My CPA network has stolen my profitable campaign:( (22)
2 days ago I opened this thread in the Newbie's Q&A section
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ffiliate-links
and guess what... a few hours ago i noticed that exactly the same banners i run in my campaign, somebody else uses them as well to the same exact offer. it can only be my affiliate network because only they know about how profitable this campaign has been for me .
such a bad feeling ...it took me almost 2 years to get to profitability with paid traffic . now it will be gone because i didn't know about links cloaking in the first place. 
Sorry to hear that. Check the link using Wheregoes to see if it is the network or another affiliate.
Also, what network was this?
That sucks -- in all honesty though, you shouldn't run traffic with a network that you fear they're going to try to jack your campaign before you even start running with them. This industry is all about relationship, so you have to figure out which networks are looking for long term relationships, and which ones are in it for a quick hit (which are typically the fly-by-night networks that you see fail as quickly as they show up).
Also, is it possible that it was the traffic source (whether it was a direct media buy, or a media buy on a platform) stole your campaign?
Angry Russian - I'm still not 100% sure (only 99%) that my network has done this to me so I don't want to publish their name just yet. As soon as I know they did it 100% i will let everyone know
PhilipShapiro - i didn't think about the traffic source as an option....may very well be..... btw, you are saying that this isn't ethical what they did? i mean, they saw something that works , why not taking it to yourself? it's my fault that i didn't cover my tracks .
An affiliate network's job is to provide you with the tools to succeed with your campaigns, while taking their margin. They're also supposed to provide you with helpful staff that can help you scale up your campaigns and optimize, which in turn will make the network more money. They're not supposed to steal your campaigns. This is absolutely unethical.
I always suggest to my affiliates, even though I completely separate internal media buying, is to cloak their referral data and disclose as minimal as possible. I would suggest the same for publishers at any network; there is no reason why a publisher should be disclosing that information to anyone. I've heard some horror stories in my days about other networks stealing campaigns - it's far better to be safe than sorry.
Not saying they didn't just that there is a lot of other ways this could have happened. I don't know the traffic source but a lot of affiliates run scrapers and will put up campaigns of anything they see show up in their data scraper. They don't know what's good or bad they just put up everything. As someone mentioned the traffic source could have given up the campaign info as well. However if it's google or facebook that's highly unlikely. Another option is maybe you were not cleaning your referers and the merchant themselves took it. Did you trace headers through and see if it's even going through the network that you're running with?
There's a lot of ways this kind of thing could happen.... affiliate marketing is a double edge sword very low barrier to entry and to get started with making money. But also very hard to protect your successes. On the bad side everything is out there for everyone to see, so you constantly have to innovate and optimize to stay ahead of the copiers.
Double meta refresh FTW and if you ever do get solid evidence, out the network because if they pull this with one affiliate they are probably fucking over more affiliates as well. Also it could be your traffic source, but if it's a well known one I wouldn't worry about that too much.
DMR is i guess the "low level" and easiest cloaking for most people to implement, but it is far from secure.
I always suggest SSL, or even # in the URLs or JS form submits with URL variables.
Originally Posted by affgal
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ffiliate-links
and guess what... a few hours ago i noticed that exactly the same banners i run in my campaign, somebody else uses them as well to the same exact offer. it can only be my affiliate network because only they know about how profitable this campaign has been for me .
such a bad feeling ...it took me almost 2 years to get to profitability with paid traffic . now it will be gone because i didn't know about links cloaking in the first place.
same thing happened to my a couple days ago. lp and banners stolen...
but the weird thing is that the guy who copied my lp doesn't use any affiliate link that goes through a network..he's directly linking to the offer page without a redirect
for example: thats the offer link on his LP http://www.be2.nl/?partnerid=NL11CK (just an example not the actual offer 
)
..so what does that mean? is it the advertiser that is running the campaign on his own now or could it also be the cpa network? but if it would be the cpa network wouldn't they use a redirect?
is there a way to find out if it's the network or the advertiser..i mean there must be some traces anywhere i can track down
^^ someone who has a direct relationship with the advertiser, be it a pub, network, or the advertiser himself
the lower the subid / the more noob the tracking the more you can assume it's one of the later entries on that list
damn i hate stuff like that but ya it's part of the game. so i guess there is no way to find out if it's the advertiser,pub or a network...i already did some reverse ip lookups to find other sites on his server but i couldn't find anything useful
Out the network/offer.
well i don't even know if it's the advertiser,network or another pub...thats what i'm trying to find out right now
Is there a thread with info on how to protect yourself from a newbie stand point. I dont really understand all the additions to urls and redirects you can use etc.. Would be cool if there was a thread that went from basics on how and why certain things work. Also resources on how you can check on this stuff for us non tech guys just getting in the industry.
tijn wrote 3 guides about that. check out http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...s)-Part-1-of-3
Sorry, about getting the campaign jacked. don't get mad but even. find another advertiser that converts better and go head to head!
name and shame :P
It depends on where you are running...some places are hotbeds for lazy affiliates who copy and paste.
If you are running adult - I've had campaigns ripped off in less than 48 hours
If you are running on Pulse360 or AdSonar - usually within a week.
Assuming that its your affiliate network...why are you running with them if you don't trust them 100% ???
nusolutionz , you sure he isn't doing "cookie stuffing" ?
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