Home > Technical & Creative Skills > Tracking Campaigns

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Managed vs Self-Hosted Tracker (24)

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The only thing that keeps me from switching from a self-hosted tracker to a managed one is the privacy of my campaigns.

What's stopping one of the admins of the tracking solution to look into their clients' data and cherry pick the best and most profitable campaigns to run for themselves? Am I paranoid here or is this common? Do I think out of scarcity or is this a real concern for many?

Otoh, the last thing I want when scaling fast is to have to deal with the headaches of my server optimization and database growing. I don't like the technical stuff and I'd rather be focusing on scaling and strategy!

What do you think?

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Business or personal reputation and a sense of what's right.

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How would you know tho- esp on Facebook where you cannot spy efficiently to see what others run? and even if your stuff has been stolen they could just run it anonymously behind a random Facebook account

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And adding to that: Opportunity costs, job security, funds to run at that scale, knowledge of the parts that are not in the tracker...

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They could. Are they incentivized enough to do so that it's better for you to scale your own setup?

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You either trust the company or you don't.

There are people who don't use Gmail because they don't trust Google, and other people who have their entire lives on Google. If you are concerned then get a self hosted. But that doesn't prevent a hacker from accessing your details or someone breaking into your house and stealing your laptop, etc etc.

Ultimately, you need to decide what you are comfortable with and what you are not. This is a personal decision. No one else can make this for you.

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In theory, there is nothing to stop them from doing this. In reality, it's a bit more complicated as they would have to research the creatives and source targeting, but yes, they have all the data there on a plate. The question is how much a single employee can see and how well the owners actually protect their customers data - one confirmed leak like this and they can pretty much cancel the tracker for good. I would also expect those with access to all the sensitive data to be paid well enough, in order to NOT risk loosing their jobs over a few stolen campaigns. On top of that, the job can be for a longer time and a campaign can die overnight.

But yes, in case a lower paid employee can actually see the data, I wouldn't be surprised if they "borrowed" a campaign here and there, it must be too tempting.

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Completely see your dilemma! A lot of points have been addressed about the potential of staff stealing your campaign data.

What I will point out is this:

Of all the customers that the big tracking companies have - which must include some super-affiliates - do you think your camps are big/profitable enough for them to be ripping yours first?

If so, then you're making enough profits to hire someone to manage your server and database full-time.

If not, then I would stop worrying about that for now.



Amy

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I'm another person who is worried about this problem.
Recently I tried to use self-serve tracker and am studying various server techs which cause headache.

Vortex//
If so, then you're making enough profits to hire someone to manage your server and database full-time.
If not, then I would stop worrying about that for now.

Thank you for the advice but I only agree 50%.
Risk and damage of being one's data stolen are same no matter who one is because it is relative.


If they spy user's data, I think they will not see users who make less than 10$ per day and also will not see users who make 10K per day, because it is not effective.
What they'll do is to see users who make from 100$ to 1000$ per day and it means that more than 50% of total users are target of them.

Value of the data stolen from campaigns that make 100$ per day and 1000$ per day is same because what they want to see is sourceID of the trafficsource, not offer.
If one found good sourceID and he bids 0.008 bid to make the campaign profitable, they will use this same sourceID with much higher bid such as 0.02 ane it is profitable for them cause they already know better offers.

Therefore risk and damage of being one's data stolen are same no matter who one is.
I'm still trying to find solution about this problem but couldn't find any "clear" answer till now.

Currently I found 2 methods.
1. use self-serve tracker and have optimized server(this is hard)
2. use trustful managed tracker (theoretically it is impossible)

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That is an excellent point and probably quite underestimated.

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If you are concerned about privacy from hosted solutions, then www.funnelflux.com is an amazing self hosted option, and it has funding from STM's venture capital arm www.stmventurespartners.com the same team that backs STM forums, Affiliate World Conferences, www.adplexity.com etc.

I personally use Funnelflux (in addition to Voluum for different activities), and I can definitely recommend it.

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Everyone was worried at the start about this issue.

What is interesting though the most affiliate who worry are in the "newbie" or "starting out" phase when they actually don't anything to lose or steal from them.

I know we all eventually grow by time, but as it was pointed out before it's a decision you have to make.

But even if you grow too big you still can create more accounts or use more trackers to split the risks ie. not put all eggs in one basket if you are so paranoid :-)

ADVICE: Focus rather on trackers features, speed issue, easy of use when managing multiple campaigns, data drilldown possibilites etc.

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I do see your point. But if you're referring to big managed tracking solutions, then 50% of total users equals a LOT of users that will span a wide range of profit levels. So the point I made still stands (i.e. if you're at the high end of the range vs. low end = difference between being able to afford your own server tech vs. risks of being "chosen" as a target being small).

As for bids:

1)You don't have to post cost info back to the tracker (with very very few exceptions - e.g. ZP on Voluum). That way the tracker will not know what your profits are (although if you keep running a camp for a long time, they will know you must be making profits - but at least they wouldn't know what your profit margins are).

2)The bidding landscape is constantly changing, and is comprised of a ton of people bidding on various traffic networks. It wouldn't make much sense to bid higher than one individual user when there are so many people running on each traffic source. What would make more sense, while we're entertaining this conspiracy idea, would be for them to analyze ALL their user data for each traffic source, to come up with camps that are doing the highest profit margins, and run the same offer on the same source with a higher bid. With so many users to choose from to target (if this is even happening), how likely would you be the lucky one? Would depend on their manpower, but 50% of total users is a LOT of people to have to rip camps from!


I don't think a discussion like this will ever arrive at a final conclusion, because we each have our own set of assumptions. I'm a big believer in the law of attraction - the more you're expecting for something to happen, the more likely you'll be a victim.

So if you're THAT concerned about the security of your data, then by all means give self-hosted solutions a try. I've heard good things about Funnelflux, and it really doesn't take much money to give it a test. If you don't like it, you can always revert back to a managed solution.



Amy

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Vortex//
Thank you for the reply.


1. bid
Thank you for the tip.


2. risk of being "chosen"
I understand but here is my opinion.
Being chosen out of 1000 and being chosen out of 10 are same.
Because all have "potential".
(I know this is not you intended to say but) ignoring(allowing) stealing just because chance of being chosen is low is not a solution.
But yes, in reality, it's better to spend time to other things to increase profit.
(for example, we can't excape from Google's eye.)

My opinion might be changed later with bigger eye.
But currently my opinion is that using self-serve is more affordable choice even if server tech is hard and there is also a risk of being hacked.

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That's actually the key point, it's absolutely not the same! If you are ever to make it in this business, you should have a basic grasp of risk and probabilities.

Flying is not a solution because you can crash.
Driving is not a solution because you can have an accident.
Eating is not a solution because you can choke.

It's an absurd point, that goes hand in hand with what Erik said: The newer you are, the more paranoid you are. You have to understand any business is about risk management, not risk avoidance.

Lonely Island put it nicely



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Otla5157c

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Yet another quote that needs to be framed up and hung up somewhere!

There's no doubt in my mind that there are very successful affiliate marketers that are using either type of tracking solution.

With every opportunity, there will be conditions that can and will work against you - even without being paranoid about stuff that we have no proof is actually happening.

The most successful people I've met, are the ones that are always trying to figure out "how can I make this work?" Instead of shying away from every opportunity just because there are things that can go wrong.

Again, I do understand the concern that some of you have, and I did my best to try to calm your fears. If what I've said ended up making some of you more defensive of your negative beliefs, then I apologize - because that is not my intention.




Amy

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Which company are you weary of?

I can speak for Thrive. I can tell you we have some huge volume affiliates who make a lot of money every day. Firstly, ask around for reputation.

I have been around for the last 5 years or so. I've been building tracking exclusively for 3-4 of those years as I did not like running campaigns at all. I take my personal reputation with extreme high regard. This industry is not big. An advertiser/network might keep your secret, but there is employee turnover all the time.

Unlike some other companies, we do not have internal media buyers, and we never run campaigns. Hell, we have never really even bought ads yet for Thrive.

Frankly, I do not really know how to run profitable campaigns, nor are am I interested in that business.

Our end goal is to make sure our users have the best tool to succeed at what they do so we can keep them as users. That is our job.

Why would we build a company for years that has a team and stable month-to-month profit to try and rip someone's campaign. That campaign better be the biggest campaign ever because if we get found out, it's extremely damaging to the company and myself personally. This is our livelihood.

And I especially wouldn't post all this here to make things worse should our business model be to steal campaigns.

With cloud, you better service + better performance on the product. And it makes it much easier to prevent problems and when there is an issue, it's 100x easier to resolve. The only reason we have self-hosted is because we started with that product, and we kept it for the untrusting.

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All of your points could happen... Some make more sense than others but here are a few more things that it could be...

6. Publishers where you got the traffic changed (audience, ad network they monetize with, not popular anymore, SEO died out for it, etc.)

7. The smartlink doesn't beat old school campaigns. You are/were essentially doing some arbitrage. The crowds working to maximize their own returns through higher payouts and very detailed optimization can beat a couple of smart links at some point. Basically, your smart link can have all the good offers, but a crowd of 1000 affiliates optimized each of them better individually, and have higher payouts from a direct relationship with the advertiser (or the advertiser itself is running as a competitor) so the smart link doesn't perform well anymore.

8. Specific publishers blocked your advertising ID from the network for sending offers they don't want on their site, after too many complaints from users.

There are probably more reasons, some that connect between each other.

Question is: If you know that it's one of these.. Or 2-3 of these.. How do you fix it?

Sometimes knowing the problem is useless if it's 100% beyond your control to fix it. Pops is certainly one of the most transparent traffic types out there... So that doesn't help when it comes to competition.

Most experienced marketers try to get some exclusivity, some unique advantages, often called moats. They try to find something that the competition cannot steal easily, if at all. If they were doing exactly what you are doing, they would be facing the same problems... And they often do, just that they don't focus on the problem, they look for how to manage the problem

Small example of managing problems: There's always a chance that traffic quality is low on a new offer. The advertiser and affiliate networks often reserve the right to not pay there. You risk by running that offer. How much is up to you. Some networks let you test uncapped, some cap you to begin with. Up to you to decide.

The risk there is very clear. In the situation you brought up, it's not as clear and there are many more variables. However, the problem solving mindset is the same: risk vs reward.

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Every business activity involves risk.

In fact every human activity involves risk.

Risk is unavoidable.

So the question is not how to get rid of risk. It is not even how to reduce risks. It is rather it is how to manage the risk.

Are there shoplifters at Wal Mart? Sure. Does Wal Mart try to eliminate this risk by arming their security guards with machine guns and so searching all customers before they leave the store? Of course not.

Yes there will be a risk that some rogue employee at a company will look at data that he or she should not and use that to your detriment. But this is not a risk unique to trackets. This is a risk you face using ANY service that has access to data.

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Thank you for the advice.


I thought alot and my concern about being spied by someone including managed tracker was reduced.
I just concluded as below.


Being spied by someone does not give one massive damage unless he is doing something unique.
I'm a normal marketer who use popular traffic sources other marketers use and promote general sweep
or antivirus offers.
So I'm already working with many competitors.
There may be already 10~50 or more other marketers who use same traffic sources, sourceIDs and same offers.
If there is a spy who see my data, it is just one more competitor so now there are 11~51 competitors.
Therefore profit I'm generating will be reduced from 1/10 (or1/50) to 1/11 (or 1/51) and it is not massive damage.


But I think that the marketers who are doing very unique so currently don't have any competitors can receive big damage cause profit might be reduced to half(1/1 to 1/2).

So this is my current 'updated' opinion but still may be changed later with bigger eye.

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Very interesting thread. Managed options also provide less headaches, as you mentioned. Adsbridge tracking even provides automatic optimization, also saving you time to scale.
-Zach

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Yes, the thread is very interesting especially considering your tracker ))



About thread, I think that all solutions are not safe. In Managed/Cloud trackers your data can be stolen by developers, in Self-Hosted - hackers or system bugs. Correctly noted above, do not keep all your eggs in one basket and all will be well. It is better to be engaged in increase budgets and ROI than think about such things

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It appears that quite a few people still think like this, and it is a combination of the "affiliate mentality" and paranoia. The affiliate mentality being that a large part of "the grind" is stealing and copying other peoples campaigns. I had it done to myself back in the day when I was a super affiliate, and I understand that concern. Trust in this space doesn't come easy.

However, for the few that go far and beyond running campaigns and risk everything to build a real business - tracker in this case - believe me, I wouldn't even suspect any of the Voluum competitors to be building trackers to steal campaigns to run themselves.. it's more work than you could imagine - nobody is out there to build the most expensive spy tool in the form of a tracker..

Lastly, we track well over $1 billion in ad spend annually, if you had an idea of our valuation, you would in an instant understand that looking at and running your campaigns would be the most foolish thing we could do even if we wanted to.

This. Why wouldn't you want to focus on the thing you're best at, running campaigns and scaling them. Let us take care of the techy stuff

Don't forget about click-loss on self-hosted solutions too.

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Had a long post in the works but Rob and Tom covered most of my points. We don't care about your campaigns.

In 2016 and beyond, the majority of people would do way better with a managed or saas solution over self hosted.

This is why we stopped working on and supporting self hosted Prosper202 in July. The only exception we make is for large agencies with a full tech team and a handful of legacy paid self hosted clients.

But overall, self hosted doesn't make sense for most especially at scale.

At this point only Funnelflux and Cpvlab are 100% self hosted. I don't know if cpvlab is under active development, but my prediction is that FF will launch a saas or managed option soon too.

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