and submit one offer per network per different setting, you will probably be absolutely fine.
Please add anything else that you might consider.
So I'm trying to compile a list of what to do to make every CPA entry look legitimit. Please add your own ideas and I'll edit them in the original post.
Regular CPA
Email address: Just create a free email address on one of the free services (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, ...). Don't always use the same mail provider and don't always use the same structure for your username ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected]). Optionally set up an automatic forward to one of your regular email addresses to click the confirm mail and perhaps some other mailings to make your lead look less suspicious.
Other personal details (ZIP codes, names, ...): Make something up. Most networks will have access to a database linking IP ranges with physical locations, so watch out on submitting information that is obviously too fake. Choose zipcodes that are roughly in your area.
IP: This is the obvious one that the networks track. CPA leads coming from the same IP will always mean a red flag. You can use anonymous proxies but most networks will know these and discount them. I would go wardriving and submit one lead per different affiliate network per new IP. Or use the free internet from Starbucks, ... Remind yourself that most of these networks are not secure. You can also get a VPN for around 5$ a month that gives you access to quite a lot of different IP's.
Referer: I would use a legitimate looking blog or website to get the referer. I would always click through to the CPA offer through this blog. Just draw some content from a different site, add it to your blog and off you go. This will make your leads look less suspicious than when you blank referer. Also very good if email marketing is not allowed. If they track the visitors on your blog (with a pixel) make sure you send some fake traffic as well.
A good idea is to make your blog look regional. If it seems made for the inhabitants of your area/city, it won't be at all suspicious if all the IP's are seemingly coming from that area as well.
User Agent: An important one as most people won't bother as they don't know that the networks can track them or they don't know how to change it. A user agent basically looks like this: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT x.x; us; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/xxxxxxxxxx Firefox/3.x.x (.NET CLR 3.x.xxxxx)" (x's added for privacy). With so many different versions of browsers and OS's around, you can see that it will be pretty unlikely that two (or more) legitimate leads have the exact same user agent.
Changing browsers will at least do half the trick and will probably suffice. If you really want to play it hardcore, you can change the User Agent manually in Firefox by typing "about:config" in the address bar, right-clicking anywhere, choose New - String, type preference name "general.useragent.override" and then add anything into the next field. This will now be your default user agent. Ofcourse you are better of making it look legit (just play around a bit or look for possible user agents) than just changing it to something random.
To get rid of the override for good, right-click on the item, click reset, close Firefox and you'll be back to normal.
Screen resolution (and window size): This is also easily tracked. Now the screen resolution won't be such a big mess as long as you use the resolutions that are mostly used (1024 x 768 and 1280x1024). However I would suggest occasionally changing this as well in your settings.
It is also possible to track the size of the window that is open at the moment. If you'd want to make sure you're safe, just use full screen browser.
Other browser related stuff: Color depth, javascript, cookie, java, flash player, quicktime, realplayer, encoding acceptance, gateway interface, header acceptance, ... These can also easily be tracked. Most browsers and computers have similar settings though so it won't be very suspicious if any or all of these will be the same.
If you keep all the items above in your mind and submit one offer per network per different setting, you will probably be absolutely fine.
Please add anything else that you might consider.
..
