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(resolved) advertizer targeting issue. (10)

09-26-2019 07:18 AM #1 caseyxz (Member)
(resolved) advertizer targeting issue.

Advertizer is selling me crap leads.

Last week I was buying US leads via a few traffic sources for building OneSignal database. One of the traffic sources is Advertizer, running on CPA campaign.

Things were going well until... I noticed the number of US subscriber leads doesn't tally on my OneSignal panel. Digging further, there is a portion of leads doesn't come from US. They are from places like Yemen, Afghanistan, etc.

I went to my tracker to dig more information. It was the Advertizer CPA campaign that was sending these non-US leads.

Campaign report from tracker:

I've also double checked my settings at Advertizer to ensure the targetting is spot on.

Campaign report from Advertizer:

Ipaddresses of non-US leads:

OMG? So I've been paying $0.30 for these crap leads? So I hit up Advertizer's support, sent them the screenshots, and data such as PIDs and Ipaddresses.

Their response:

"After looking into the case a bit more, we came to the conclusion that this is not a case in which we can offer you a refund.
Our geo targeting is using NetAcuity by DigitalElement ( market leader and industry standard, i.e. used by Voluum / funnel flux ) to define the origin of a user. We don't know which provider your tracking system uses, but it's always possible that you'll face discrepancies in geo detection depending on which provider your tracker is relying.
However, this is not the main issue in this case. The problem is that we cannot be hold accountable for leads you posted back to our system. We cannot know if / how you monetize these visitors, usually advertisers do not post back for leads outside of their targeting. If we receive a postback from a campaign ( whose visitors we identified as US visitors in your case ) we assume it's a valid lead same as the other leads which you posted back which were, according to you, from US.
The way we see this issue is that if you identified these users as non US and still posted them back to our system, we cannot offer you a refund for these leads.
If our traffic does not suit your offer, we're offering you to provide a full refund for your remaining account balance if you wish so."

Hey Advertizer! You are the one who send me those visitors in the first place!

To cut the story short, Advertizer refuses to refund me the portion of leads that are non-US and seemed to put the blame on NetAcuity. It's just a measly $147, not a big deal, but IT JUST DON'T FEEL GOOD! They don't seem to care much if they lose customers.

OneSignal says the leads are non-US. Bemob says the leads are non-US. DNSchecker says its non-US, IPlocation says its non-US too.

So basically the whole world says the leads are non-US, but Advertizer still insists that the leads are from US, just because they are using NetAcuity (market leader and industry standard), and not doing any refund for those leads.

To make things clear, I don't have any issues with the other two big traffic sources that I'm collecting US leads from. Only Advertizer.

At this moment I'm filtering the leads via tracker to redirect away any non-US traffic.

Anyone else having this issue?

09-26-2019 05:56 PM #2 erikgyepes (Moderator)

That really sucks man.

From the other side...

Have you tried to figure out which placements send you this traffic?

So you could at least block them and prevent it from happening?

I know it's not the best solution, but maybe it could help.

As for Advertizer, hope someone will chime-in.

09-28-2019 08:43 AM #3 caseyxz (Member)

Thank you @erikgyepes for your response, I really appreciate it!

Yes, I got the placementIDs. I'm redirecting away all non-US traffic at the moment.

This also serve to warn those who are running Advertizer CPA campaigns - check your leads, make sure you get what you pay for!

I do hope that more people will chime-in, so that Advertizer will not be so arrogant.

Hey @Monetizer, I know you are here on STM!

09-28-2019 08:49 AM #4 stickupkid (Senior Moderator)

Their response wouldn't satisfy me either! It's very normal you don't pay/getting paid for "mickey mouse" leads in affiliate marketing...

09-28-2019 12:46 PM #5 lleexus (Member)

hey guy
i know that traffic quality is average, I have several ad tests suspended by advertisers.

09-30-2019 10:18 AM #6 Monetizer (Member)

Let me try to clear any confusion around this.

As our support pointed out, we use DigitalElement to identify a country and carrier a user is located on. This happens during the outbound redirect.

There are several reasons why we decided not to offer you a refund as mentioned in our initial reply.

Wrong country targeted visitors can happen for various of reasons, such as from database differences ( Netacuity vs ip2location vs maxmind for example ) or people using rotating proxies when browsing.While it’s certainly not our intention to sell wrong targeted traffic, it can always happen such as with any network. Looking up IP addresses and checking the country they belong to after a visit actually happens isn’t accurate, because IP ranges can get brokered/leased out (this does happen frequently actually). So what might turn up as a US ip today, might turn up as a different country tomorrow.

It seems that you been able to identify these leads as missmatches but still posted them back to our system - according to your own statements, both bemob and onesignal did not identify them as potential US leads, yet you still fired a pixel to our system - if an offer/advertiser does fire a pixel, it means a sale happened.

It is common practice to use fallback options / have alternative offers for outside targeting traffic, in fact we’d say 90% of our advertisers do use these systems. If you don’t, you don’t fire back a pixel for someone outside your targeting, no matter what happens and make sure wrong targeted users do not reach the offer - I think everybody will agree that’s industry standard.Given that combined with us identifying the clicks at the time of the redirect in US, our decision was not to refund. If we did, it would open a lot of room for abuse (not saying you in particular are having bad intentions, but there are a lot of people who might abuse a weakness in a system to take profit of it).

Also for prompt responses, I do highly recommend you ask any follow up questions on our official live chat support here http://advertizer.com.

09-30-2019 01:00 PM #7 caseyxz (Member)

Originally Posted by Monetizer

Wrong country targeted visitors can happen for various of reasons, such as from database differences ( Netacuity vs ip2location vs maxmind for example ) or people using rotating proxies when browsing.While it’s certainly not our intention to sell wrong targeted traffic, it can always happen such as with any network. Looking up IP addresses and checking the country they belong to after a visit actually happens isn’t accurate, because IP ranges can get brokered/leased out (this does happen frequently actually). So what might turn up as a US ip today, might turn up as a different country tomorrow.

Were you saying a bunch of people holding hands, traveled to Yemen and Afghanistan right after they registered their location got pinged in US? Like I said, I don't have any issues with the other two bigger traffic sources (they send 10x more traffic than you) yet their targeting is spot on. I could put up a side-by-side comparison to prove what I'm saying, your stats would be put to shame. A tiny trickle of non-targetted traffic is acceptable, but this is too much.

Originally Posted by Monetizer

It seems that you been able to identify these leads as missmatches but still posted them back to our system - according to your own statements, both bemob and onesignal did not identify them as potential US leads, yet you still fired a pixel to our system - if an offer/advertiser does fire a pixel, it means a sale happened.

It is common practice to use fallback options / have alternative offers for outside targeting traffic, in fact we’d say 90% of our advertisers do use these systems. If you don’t, you don’t fire back a pixel for someone outside your targeting, no matter what happens and make sure wrong targeted users do not reach the offer - I think everybody will agree that’s industry standard.Given that combined with us identifying the clicks at the time of the redirect in US, our decision was not to refund. If we did, it would open a lot of room for abuse (not saying you in particular are having bad intentions, but there are a lot of people who might abuse a weakness in a system to take profit of it).

This is just for collection of leads, no sale happened yet. As long as the visitor clicked "allow", the postback happened. And I didn't use a fallback option is because I wrongly assumed that Advertizer traffic targeting should be spot on as well, hence bidded high enough to keep a CPA score happy at 99%. I guess I trusted the wrong traffic source, deeply disappointed at the same time!

Originally Posted by Monetizer

Also for prompt responses, I do highly recommend you ask any follow up questions on our official live chat support here http://advertizer.com.

Your customer service is really bad. In any businesses, you'll get more long term customers IF you can show that you can help them go extra mile to solve any issues that arises. A small refund to "fix the issue" for a lifetime customer, its a no brainer!

Content.ad sent me bot traffic. They refunded the portion. Till date I've spent 6 figures with them.
Revcontent- Due to a newly added widget, my balance went negative, they did a one-time refund. Till date I've also spent 6 figures with them.
MGID- I don't have any issues with them. Their traffic isn't great compared to the other two, however I did spend high 5 figures with them. Because their support is super helpful and nice!

This is about building a long-term business with customers.

OK if you really don't understand does it mean for a good customer service, lets get to the basics of trade agreement.

I agreed to pay $0.30 for each US leads that you send me; But you send me 490 non-US leads that I can't monetize at all. And you still insists that its nothing wrong?

10-04-2019 07:47 AM #8 Mr Green (Administrator)

Casey asked me if I could wrap up this thread.

This issue has been resolved.

A refund has been credited to Casey

In there was end there was a bug on DigitalElement's side. Casey can be thanked for finding that one!

Also support on Advertizer could of been handled a bit better.

But in the end the world is all good again!

10-04-2019 01:36 PM #9 caseyxz (Member)

Hey Mr Green! Thank you for digging into this geo-targeting issue and resolving it in a timely manner!

Also, I appreciate everyone who supported this thread. Thanks!

10-04-2019 03:41 PM #10 qiqinjun (Member)

too many bots here, and they lunched the best quality traffic sources options on CPA campaign, but still full with bots, and for CPC campaigns, they told they will send good quality traffic, but all the same, all full of bots, and just the same place IDs, for blacklist, 10 is not enough, 15 is not enough, 50 still not enough!

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