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After 18 Years in the Industry, I EXPOSE Affiliate Marketing's Dirty Secrets. (39)

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They say you become adult at the age of 18, that’s when you should know enough about the world and be able to take care of yourself on your own, more or less Some of you know I started in the affiliate business in 1998, which means its a bit over 18 years by now, so that makes me an adult in terms of affiliate marketing. I've seen industries rise and die, I've seen good things and I have seen bad things happen too. I'm still here tho, always managed to adapt and keep going. And even tho I really love the affiliate business and the freedom it can give me, there are some things I am not so happy about or flat out hate.



Since I just turned "18", let me use this opportunity and put together a list/code of things I DO and DON'T like about the affiliate business, split up in 3 basic categories, each tailoring to a particular segment of the affiliate business puzzle – 1. Traffic Networks, 2. Affiliate Networks, 3. Affiliates. I would like to hope that each of the mentioned parties can find something in this list and maybe think a bit about what they could do better.

1. Traffic Networks :

A lot has changed about traffic networks during my AM career. All the targeting options we have today, all the banner formats, delivery options and quality support in many cases – I could only dream about it couple years ago. Affiliates had to wait many hours or days to get a campaign approved and GEO targeting was pretty much the best you could get.

There are still things to improve tho. I think carrier targeting should be a standard these days. Some networks should focus more on functionality instead of fancy designs. The infrastructure and back end of some networks should be improved too in order to work faster and decrease loss of clicks.

There is also one thing I HATE about traffic networks : BOTS!



Dear TrafficNetworks: Could you please stop pretending you don't know about the simple fact that a big part of the traffic you sell are bots? Who do you think this will do any good? Bots decrease the overall quality of your traffic, which results in lower bids. Bots make optimization complicated or impossible at times, which means lost clients. Newbies are not able to detect bots, which results in lost clients. I know its tempting, and can be very lucrative in the short run, but you will not make more $ in the long run if you are selling bots, it will only come back at you and bite you in the ass.

If you really have to sell that crap, can you please do us affiliates a favor and push it onto clueless brand advertisers who get off on impression numbers, who don't care about actual conversions and celebrate when the allocated budget was burned sooner than they expected?

We can only pay as much for the traffic as we make back from it, selling bots is not a sustainable business model. Traffic sales is an auction based business, so let the auction decide what the real traffic is worth. We will not pay more for it just because you decide to add some bots to the mix or turn a blind eye to the publishers doing it. The budget we can spend remains the same, you just make our lives complicated.

I think we should form an authority that would run blind anonymous tests on the biggest networks and publish the results – the good ones should get the fame and the shady ones should get the shame! The situation is getting out of hand and its about time we bring the fraudsters to the daylight and stop pretending its not happening.

2. Affiliate Networks :

Lots of changes for the better has happened here too. I started my AM journey in the adult industry, where it was the norm for every paid site to have its own affiliate program. Later on, bigger companies started to run multiple sites, so it became a bit easier. Nevertheless, in order to get a decent coverage of products, you still had to register with a ton of affiliate programs. To give you an idea, at the time when I was running the biggest volume in adult, I was registered with almost 200 !!! affiliate programs, each of them sending me payouts individually. You can imagine the love I was getting from the bank clerk when I showed up with 50 or 60 paychecks in my hand at their desk Getting paid on net 15-30 days was a norm too.

These days, all you need to do is join 2 or 3 affiliate networks and you get access to a ton of offers, 1 payout for all the offers from a network and if you send even mediocre volume, they will pay you every week. This would sound like a dream to me couple years ago, but its the reality now.

The quality of Affiliate Managers has gone up a ton too! In the past I had to deal with people who knew nothing about the biz, AMs who were giving me totally wrong advice and not helping at all. These days, majority of the AMs I work with are knowledgeable guys and girls, which is totally awesome.



But where is the innovation and at least some exclusivity? Why should I pick one network over another when you all have the same offers? Or 80% of them? Every week I get emails from new affiliate networks who promise to have the best offers with the best payouts, when in reality they just offer the same as any other, often re-brokered with even lower payouts. What I miss these days, are affiliate networks that would actually do the extra step for their affiliates and get some exclusive offers that are not everywhere. In this over-competitive affiliate world, we need every edge we can get, why not give it to us? Get some offers for your high volume affiliates for example, reward us for bringing business to your doors.

You guys should also make some pressure on the advertisers and make them work with us, the affiliates. A message like : “advertiser X is complaining about the quality of your leads”, is not gonna help anyone. Make them give us some data, try to push for banner tokens to be passed through and report on their performance etc … I’m sure there is something that could be done here.

I also hate this sentence : “All is working fine on our end and you're the only affiliate complaining” Common, when I run something for a while, I know what to expect, so when leads stop all of a sudden there is some problem somewhere and I need your help to find it. I know advertisers scrub sometimes and its out of your control, but at least be honest and admit the overall performance is lower and something is up. Thumbs up to those who are doing it, there is a lot of you!

I have also heard quite a lot of complains about networks refusing to pay in full recently, because advertisers were complaining and stuff like that. We affiliates are sacrificing a part of our revenue just because we want to be protected against something like this. I think its a general consensus that unless there is fraud involved, you are supposed to pay the affiliate, the occasional loss should be factored as part of your costs.

3. Affiliates :

I have seen a lot of changes on the affiliate part of the business too. The whole industry has matured a lot and what used to be a hobby for many, has turned into a serious business with staff and corporate structures. It started as a one man show for me too. The first thing I did was to put a site made in “Microsoft Frontpage” on geocities free host and blast some ads on it. Now I buy large quantities of traffic and employ a couple people to help me with the daily duties. We also still run some sites, which brings at least some revenue in case the paid campaigns go down the drain – BTW: this is something I would recommend to anyone who knows how to do some SEO.

The amount of information about the affiliate business has also never been so high as it is now, unfortunately the same goes for the amount of self proclaimed GURUs with online or personal courses and guides. Its very important to do your research before paying anyone for coaching or joining a course. I will shamelessly add, that since you are reading this, you are already a member of the best and most professional affiliate community there is – I'm not saying this as one of the moderators, but as a person who also joined this forum at some point to look for information about paid traffic. I was blown away by the sheer amount of content and even more important – by the responsiveness and helpfulness of the members.



This leads me to one thing that I don’t understand about many new affiliates – some of you guy are just plain LAZY! Here you have all the information you might need, countless guides, people willing to help and still, some people don’t even take the time to read it. This business is one of the easier ones, but you still need to educate yourself and understand the basics. It has the potential to change your lives forever, so give it the time and effort it requires. You went to school for YEARS, but you're not willing to dedicate a few months to this? Common We, the mods, are here to help you. Other members are willing to help you in their FREE time and don’t ask anything in return so use it. But do your homework first, read about the basics, learn the basic principles and then come and ask questions that will help you move further.

And my last rant in this long ass post : Since cloacking and aggressive promotional methods are so popular these days – if you get caught, be a man and stop whining You knew you were playing with fire so don’t cry when you got burned Just so you know, I have NEVER ran a cloacked campaign and I’m here. Am I rich? No. But I do live a good life, I take care of my family of 5, we live in a house … I’m doing fine and I am always playing it white hat, so yes, its still doable!

Thanks for reading this long beast, I would love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree with what I posted or not

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So, so agreed in regards to bots in particular.

I'm extremely sick of discovering that a new traffic source is bot-tastic.

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Exactly, and what I like the most is when they pretend that everything is ok and all their traffic is legit, pre-filtered, sorted, triple checked and worth its weight in gold

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Great read!

I agree highly with the network portion as well. Getting exclusive offers is something that can separate networks from each other, as well as the rate they offer.. its always good to ask your AM what rate they can offer because whats provided is not always set in stone. When it comes to merchants complaining about traffic, i agree that they should offer some information but they don't always agree to do so but its on the network to push for that info!

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Thanks for your reply, good to see a reaction like that coming from the "Affiliate network side"

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ha-ha... as an AM myself i think its what makes a network stand out from others

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True, you understood exactly what I wrote in that post

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sarcasm? lol

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Nope, didnt want it to sound like that. Im actually glad you replied and agreed with what I wrote

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"I think we should form an authority that would run blind anonymous tests on the biggest networks and publish the results – the good ones should get the fame and the shady ones should get the shame!"

I think I could publish a report pretty soon. Some networks are horrendous...

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oh ok haha it was a great read!

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Yes, please do it Maybe we could come up with some sort of a benchmark test and make the life of affiliates easier?

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It would be extremely quick and easy to code up a simple poll statistic mini-page where you can submit bot test results for each individual traffic source. Like you run a bot test, you enter your results into the poll and say how big of a % of the traffic was bots, and how many impressions this is based on. If this was hosted&integrated on STM and was easy and convenient for members even better!

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Great post! I have been in the IM/AM business for 10 years (not 18 yet) but your comment about new affiliates being lazy - I totally agree. I see it all the time. But sadly, you know what I feel like I am becoming lazy as well. I know in my head i should be working on "improving conversion on a particular campaign", but then i say to myself, "AHH ITS MAKING MONEY, LETS MOVE ONTO SOMETHING ELSE"... its the wrong thing to do - I am getting lazy. I need to work on that. Thanks again for the dose of reality in this post.

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Matuloo you've said some things that have been needing to be said for a long time now.

This industry is very money-driven, and there is a lot that can be improved upon, but some companies choose to put money first and everything else second, which is a bit short-sighted IMO.

I'm very grateful to be working with the "good guys" - the STM team. We put people first. And there are still companies in this industry that do the same - and those are the companies that will prosper in the long run because nowadays, reputation is everything, and word travels fast.

Thanks for the post buddy!



Amy

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We're all lazy, you think Im not? Im actually the king of LAZY If I wasnt lazy, Id be working 9/5 somewhere. But the simple fact that I was lazy, forced me to look for ways to earn more money with less manual work... I always say that laziness actually is pushing us forward, because we are looking for shortcuts and for ways to accomplish something with less work If people were not lazy, we'd be still carrying stuff around in our hands.

The kind of "lazy" I wanted to point out, was being lazy before one actually gets shit running, and waiting for someone else to do it for them

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Sounds like present day AdCash to me

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Just to give you a real life example - I wont name the network, but they were US based and worked their hours - I submitted a batch of banners late on friday in my time zone (+1 europe), they left work earlier since it was friday ... the next monday was some holiday in US, they started to work on tuesday and since there was a big backlog, I got the banners approved late on wednesday How does that sound?

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This post is truly epic.

I would also add, networks and vendors, please stop spamming me on STM private message.

This is especially the case for networks that don't have much of a reputation in the industry yet.

If people I trust tell me you are worth working with, I will reach out to you. Spamming me will only make me want to work with you even less.

There is a separate section on STM for networks and offers and for buying and selling.

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Agree this would be great. But there should be a kind of additional verification because otherwise the first thing that'll happen is people will upload fake results for their best traffic sources, because you know... that's how the industry is

edit: and some traffic sources would probably also try to upload fake results :-)

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Yeah, though hosting this on STM and allowing users to submit, and showing who submits it and maybe having a cap like only users with 50 or 100, or more posts can submit results would make it more trustable though I don't think 100% verification of all results will ever be possible with such a poll, but it should give a more than accurate enough description of which sources are bot-ridden. Main thing is I think it'll give the traffic sources some incentive to clean up their act. Like if one guy finds awesome traffic for MY on PopAds and says it's 50% bots and absolute shite to keep other affiliates away from it it is certainly a risk, but with enough votes that stuff should even out, and especially for bigger geos.

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Exactly, we would have to verify those who would be allowed to upload results. We also dont need 100 people doing this, Id say 10-15 or so proven guys is more than enough. But I start to like the idea more and more

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Love it matuloo! You're absolutely right about the industry.

Some things will just never change...

Kudos to you for running WH only!

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"You guys should also make some pressure on the advertisers and make them work with us, the affiliates. A message like : “advertiser X is complaining about the quality of your leads”, is not gonna help anyone. Make them give us some data, try to push for banner tokens to be passed through and report on their performance etc … I’m sure there is something that could be done here."

Totally agree with this.

This problem usually occurs when affiliate networks start reaching out to more risky advertisers in order to get an edge over other affiliate networks. Some advertisers actually don't report back any useful data in order to help affiliates and affiliate networks optimize. They just say "this is good quality" or "this is bad quality."

If an affiliate network signs up these kinds of advertisers then they should take responsibility if quality becomes an issue.

If an affiliate is sending crap traffic and the affiliate network has data backing this up, then they ask the affiliate to optimize based on the data or pause the affiliate.

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Not sure how much longer I will manage to run this way, but so far it has been always like that for me

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Great to hear all the dirty secrets of the industry from someone who has been in the game longer than some STM members have been alive ...

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Dont do this to me, I feel too old already

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Anyone who has been able to survive, adapt and Thrive in this industry for even more than 3 years should consider it a badge of honour.

You are the man.

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Totally dig the part of owning some websites with "Recurring" or somewhat predictable traffic using seo or social. Although nothing is safe, some sites go to ZERO without any prior notice, i.e G update / manual a.

Your favourite network? (not adult)

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Good post. I've never ran cloaked either but I really think it's putting me at a huge disadvantage.. since everyone seems to be now. As for bot traffic - This is a total pain..going to sleep at night then waking up seeing a new source has spent $500 for 0 sales/click throughs is frustrating, especially when most of the traffic networks claim there are no bots.

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Starting over is always a challenge ... AM is one of those businesses where you actually have to start over from time to time, you still got the basics and understand the concept, but it's mandatory to shift the way of thinking at times ...

Glad to hear you like it here, in case of any questions ... just ask away

Matej.

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Very good idea. This post is from 2016... Has anything changed since then?

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Unfortunately not, the problem is, there is no bullet proof method and the last thing anyone would want to achieve would be falsely accuse some network ... that wouldn't do us any good

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As an advertiser I can say we would love to be able to exchange and optimise with affiliates but I don't think networks are keen on connecting us It is always easier for them to rotate than it is to fix a problem, its just the name of the game.

About being money centric...well we all do this for a living. So the question is if someone is short term or long term oriented I guess.

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Nice post there, I agree on people being superlazy these days, even when presented with everything needed to get going. I used to do mobile subscriptions, and that is where the bot game is VAST. You join a decent network, start running pops - hello, please accept our bot traffic. You join a CPA network, send them you offers - and they generate 3k bot autosubscriptions overnight, when you're long asleep. What esle can I say, the search for clean traffic will be going on forever

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Nothing much, apart from me scheming up solutions in the Lab202, because I truly believe solid solutions to some of the issues discuss can help this industry grow to over $10 billion plus by 2020/2021 vs the $6.8 billion estimated by Forrester Consulting (https://go.rakutenmarketing.com/hubf...Mainstream.pdf)

Some ideas and solutions I'm pushing to get live this year from my 17 years in the industry, with approx 9 of which has been spent working on Prosper202.

Traffic networks
Crowsourced bot detection and metrics is something the could work. It's much easier at the tracker level. But users would have to opt-in to source the data and share with the community as whole. On a grand scale, it would be something all tracker providers could opt-in to do together as a service to their affiliates.

Affiliate Networks/Advertisers
Ideally advertisers should be able to send feedback directly to their affiliate's trackers via a s2s ping from their server/crm ->network software -> tracker. So for an example, advertiser can ping the network and say for aff id 123, subids (1,5,6,7) and source id (34,89) are low quality. Please tell them to turn that off, that info would show directly in the tracker and the affiliate would know which sources and subids to delete/pause traffic on. The same would go for high quality traffic. so the aff can send more of what's working, without any direct disclosure of traffic sources to either the network or the advertiser. This same system can be use to dynamically adjust payouts to incentivize high quality traffic over low quality. It's a tech problem that's fixable, and will be fixed (at least for prosper202 affiliates).

Additionally, I think advertisers should be able to communicate with their affiliates in a more direct manner. It should be easy to send alerts/notifications to all affiliates running your offer no matter what affiliate network they are using.

Advertisers should be able to easily communicate which networks are the preferred/exclusive networks to work with, so affiliate instantly when an offer is being rebrokered. This is as simple as something like and ads.txt for affiliate offers. https://digiday.com/marketing/wtf-ads-txt/ Drop a standard file it on your servers, and any tracker will be able to direct affiliates to authorized networks for running the offer. When an affiliate network works hard to get an exclusive offer, this text file on the offer domain can easily send any affiliate who want to run the offer to the correct place. Which is a win win for affiliates, advertisers, and networks.

Fully implemented this could cut out a lot of networks that provide no value except for rebrokering deals.

I've already got a draft file of a spec almost completed, and Prosper202 1.9.52 (next version) will now search for this file (performance.txt not fully committed to this name yet) for any offer added to the tracker. If found, it will display all the preferred and authorized networks with permission to distribute the offer a direct or brokered.

If you are network or offer owner that wants to take advantage of this discovery process, ping me for access to the draft spec. Also happy to share with other trackers since, this is something that should be adopted industry wide.

Affiliates
Can't fix the laziness part unless in the same lazy as in lazy programmer. "lazy programmers will want to write the kind of tools that might replace them in the end. Only a lazy programmer will avoid writing monotonous, repetitive code. The tools and processes inspired by laziness speed up production." ( source: https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to...nd-successful/)

I have tons of cool stuff upcoming for anyone who wants to be a master lazy affiliate

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There are some VERY good points/suggestions in your post Mr Baffoe, I wish they would come to existence ... especially the shared bot detection and advertiser-affiliate quality info channels, that would be pretty awesome.

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As being a new member and new to affiliate business, that was awesome read


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Really good ideas here.

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