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To move on or fight? (18)

02-13-2014 02:33 PM #1 dwel999 (Member)
To move on or fight?

I could really use some advice from those that have dealt with this before.

Sitting around at parents on Thanksgiving I decided I needed to push myself much hard in 2014. After a couple days I decided to not use waiting until the new year as an excuse to not get started and got to work. I picked a few members that are on top of their game and read their older posts. I noticed many of them were doing PPV back in 2011. I decided to start there since there was plenty of information on the forums about it and could follow their path up.

Background info:

Things started out good, I did around 85k revenue in a couple months, not a huge amount of profit since I just put kept putting the money back in.

Everything started going downhill when everyone went to the ASW conference in Jan. I started checking and notice my exact campaign was being ran over top of me twice. Since they were running the exact same offers on the offer wall I was I checked the affiliate links. Sure enough they were same network I was using. The first copy I brought up to my AM and he replies "haha people snagging shit left and right lol". Okay maybe a coincidence someone used the same network, not their job to police them I guess. Couple days later I check the pops again because stats get even worse. Sure enough there is another copy of my setup, this time they even left my domain in the footer. All they did was change out their affiliate id. No way is that a coincidence, two random people copying my campaign wouldn't use the same network. Well finally my AM fessed up and told me my campaign was "stolen by a fellow AM on the network". This network is also the only one that forced me to show them my lp.

Okay again, shit happens so I didn't just give up. I have since made numerous new LPs, spent most of my profit, and all of my time trying to get this campaign back to where it was. The targets can eat 1000s easily so when it's going bad it goes bad.

Anyways my questions:

Should I just give up on my only good campaign out of the huge amount I have tested? I spent so much of the money I made testing and tweaking this campaign/lp/offers.

I was in such a good place, putting up new campaigns all the time even though they failed at least I was working toward something. Now all I do is mess with this campaign without making profit. The worse part is the campaign isn't even scalable beyond other PPV platforms. Definitely not where I want to be focused but now I am close to the same x,xxx figures in my bank account I had when I started. Didn't even take any of the profit for myself, kept it all separate for running and testing.

I don't like quitting or giving up on something but am I fighting a losing battle?

I know guys give up their campaigns when guys comes along they can't compete with. Just sucks it was my network that ruined things for me but should I treat it the same as if some random person stole it?

It's pretty rough mentally since I have pretty much worked on this non stop since Thanksgiving, only taking breaks to sleep(literally). Now I am right back to square one. I kind of wish I had let it go before I spent so much on trying to get it back. Then on the other hand I put so much into this it's hard to give up to these guys.

02-13-2014 02:46 PM #2 seitzy12 (Member)

First off, I would definitely out the network. Not only is it what they deserve but it'll also save other people from getting their campaigns ripped at the network.

02-13-2014 03:32 PM #3 dwel999 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by seitzy12 View Post
First off, I would definitely out the network. Not only is it what they deserve but it'll also save other people from getting their campaigns ripped at the network.
I should word it a bit different I think. Maybe I should have said the AM screwed me not the network. The network and the owner are very respected on this forum and many others. I don't know the owner personally but I have known of him even from his past positions on other forums years ago. I left it out because I have not taken the time to talk to him and explain the situation. I plan on it but so much of my time and energy has been wasted on this already I had to stay focused on what I needed to do. I do not blame him personally or his network because I know he has better things to do then steal my little campaigns.

02-13-2014 03:34 PM #4 andyvon (AMC Alumnus)

Just a quick thought, it isn't exactly rocket science to figure out through which network an offer is being run (Live HTTP Headers etc.), so I won't necessarily blame the network.

It's even common practice, because if the majority of affiliates are pushing offer x on network y, chances are it performs better there than on other networks.

Stuff getting stolen is unfortunately part of the game, I'd look into ways to protect your LP (new domains, cloaking, hidden redirect code etc) if you want to continue to run this campaign.

02-13-2014 03:42 PM #5 dwel999 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by andyvon View Post
Just a quick thought, it isn't exactly rocket science to figure out through which network an offer is being run (Live HTTP Headers etc.), so I won't necessarily blame the network.

It's even common practice, because if the majority of affiliates are pushing offer x on network y, chances are it performs better there than on other networks.

Stuff getting stolen is unfortunately part of the game, I'd look into ways to protect your LP (new domains, cloaking, hidden redirect code etc) if you want to continue to run this campaign.
Yeah reading isn't either. "Well finally my AM fessed up and told me my campaign was "stolen by a fellow AM on the network". This network is also the only one that forced me to show them my lp."

02-13-2014 03:49 PM #6 bbrock32 (Administrator)

Well finally my AM fessed up and told me my campaign was "stolen by a fellow AM on the network"
This is pretty serious. It's very very bad for an AM to go run your campaign, and regardless if the owner is very respected you should out it here.

If he had no idea at least he will take the appropriate actions towards the AM.

As for continuing to run the campaign, give it a go if you still think it has a chance. Otherwise just move on.

There are tons of other offers out there that can make you lots of money.

02-13-2014 04:04 PM #7 dwel999 (Member)

Yeah I think I am emotionally attached because it was my first/only success I've had in the last couple months since I started paying for traffic. I will talk to the owner today.

02-13-2014 04:34 PM #8 godspeed (Member)

I think you are taking this very easy. You should out the network and AM that stole the campaign. The owner should revert payments from stolen campaign and give them to you. AM should burn in hell with his balls in his mouth.
AM still work at the same network?

02-13-2014 04:51 PM #9 dwel999 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by godspeed View Post
I think you are taking this very easy. You should out the network and AM that stole the campaign. The owner should revert payments from stolen campaign and give them to you. AM should burn in hell with his balls in his mouth.
AM still work at the same network?
Honestly I didn't know how networks dealt with this, I see everything being copied all the time everywhere. The method isn't secret I got it from here but I took the time to make my own lander and setup with a twist. Yeah I was in full steam ahead mode then this kind of put a brick wall in front of me because it was my only campaign that has worked out. I have been trying to fix it but today decided I am probably better off moving on. I have wasted almost a month and killed all my other progress dealing with only this. That is what pisses me off the most, I might be up another level by now if I hadn't got sidetracked on this. I did Skype all the relevant information to Jason at A4D today. You guys are right I should have taken the time right away and informed him.

02-13-2014 09:50 PM #10 andyvon (AMC Alumnus)

Quote Originally Posted by dwel999 View Post
Yeah reading isn't either. "Well finally my AM fessed up and told me my campaign was "stolen by a fellow AM on the network". This network is also the only one that forced me to show them my lp."
haha sorry man, I skimmed over it too quickly and read AM as in "affiliate marketer", so I thought "well, big deal, stuff gets stolen by other affiliates all the time"

definitely feeling for you and hope you can sort things out!

02-13-2014 11:01 PM #11 dwel999 (Member)

lol, no worries. I was feeling a little defeated earlier but I'm back at it now. Did all I can do about it and can't be changed now either way.

02-13-2014 11:01 PM #12 cmdeal (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by dwel999 View Post
Honestly I didn't know how networks dealt with this, I see everything being copied all the time everywhere. The method isn't secret I got it from here but I took the time to make my own lander and setup with a twist. Yeah I was in full steam ahead mode then this kind of put a brick wall in front of me because it was my only campaign that has worked out. I have been trying to fix it but today decided I am probably better off moving on. I have wasted almost a month and killed all my other progress dealing with only this. That is what pisses me off the most, I might be up another level by now if I hadn't got sidetracked on this. I did Skype all the relevant information to Jason at A4D today. You guys are right I should have taken the time right away and informed him.
What was A4D's response ?

02-14-2014 12:54 AM #13 andy_d (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by cmdeal View Post
What was A4D's response ?
I've lost a bit of trust with one of the managers there.

TBH, Most networks will probably behave in such a way though.

I say this with confidence - most your shit, if making money, will not go ignored.

02-14-2014 12:45 PM #14 dwel999 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by andy_d View Post
I say this with confidence - most your shit, if making money, will not go ignored.
That part is fine, that helps all affiliates. I love newsletters with info on what is working in certain traffic types, it gives me ideas but doesn't out someones setup. That is actually how I broke into paying for traffic. I saw what I considered to be crazy EPCs on my network, asked my AM wtf was going on with them. He didn't hand me someones targets and link me to their landers, he simply said it was PPV. That's all I needed, I started researching and initially found this forum. I was trying to figure out how to install toolbars at the time, spent days trying to get my computers and VPS's infected with no luck. At first I got sidetracked with all the other info on here but like I said earlier at Thanksgiving I decided to take real action.

02-14-2014 12:47 PM #15 godspeed (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by dwel999 View Post
I did Skype all the relevant information to Jason at A4D today. You guys are right I should have taken the time right away and informed him.
I'm sure Smax will find solution for this.

02-14-2014 08:57 PM #16 bbrock32 (Administrator)

It would be great if Jason would chime in here.

I am pretty confident he had no idea about this, but still an explanation is due.

02-15-2014 01:15 PM #17 godspeed (Member)

Update?

04-03-2014 04:14 PM #18 dwel999 (Member)

I probably shouldn't have checked but found another exact clone today. Didn't even get creative on the domain, just added a letter. Makes me sick, trying to push it out of my mind before it drags me down again.

I sent Jason a PM to see if it was dealt with, my msg on Skype didn't go through last time since not a contact. I'm guessing it didn't since Michael still has the nerve to contact me to push traffic under him after he destroyed my only good income source.

Maybe I'll post the whole setup for everyone so it gets saturated. Can't really blame some lazy affiliate, it's the greedy managers that caused it so can at least make sure they stop getting commission.

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