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Selfadvertiser Stealing Data? (21)

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So we have been spending high xxx / day on selfadvertiser for a few months now

The situation:
1. We pass back conversions to the selfadvertiser system
2. Once in a while, some good profitable zones will appear on the campaign

The problem:
For all the profitable zones, they never lasted for more than a few days, and then they will stop and some new zones will come into the campaign

The guess:
It feels like we are helping them to test what zones are profitable and what are just junks. Then they pull another group of zones into your campaign and make you test again....... Like a cycle

It feels like they have internal media buyers

Anything from you guys would be appreciated!

Thanks!

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Im not saying they are doing this, could be very well some other reason - they might be getting new publishers and loosing them all the time for example ...

But this is exactly the reason why I NEVER pass conversions back to the traffic source

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You would be very surprised how many traffic sources run their own campaigns.

Do not give them your data!

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Why people pass conversions back to the traffic source is beyond my understanding.

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Sure feels like that, right?

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Cloak the lander, never send postback, can't trust any traffic source.

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Whoever passes the conversions back to the traffic network must realize one thing - even tho the network alone, or lets say the owners, dont want to steal anything and want to run a clean business - because they are most likely making enough money anyways... they still employ people, and those are probably not getting paid $10k a month. It must be soooo tempting for these people to just copy the working campaigns, Im sure some of them simply wont resist and will do it.

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Bro,

Thanks for submitting this thread.
Always good to see that there are issues we can fix.

To be transparent:
1. We have an internal managed team that runs offers for product owners.
2. The personal of this team does not optimize the campaign, a smart algo does. It does it with a learning curve of conversions.
3. SelfAdvetiser partners do not compete with the managed team as the premium traffic - we sell CPV to external advertisers (you) and the low quality traffic we monetize CPA with the managed team. Disclaimer - this is 80% true as sometimes in the RTB we see an internal offer has a better ranking bid and we deliver that ad.
4. We do not rip/steal or any of that sort. Its just not our business model, we prefer to create new technology and new ground breaking operations.
5. Instead of complaining here, you can reach out to us to see how we can fix this issue and give you best value. Although I understand that if you feel we are stealing we would not want to assist. Again, that's not the case.
6. The conversion pixel is the basis of an awesome new feature we are building to help you guys optimize the campaign. No need of using it if you feel compromised.
7. Fuck networks that do not think how to build great business and creats bad reputation to the rest of us.

Cheers

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Hard to say whether its true or not. Every story has two sides.

But this is the exact reason why networks should not engage in any mediabuying themselves.

A network that has both an affiliate arm and a mediabuying arm has a clear conflict of interest. Networks should stay away from mediabuying in order to not COMPETE with their own affiliates - let alone steal from them. At Addiliate.com we focus 100% on our affiliates and we don't care where they get the traffic from for this reason.

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Btw

How to stop sending postback to traffic source in Voluum? For example exoclick?

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Remove the postback url in the "traffic sources" menu.

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a newbie here ,

what is the benefit of sending postback to the traffic source anyways?

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Karma points for giving your killer campaign to them on a silver platter!

(At least don't name your pixels like: id-affnetwork-offername. Belive me, you don't want to do that.)

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Its pretty pointless to get into any arguments and talk about whether a particular network is trustworthy or not, all that`s important in this case, is this favorite quote of mine about affiliate marketing : "treat it like a real business"

Does a bar know where his suppliers get the liquors and sodas from and at what price? Does a winery know who its customers sell the 1000s of bottles to and at what prices? Fuck no, and no business man in his right mind would ever reveal this info and we all no why. So why the hell would you tell your traffic source what you do with the traffic you buy from them? And why the hell would you tell your aff network where you got the cheap converting traffic from? Its so easy to understand in the "real" world, so why would it be different online?

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^^this exactly.

They will still figure out a few bits but giving them all the info on silver plate is just beyond my comprehension.

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One of my account managers approached me stating that implementing a pixel will allow me to optimize my campaigns better which it would in one case. It would allow me to see which placements are giving me conversions instead of looking at Voluum and see which placements/OS/Browsers are losing me money. It takes a longer time to analyze data between traffic source and Voluum, but I rather do that then have a account manager steal my campaigns.

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I seriously doubt any traffic source has the drill-down abilities at the same level as the current top trackers. I also dont see a reason why my traffic source should have this kind of data unless its a fully managed source, but with self serve ... no way I can see it working to certain extent with pops, but with banners you are done.

Are you any good with excel or some other spreadsheet program? Export csv's from voluum and the traffic source, compare and there you have it

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I was like "Thanks, but no thanks!"

I have excel. But, I mainly look at Voluum and the traffic source stats verbatim. The issue I have here is displaying the correct costs in Voluum. Say I ran a whole days worth of traffic today, tomorrow I'll update the costs from today. When I update the costs in Voluum, the costs doesn't reflect correctly on placements/OS/Browsers making it a bit more tedious to figure out which targeting option is making you lose money.

For example, let's say for Google Chrome Browsing I spent $57 dollars on the traffic source, but on Voluum it might say $47. I'm trying figure out how to get the cost allocation as correct as possible. My cost model setup in Voluum is always CPC and not CPM nor Auto.

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The cost accuracy is a problem and its making our lives complicated for sure. There is no way to set a correct CPC simply because it changes all the time, the more broad the targeting, the bigger CPC differences.

Here is a little trick for you, the CPC actually means shit, what matters is the cost per time period and revenue generated during that time frame. Thats how I decide what placements to cut when its not really obvious.

I download the cvs report from Traffic Source (TS) for lets say last 3 days, then I pull the cvs from Voluum (V) for the same time period. I have an excell sheet prepared that pulls just the cost value from the TS sheet and the revenue from the V sheet and calculates the difference, if its red too much... cut

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guys what about affiliate networks, i don't want to be paranoid but should i use DMR in Voluum for all my campaigns from now on? does that even work when you direct link to mobile offers?

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Affiliate network could also "steal" parts your campaign - for example the LP, if they are able to track it from the referrer info - but they dont know where you buy traffic from, since you dont pass this info to them. So they see you are making conversions but they dont know how and where you get the traffic. A lot of traffic networks are blind so not even you know what sites you actually buy traffic on, this makes it even more complicated for them to actually find your campaign. If you use DMR, the LP url will be replaced too so it will be even more complicated - this doesnt work 100% but will block a high % anyways.

Its a bit different in adult, where the networks are open and show domains and its quite easy to actually find the campaigns on the larger sites. But there is nothing one could do about it.

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