Affiliates methods to be "wary" of!

[msam]

Tweet

Hi fellow affiliate managers/networks,

I think it would be useful for us all to share info on the kinds of techniques/ways that (not so legit) affiliates can try and drive traffic to help us all in keeping this great industry moving forward!

We run a strict no brand bidding policy at the moment. We found an affiliate bidding on brand and using our display url. The trick that they used here was that they simply outbid us, and used the EXACT copy/text that we used. This way we never saw the need to click on the listing to check it, as it looked like ours. I would recommend that we all frequently check the properties of our ppc listings to test thier authenticity.

Please feel free to pm me for more details, or to share some of your own issues.

Also, what steps does the network do here. This happened on TD. Will TD inform all other merchants to the specific affiliate's behaviour? Will they do nothing?

cheers for your thoughts.
Marc

[Brendon]

>> I think it would be useful for us all to share info on the kinds of techniques/ways that (not so legit) affiliates can try and drive traffic

Yes... but maybe not in public? Whilst I'm firmly in favour of the flow of information, simply creating a "this is how to cheat the merchants / networks" thread may not be the most appropriate way to advance the industry. The overwhelming majority of affiliates are honest, but merchants always seem to remember the ones who ripped them off. Providing the bent ones with more ideas and techniques, and tempting the honest ones to the Dark Side isn't a good idea, IMO

[msam]

>> I think it would be useful for us all to share info on the kinds of techniques/ways that (not so legit) affiliates can try and drive traffic

Yes... but maybe not in public? Whilst I'm firmly in favour of the flow of information, simply creating a "this is how to cheat the merchants / networks" thread may not be the most appropriate way to advance the industry. The overwhelming majority of affiliates are honest, but merchants always seem to remember the ones who ripped them off. Providing the bent ones with more ideas and techniques, and tempting the honest ones to the Dark Side isn't a good idea, IMO

I disagree.
Although there may be a few affiliates who would take this kind of a thread and abuse it, I would like to think that the majority would not.
By only sharing these types of situations with a select few people, would only keep the issue "undercover" and allow it to continue. If everone knows the same things, then chances are it won't happen that frequently (as merchants would be on the lookout).
Also, I agree completely that the overwhelming majority of affiliates are honest. It is not a case of "only remembering the ones who ripped them off", but rather making these issues public. When an affiliate performs extrmely well, most merchants (I would hope) would congratulate and reward the affiliate. We would not make a post detailing how the successful affiliate did it. That I think, would be unacceptable.

[Mitchy]

Yes... but maybe not in public? Whilst I'm firmly in favour of the flow of information, simply creating a "this is how to cheat the merchants / networks" thread may not be the most appropriate way to advance the industry.

Agreed, and this has been discussed before I think.

Marc... in Google, if you right click the ad, select properties and highlight the address url, you can view the url without clicking the ad. In most cases of direct to merchant ads, the network tracking will show up (in your case, tracker.tradedoubler.com I think) so you'll know if its an affs ad, or your own. Hope that helps.

Cheers

[msam]

Agreed, and this has been discussed before I think.

Marc... in Google, if you right click the ad, select properties and highlight the address url, you can view the url without clicking the ad. In most cases of direct to merchant ads, the network tracking will show up (in your case, tracker.tradedoubler.com I think) so you'll know if its an affs ad, or your own. Hope that helps.

Cheers

Hi Mitchy,

Yip, this is how we first found the issue. Just doing a routine check.
thanks,

Marc

[DioBach]

This way we never saw the need to click on the listing to check it, as it looked like ours. I would recommend that we all frequently check the properties of our ppc listings to test thier authenticity.

As an affiliate who users PPC, I'm not sure suggesting clicking affiliate's ads to check them is the way to go as that's encouraging click fraud. Just check the string and extract the URL - as already been mentioned. However, I'm looking forward to more great tips in this thread...

[msam]

As an affiliate who users PPC, I'm not sure suggesting clicking affiliate's ads to check them is the way to go as that's encouraging click fraud. Just check the string and extract the URL - as already been mentioned. However, I'm looking forward to more great tips in this thread...

Hi Diobach,

yip, this is what I meant...perhaps I should have been more clear.

[nim-b]

But don't you find that only works in Google? Personally, I find that ads in msn and yahoo aren't so straightforward to decode, and so often I have to click through (using the amazing Live http headers tool in Firefox to decode the link, which is fantastic).

I agree that excess clicking is click fraud, and you should avoid clicking on an affiliate link at all, however sometimes it is necessary.

[Brendon]

>> Although there may be a few affiliates who would take this kind of a thread and abuse it, I would like to think that the majority would not.

Well, yeah, but it's the ones who would that are the problem, yes? The WH affiliates don't need to know - the BH affs would love more ideas and tips. No-one wins

Also, merchants / aff managers break down into 2 types, generally : those who understand aff marketing, and manage their programs and try to learn how it all works,... and those who don't. The first kind already know a lot about the tricks that affs can get up to, and learn mor eon their own, or by talking to people. The second kind aren't interested in the first place. Who, exactly, do you think is going to be helped by talking openly about dodgy practices?

>> The trick that they used here was that they simply outbid us, and used the EXACT copy/text that we used

I bet you there's a few heads nodding and going "Hmmmm" after reading that now. Somebody, somewhere is about to start getting hit on their program. Combined with a couple of other tricks (which I'm not going to specify), you could easily use that technique to just displace a merchant from the PPC results altogether, on one or all keywords. Is that really the outcome you want?

[hpops]

I'm with Brendon here - what you should do however is ask very sternly why this is not being picked up by your network. Its very difficult to discuss BH techniques without encouraging their further adoption.

[msam]

>> Although there may be a few affiliates who would take this kind of a thread and abuse it, I would like to think that the majority would not.

Well, yeah, but it's the ones who would that are the problem, yes? The WH affiliates don't need to know - the BH affs would love more ideas and tips. No-one wins

Also, merchants / aff managers break down into 2 types, generally : those who understand aff marketing, and manage their programs and try to learn how it all works,... and those who don't. The first kind already know a lot about the tricks that affs can get up to, and learn mor eon their own, or by talking to people. The second kind aren't interested in the first place. Who, exactly, do you think is going to be helped by talking openly about dodgy practices?

>> The trick that they used here was that they simply outbid us, and used the EXACT copy/text that we used

I bet you there's a few heads nodding and going "Hmmmm" after reading that now. Somebody, somewhere is about to start getting hit on their program. Combined with a couple of other tricks (which I'm not going to specify), you could easily use that technique to just displace a merchant from the PPC results altogether, on one or all keywords. Is that really the outcome you want?

I can appreciate your point of view here, but still disagree that these things should be kept in the dark, to prevent other affiliates from finding out about them and trying to implement it.
The ONLY way to put a stop to these practices is to openly discuss them and to ensure that the proper checks are in place to police this. Being on the merchant side of the fence here, I would think that other merchants would also wish to know about these kinds of practices, so that they are aware and can monitor them. I do not think that if I find some "devious" practice going on, I should keep quite about it, or only inform a select few merchants that I know.
Rather, I think this forum is the best place to post such issues to get them out in the open and hopefully put an end to them.
It is all about "arming" ourselves with enough, and the correct kind, of information.
You mentioned that the first type of affiliate manager "learn mor eon their own, or by talking to people". Well how could a new aff manager learn more from other people if they do not speak about it openly, as he/she might not be on the right mailing list, to recieve these kinds of issues?

I think we are both talking about the same thing here, but have taken opposing views. While you believe that these BH tricks should be kept a secret, only passed amonst aff managers/merchants in whispers to prevent other aff's from finding them out; I believe that these practices should be brought out in the open to mitigate them happening in the future.

[Mitchy]

Hi Marc,

Think of this another way....

Theres a bug on your site which means customers are able to order 100 of the same item but are only charged for 1.
A customer realises this, and thinks about passing it onto his mates so they can get a great deal as well.

Would you prefer:
A) The customer to call you and tell you of the problem before it causes you endless admin problems, with many mass orders being placed
OR
B) Post it on a forum so every Tom, Dick and Harry knows about it and exploits your site because of a bug.

Now apply to that the issue of 'BlackHat' affiliates (nice terminology Brendon )...
One aff manager posts a thread saying "look, Ive found a clever affiliate doing xyz to produce more sales, in an unethical way".
Two things happen: Firstly, affiliates who are producing genuine sales for you may be tempted to increase their volume by applying this technique (this is worse case scenario as I believe the vast majority of affiliates are ethical).
Secondly, and more importantly, you've created the same problem for all other affiliate managers as it may effect all their programs.

Brendons point about new affiliate managers learning alone is valid. You can pick up an awful lot of information on various unethical techniques from reading this forum, rather than amalgamating it into one, easy read, 'Unethical Practices' resource.

I agree that the issue of unethical, non law-abiding affiliates shouldn't be kept under wraps, but creating a thread or forum where these practices are listed is asking for trouble.

Cheers

[msam]

Hi Marc,

Think of this another way....

Theres a bug on your site which means customers are able to order 100 of the same item but are only charged for 1.
A customer realises this, and thinks about passing it onto his mates so they can get a great deal as well.

Would you prefer:
A) The customer to call you and tell you of the problem before it causes you endless admin problems, with many mass orders being placed
OR
B) Post it on a forum so every Tom, Dick and Harry knows about it and exploits your site because of a bug.

Now apply to that the issue of 'BlackHat' affiliates (nice terminology Brendon )...
One aff manager posts a thread saying "look, Ive found a clever affiliate doing xyz to produce more sales, in an unethical way".
Two things happen: Firstly, affiliates who are producing genuine sales for you may be tempted to increase their volume by applying this technique (this is worse case scenario as I believe the vast majority of affiliates are ethical).
Secondly, and more importantly, you've created the same problem for all other affiliate managers as it may effect all their programs.

Brendons point about new affiliate managers learning alone is valid. You can pick up an awful lot of information on various unethical techniques from reading this forum, rather than amalgamating it into one, easy read, 'Unethical Practices' resource.

I agree that the issue of unethical, non law-abiding affiliates shouldn't be kept under wraps, but creating a thread or forum where these practices are listed is asking for trouble.

Cheers

Hi Mitchy,

I can see your point. But please try and see mine:
Using your example:

"Theres a bug on your site which means customers are able to order 100 of the same items but you as an affiliate are only paid for 1. This bug can/could affect all affiliate sites.
An affiliate realises this, and thinks about passing it onto other affiliates to prevent the same issue affecting them.

Would you prefer:
A) The affiliate only tell a few of his close collegues and let the other affiliates find out the hard way
OR
B) Post it on a forum so every affiliate can see it and react to prevent/police the possible issue.

OR:
"Theres a bug on my site which means customers are able to order 100 of the same items but are only charged for 1. This bug can/could affect all ecommerce sites.
A merchant realises this, and thinks about passing it onto other merchants to prevent the same issue affecting them.

Would you prefer:
A) The merchant only tell a few of his close collegues and let the other merchants find out the hard way
OR
B) Post it on a forum so every merchant can see it and react to prevent/police the possible issue.


In a situation such as this, where both outcomes are not neccesarily ideal, I choose the option which I feel has the "best" chance of mitigating future occurances of the same issue.
I in no way, think that all blackhat techinques should be openly presented for all to "give it a go", but I think this specific issue is one of those that needed to be brought up.

cheers,

[kier]

Surely if you post this in the private affiliate managers forum then affiliates seeing it won't be such an issue?

[10k]

If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading Dan Morley's recent blog entries on these issues, it's v interesting http://www.morleymouse.com/