Should it be 3 stikes and out for rule-breakers?

[Top banana]

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Hiya,

As a honest and hard working affiliate I get very annoyed with rule breakers. My personal bug bear is illegal brand bidders. I work hard on SEO and get annoyed when rubbish affiliates come along and appears above me, because they use PPC when they are not allowed to. This steals commission away from me.

I report these rule breakers and they are usually removed. But a hour later they are bidding on another merchants, and just keep moving onto other merchants. It seems very rare that they get removed completely from a network, let alone from all affiliate networks.

My suggestion is that if someone deliberately breaks the rules, they are given 1 strike, if they break the rules again they are given a second strike and finally warning. If they break the rules again, they are not only removed from the specific merchant, but the whole network, and ideally from all uk networks.

To stop rules breakers just starting a new affiliate account with a new user name, the most obviously way to identity the affiliate is their bank account because this is most difficult to change. It is fair easy to get a new bank account, but it is more difficult that just using a different email address.

Thoughts?

[linktank]

I see your point here mate but opening a new bank account takes 2 mins nowadays.

It would be very hard to regulate this and to keep the rule breakers away.

The problem is that the networks and merchants are still getting paid even if your not and some of them are just to greedy to worry about the longterm integrity of the industry.

I am not involed in affiliate marketing but it seems to me to be more grubby than the SEO industry at times.

[Azam.net]

Should be two strikes and you're out. I suppose people could claim they have made an innocent mistake the first time, but if there is a second incidence then the affiliate's account should be permanently terminated.

It's frustrating to see a small number of grubby affiliates get away with breaking the rules time and time again, which not only harms honest affiliates but also severely damages the reputation of affiliate marketing.

[Top banana]

I see your point here mate but opening a new bank account takes 2 mins nowadays.

It would be very hard to regulate this and to keep the rule breakers away.

The problem is that the networks and merchants are still getting paid even if your not and some of them are just to greedy to worry about the longterm integrity of the industry.

I am not involed in affiliate marketing but it seems to me to be more grubby than the SEO industry at times.

Hi Linktank,

I doubt very much that you can set-up a new bank account in 2 mins.

My experience is that the affiliate networks do a pretty good job of dealing with dodgy affiliates, so I think you are wrong. And they certainly do worry about the longterm integrity of the affiliate industry, becuase without it their business would be dead.

It in the interest of all affiliates and networks to get rid of dodgy affiliates who add nothing to the industry and simply steal money.

[linktank]

Hi Linktank,

I doubt very much that you can set-up a new bank account in 2 mins.

My experience is that the affiliate networks do a pretty good job of dealing with dodgy affiliates, so I think you are wrong. And they certainly do worry about the longterm integrity of the affiliate industry, becuase without it their business would be dead.

It in the interest of all affiliates and networks to get rid of dodgy affiliates who add nothing to the industry and simply steal money.

ok well 2 mins maybe slighty off but i dont think it would put people off.
Yes im sure most networks do care but im not sure all of them do.

Its the same in my industry, to many bad apples give it a bad name

[mattb811]

Hi there,

We have looked at setting up a "blacklist" of affiliates who are caught transgressing Ts and Cs which can be shared amongst networks allowing them to identify wrongdoers.

However, this leads us into very murky areas in terms of the law. It is virtually impossible to share personal data, such as bank account numbers, between the networks meaning that it would be virtually impossible to do.

Therefore it is going to have to be down to individual parties to police activity on their own networks rather than us being able to introduce an industry wide standard.

Thanks,

Matt

[nim-b]

My experience is that the affiliate networks do a pretty good job of dealing with dodgy affiliates, so I think you are wrong.

My experience is the same. I once removed an affiliate from our programme for brand bidding, only to have them swap the links to another retailer. I told that retailer, and the links were swapped again. The network then looked into it, and I'm pretty certain they were removed completely.

It is in a networks best interest to remove dodgy affiliates- it just annoys merchants if they keep cropping up.

I'm sure that most of the major networks will operate an unofficial 3 strikes system or similar.

[trevHCS]

With regards sharing bank details - just wondering if say MD5'ing the bank number and sort code combined would work, or is that still personally identifyable information?

Since it's not reversible it's no use to data thieves, but it would produce what is essentially pretty much guaranteed uniqueness of ID without compromising the data itself. Thus anyone comes along with bank details, you just scan the dbase and hey presto.

Trev

[edwyn123]

Interesting topic, We're currently revising and formalising the procedure for dealing with such affiliates.

Certainly we are looking to adopt the three strikes and you're out rule, although we will be looking to restrict it to a certain time-frame as we appreciate that mistakes do happen.

I think the main issue is that affiliates have a lot of tricks up their sleeves to get around warnings. They can switch networks, switch retailers, etc...

To combat the problem it takes collaboration between all networks and all merchants and whilst on paper that sounds easy, the reality doesn't always quite match that as some networks have different views on what's acceptable.

I believe that any wrong-doers should be given a second chance to put things right. Persistent wrong doers will be reported to merchants so that they can make an informed decision as to the best way to proceed.

However, even this isn't fail safe and issues can arise when we notice an affiliate brand bidding (as an example) on ten different merchants. If you then say to the eleventh merchant, this affiliate is a brand bidder, the merchant may decide that's fine because they're not currently bidding on their brand. As a network, we would therefore not be justified in removing them as one of our merchants want to work with the affiliate.

It's a difficult one to call and like everything in affiliate marketing a blanket approach simply isn't going to work.

[Top banana]

However, even this isn't fail safe and issues can arise when we notice an affiliate brand bidding (as an example) on ten different merchants. If you then say to the eleventh merchant, this affiliate is a brand bidder, the merchant may decide that's fine because they're not currently bidding on their brand. As a network, we would therefore not be justified in removing them as one of our merchants want to work with the affiliate.

It's a difficult one to call and like everything in affiliate marketing a blanket approach simply isn't going to work.

This is a joke surely, you are tell me that when affiliate network find a persistent and deliberate rule breaker, they don't throw them off the network, let alone all the networks in the uk. What a joke!! No wonder we have a reputation as being a big of a grubby industry.

It's a difficult one to call and like everything in affiliate marketing a blanket approach simply isn't going to work.

If someone breaks the voucher code rules they are removed from all UK affiliate network, is that not a blanket approach? If we remove voucher code rule breakers without asking every merchants why can this approach not be correct for brand bidders, spyware users, etc, etc.

However, even this isn't fail safe and issues can arise when we notice an affiliate brand bidding (as an example) on ten different merchants. If you then say to the eleventh merchant, this affiliate is a brand bidder, the merchant may decide that's fine because they're not currently bidding on their brand. As a network, we would therefore not be justified in removing them as one of our merchants want to work with the affiliate.

Why do you not allow merchants to work with voucher code rule breakers? I.e. you give merchants not choice, becuase you remove the voucher code affiliate without asking them. The reason is that rule breakers should be removed, they are not helping the affiliate industry. So apply the same principle to all rule breakers. It is right and just.

[edwyn123]

If someone breaks the voucher code rules they are removed from all UK affiliate network, is that not a blanket approach?

Voucher code rule breakers actually follow the same procedure, we send an initial warning to them, with advice on how to make their site compliant with a deadline set to get the necessary action taken.

A site is then reviewed and if the necessary actions aren't taken by the affiliate we refer them to the IAB. The IAB makes the call on whether to implement a blanket ban, not the network.

It is not a case of immediately banning them from all networks when they break a rule.

If we remove voucher code rule breakers without asking every merchants why can this approach not be correct for brand bidders, spyware users, etc, etc..

This approach is correct for spyware users because spyware breaks our networks terms and condiitons. The same approach does not apply to PPC affiliates as they are breaking merchant terms and conditions and it is therefore the merchant's judgement call to make, we make them aware of the situation and they make the final judgement.

[Top banana]

You do ban voucher code affiliates from all merchants, so why not for other types of rule breakers? I don't mean for all rule breakers, but for grubby affiliates who break the rules more than twice in a given period, e.g. 6 months.

This threat of being removed from all networks, will stop affiliates breaking the rules, becuase at the moment they just move onto a new merchant.

[kier]

This threat of being removed from all networks, will stop affiliates breaking the rules, becuase at the moment they just move onto a new merchant.

I think you need to clarify exactly what rules you would like to see this happen for. You've discussed brand bidding, how about merchants that have t&cs about changing creative within a certain notice period? Personally from what I've read about three strikes rules based legal systems they do nothing to curb crime but instead tend to result in perverse outcomes in many instances.

[Top banana]

I think it should apply for serious rule breaking, e.g. illegal brand bidding, which steals commissions away from SEO affiliates.

[Mr_Dating]

Interesting point that Matt raises, finding naughty affiliates is one of my favourite past-times and I always thought it would be handy if I could at least swap details with other affiliate managers on the same network. We wouldn't need bank details, etc, just id's. Sure they can re-apply, but once you've seen them, you get an eye for them.

The naughty ones are definitely becoming more sophisticated, I've seen site-scraping and some very clever domaining done recently. I kick them all off but wonder how many times they get away with it with other merchants......

Anyway, if there is a will to share info with aff managers, agencies, etc, we can have a think about it....

Simon