Avoiding a Shady Affiliate Deal
As a followup to the post on affiliate networks, transparency, and trust, Nickycakes would like to talk a little bit more about the scary reality of shady affiliate deals.
Just as a refresher for anyone who’s not too familiar with how affiliate networking generally works in the scope of search PPC (like nickycakes’ parents who apparently read this blog but never leave comments), here’s what’s happening:
Advertisement On Search Engine -> Affiliate Network -> Merchant
The merchant then reports the clicks and conversions to the affiliate network, who then shows you how much money you made and hopefully pays you at the end of the month. Ok, pretty basic.
So the problem is this: As a programmer, Nickycakes knows it would take less than 5 minutes for the merchant to write the few lines of code required to drop 20% of the leads generated, and simply not have to pay for them (20% could be 50%, whatever they decide). Paranoia? Nah, this stuff is real and has happened plenty in the past. The question is, what can you do to avoid it?
- Ask around.
Your best resource (besides yourself, of course) is someone who’s been in the business for a while and knows who is trustworthy and who is shady. There are a few well-known networks out there that the guys with experience know to stay away from (*cough* clickbooth). Same goes for offers (*cough*elitemate*cough*pretty much every zip submit*cough cough*). The guys/girls who have been doing this for a long time won’t usually give up the dirty secrets on how they’re banking lots of money, but it takes a coldhearted bastard to not let someone know if they’re gonna get completely burned if they spend their life savings on XYZ offer. - Don’t run traffic with new networks until you know someone who’s been paid.
There are plenty of other idiots out there that can make your mistakes for you. Don’t let yourself be that guy. Just cause Shoemoney thinks Blogrush is the best thing since McGriddles bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast combo, doesn’t take away from the fact that it blows. Same goes for affiliate networks, just cause the day old network is being pumped by the high traffic “make money online” blogs with their affiliate link smeared so thick you need to roll up your pantlegs to wade through the bullshit, doesn’t mean they’re gonna pay you. - Watch out for 24 hour delayed tracking
It’s a different story on CJ, because CJ’s reporting software only allows for updates every 24 hours, but for affiliate networks that offer realtime tracking (most all of them), watch out for offers that will only update your leads once a day. The only realistic reason for delayed batch reporting like this is so they can fuck with your stats. Although it’s still very possible to mess with the stats in realtime, it’s significantly less likely in comparison. - Be wary of merchants who refuse to let you put a tracking pixel on the confirmation page
Other than maybe a slight hassle in setting it up, there should be no reason why any merchant would deny you this level of transparency. If you don’t know what a tracking pixel is, you should ask your affiliate manager at whatever affiliate network you’re with about it. - If it sounds too good to be true…
…it probably is. If you honestly believe that $3/lead zip submit is paying you $3 for every person who fills out that single field on the main page, you’re lying to yourself. You are your best tool for spotting something shady going on with an offer. Trust your instincts, or if you have a track record of falling for stupid stuff and getting scammed out of money, do exactly the opposite of what you think is the right thing to do. And then paypal all your money to nickycakes.
Just had to clear my own throat a bit. {cough} You think {choke!}ClickBank merchants play with the stats?