Guys, if you haven't seen the action going on that I've been involved in spanning 2 big affiliate related Facebook groups - Super Affiliates (which is my group) & Internet Advertisers - People who don't pay AND Shoemoney.com all day today, I don't know where you've been. I'm front page news on Shoemoney.com It's a long story but I've been on this Facebook group for a while now. Internet Advertisers - People who don't pay. The group is for people to post about non paying advertisers on there and I created a thread discussing deadbeat networks. Over the course of the day it got really out of hand. Internet Advertisers - People who don't pay has about 1500 members Super Affiliates has about 2600 members. Lou DiFulvio from GetAds runs the Internet Advertisers group. He got really defensive since his 1500 members consist totally of people that own ad networks. My point was that just because someone owns a network that doesn't make them credible. There are tons of networks out there that have skimmed money from us (mailers, publishers, affiliates) and they often screw each other. I basically trolled them to get the point across that it's the affiliate that ends up holding the bag when the advertiser screws the network. The networks will often turn around and screw the publisher. If not overtly through none payment, then by subversive means like shaving and scrubbing. A few networks got outed by members and then Lou banned me from the group. That pissed me off so I took the fight to my Super Affiliates group where it continued. Shoemoney added me to his "Deadbeat list" as a result of the ban (he's in cahoots with GetAds) and so words got really heated between me and Jeremy. I posted a very sound explanation of everything that transpired and left it as a comment on the blog post. I then challenged him to actually post it which he didn't because he is a coward. So since he didn't have the balls to post the message I took a screenshot of everything and posted it to Super Affiliates. Here's the deal guys. I put A LOT of pressure on a bunch of people in a very public way today. I pushed back and let them know that we're sick of getting ripped off for our traffic. I'm sure you're probably thinking "That's great, but I never asked you to do that" but the reason I did it is because I can. My Super Affiliates group on Facebook is extremely influential. There are a lot of players on there and these events really created a lot of publicity. I need your support, even if it's just a comment on my Facebook wall or on the Super Affiliates wall. Please go over to the Super Affiliates group on Facebook and read about what happened. Leave a comment. Thanks! Please see my Facebook wall or the Super Affiliates group for details. https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_13350349821
It is a really dumb move on part of those who blocked / banned you. Not like this issue is going to go away. The most effective move could be starting a dedicated group about "Networks That Shave" and letting anyone post / support / question / debate / discuss evidence. Of course running this sort of group would be a significant investment of effort and it would make lots of people very mad, because most of these debates will quickly devolve into he-said-she-said.
Moved this thread to "In the news". On another note. What affiliate would EVER want to sign up for GetAds now that this information is out there?!
OK, I am going to chime in here in a few ways. I have been on both sides of the fence - a mailer and running a network. First of all, the networks should be at your mercy because publishers are the ones with the traffic. Without your traffic they make no money and there are so many networks out there that publishers have their pick. If networks don't respect their publishers and essentially steal from them by shaving then I say fuck em and find a new network to deal with. I disagree with this in a few ways. Yes, while there are networks out there that intentionally shave leads this coming from the advertiser side is different. I have built out campaigns for a ton of advertisers, which involves collecting the data and setting up the scrubs. I ALWAYS make the advertisers pay more for a lead if they put filters/scrubs in place. For example, they can't take leads from 6 or 7 states because of licensing or something like that. Depending on the population in those states, I will make them increase their base lead price 10 - 25% on average. So with scrubs like that publishers are being compensated and it's in the networks best interest to make sure that happens. When the network doesn't control the back end, it's impossible for them to know what actual scrubs are in place. Networks do end up holding the bag in a lot of instances... I have personally been in situations where we weren't paid well over six figures and we still paid out all of our publishers. I have also been in situations and currently am bound to contracts where my advertisers can return leads well after I have paid publishers. I do this because I have confidence in the publishers that I allow to run those offers with extended return periods and if returns come back I will eat them. Working off a 5 - 20% margin, not including any publisher rewards/incentives, it takes a lot of volume to even make up for things like this. I am in NO way saying this justifies shaving...I just want to make sure that everyone understands that networks do end up holding the bag in a lot of ways and good networks insulate their pubs from a lot. It’s part of the value a network brings to the table and one of the reasons they deserve a “piece of the pie.†Back to networks shaving. I will probably get a LOT of shit for outing this, but it's pretty much common knowledge as far as I am concerned. Tracking platforms have features built in where I could basically push a button and stop crediting your account X% of the conversions you generate. In theory this function is built in to help networks deal with situations like the one I outlined above where lead returns have a long tail, but could easily be abused. Personally, I have disabled this function in my system for everyone - even my account. I definitely think it's a great idea to have a thread where you can out networks that shave. My partner and I have even considered bringing in an outside auditor once a year to audit our tracking and publish the results, because we feel so strongly that shaving is wrong. I would just ask that if a thread like this is started that everyone is responsible with it because a reputation of a good company that brings a lot of value to our industry could be ruined in an instant. As long as people only post when they have concrete proof that a network is maliciously shaving it will be a good thing. If posts start popping up with situations where it's a shady advertiser and the network is getting screwed right along with the pub, or if it's a valid scrub that is being compensated for with a higher payout, etc. it will turn out to be just as bad a thing as the networks that are intentionally shaving.
That is bullshit. All networks do not shave...because I do not shave and would never do it. I have respect for all legit publishers (email, search, display, etc), since I was a publisher and know what it takes. To mail - servers, ips, domains, rev share on managed lists, etc are brutal. The pubs that arbitrage keywords put a lot on the line too... keywords are competitive and expensive, plus it takes a lot of time to research them before you even get started. If someone is going to invest their time, money and resources into something they deserve to get the full reward for their work... not 9/10ths of the reward. And i f you were to read it, you would see there is some good information in the posts... I've been in this biz for 11 years and I know both sides of the fence fairly well. It's not just a "long winded" post. I am with Bubbles on this 100%, as long as it's done responsibly.
While you can call it "shaving" or any other nomenclature you care to apply to the situation, the truth of the matter is the real issue is the inherent shortcomings and inefficiencies of pixel tracking. While an email platform will track opens, clicks, uniques, etc., it cannot track when the pixel on any offer fires. We are all dependent on the various tracking systems in use today such as DT, LT, Cake, HP, etc. And as each network as well as advertiser is not bound to use any one platfoprm over another, there is yet another discrepency between network and advertiser when the two do not use the same platform. AND, having been on both sides of this issue I can tell you point blank, they simply do not work perfectly. Now here's where we get into the meat and potatoes of this particular issue. You see your clicks, you log into your affiliate account and you see the clicks tracking, the two are NEVER the same but you can hope they are as close as possible. Then there are the conversions. And speaking from the point of an advertiser, I'll see one number as far as conversions and my networks will see yet another. Which means you as a publisher will most likely see a third. As long as these numbers are within the "accepted range of variation" then no one complains. And I'll tell you, in my experience this number is in the 5-7% range. I, as an advertiser, know it and the networks know it. So what does this mean? It means the advertiser gets sales they'll never have to pay on and depending on the network and how they handle their tracking, they will too. It's accepted. Always has been, always will be because there's nothing better to use yet. Now, if the advertiser is smart, they factor in this "known" variable into the metrics of the offer which determines the CPA on the offer and they make up for this by giving the network as much money as they can and still remain profitable. I did. Personally, I never held more than 10% on my side. My thinking was that it's better to make a little and keep the network happy for a long time rather than try to make my nut in a short period of time only to have the networks publishers jump ship looking for a higher payout. And it worked very well for me. Plus, if you think about it, wouldn't you rather make 10% from 20 networks every month rather than 20% from a few networks and have to constantly ask/look for traffic because no one wants to pick up your low ball offer? This brings us back to clicks and publishers not getting paid. If we are strictly talking about CPC offers, then we're only talking about a few networks and we all know who they are. If we're talking about ALL offer types and ALL networks, then the issue is more complicated. It's sometimes going to be the networks willingness to shave a publisher and to those networks I say "go fuck yourself!" and I'll take my traffic elsewhere. To the others that truly try to make up for this "known tracking discrepency" by adding in sales without being asked (if you run with a network that does this then you know who I'm talking about) to them I say "I'm loading up your offers now!" and I'll bomb those offers 24/7 as I know I'll get paid. The group in question in this thread is about advertisers who don't pay networks for traffic sent. While Bubbles post was wrought with good intentions, that group might not have been the best location for it. So to that, I think creating a facebook group dedicated to outting networks that blatantly shave us is a solid idea. How can you tell if a network is shaving? Good question and while I won't offer up any suggestions in a public post, I do have methods that I can employ if I think I'm being fucked. If this group is formed I would STRONGLY caution anyone thinking about outting a network to have your ducks in a row. Have your proof ready to post and if you can't back it up in an open and public forum then it WILL look like you're full of shit and only crying about something to raise a stink. This is a touchy and tricky subject and if handled carelessly is an open door to law suits for slander per se. If you can't prove it then it's only speculation and you're better off bitching to your friends about it than stepping on your dick in public. While you might think that you can call someone out with impunity, you might find yourself blackballed really quickly and end up looking for a place to send your traffic. Make no mistake, networks talk about publishers openly. If you start shit best believe if it's total garbage you'll find your accounts closing and no one taking your calls. I've been watching this all go down across every group and forum involved and felt it time to put in my 2 cents. I don't like it any more than Bubbles or the next guy/gal, but there's a right way to handle it and a totally fucked way to handle it. If we have proof a network is shaving, I'm down for a wide spread boycott and open chastising of the network. If publishers leave en masse the network will feel a sharp pain and very possibly forced to change its way. But if it's only you crying about a few clicks here and there or a sale or two lost, you won't get any support from me or many others. /rant
Who peed in your Cheerios today? No need to be rude, Airin took a lot of time to post (what I thought) was meaningful insight given she was a pair of eyes behind the software and confirmed (for me it was the first time I've ever seen or heard someone actually ADMIT this fact) shaving - she needs to be given a pat on the back, not told her confession was long-winded.
I just saw the update to that shit. Those fags pushed it back to ASW now...better odds now on it NOT happening. :motz:
LOL. I don't have anything to confess cuz "homey don't play that!" I like to keep my karma good. But in all seriousness, it is a real feature. The best advice I can give is to split test. If you send the same creative/ from/ sub to segments of the same list and see a substantial variation in your eCPM, run your traffic with the network that makes you the most money. There are good networks out there that don't play games like this. I can see how it's easy for a network to play the payout game... Everyone else is paying $20, so I will pay $25 and just keep a few leads here and there to make up for it. That's bullshit and is just a shady business practice - it not only hurts the pubs but it also hurts the networks that are operating with integrity because they can't compete with a $25 payout when they are getting paid $24. I like to focus on building quality traffic streams so that I get the advertisers by the balls and they are like crackheads that can't get enough of the traffic I send... if my ROI is better than Network X, they can afford to pay me more, which I can then pass along to the publishers since they are the ones that make this possible. Another thing that *some* networks do is intentionally blend subpar (incentive, etc.) traffic with good traffic to increase their volume. Advertisers let them get away with this because the volume excites them and with the law of averages they can still make money. It ends up hurting the pubs with super high quality traffic the most because they don't get paid what their traffic is truly worth. I will be the 1st to say that advertisers LOVE email traffic. To prevent this I set up my system so incentive pubs can only see offers that allow incentive traffic. If I ever caught an AM doing anything like this, they would be gone in a sec. I would like to see things like the become standard practice in the industry. I am just batting 1000 today on pissing off my network *friends* but oh well... life goes on. If anyone has more specific questions about the way things work behind the scenes just PM me.
IMO - There is no reason to make any of this a crusade, any traffic no matter what it is or how it is generated is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If your in business to make money, then test, test, test and then test again - who ever wins gets your traffic simple as that. It doesn't matter if it is a cpa, cpc, cpv, or any other cool name some ones comes up with later, some where in the chain of events the advertiser is going to decide if it backs out for them and there position and pass it down to networks, and then to publishers. If you send a decent amount of traffic ask the network to assign you a dedicated tracking link, and approach the advertiser on your behalf for special treatment, based on your quality. Otherwise you will always be a victim to the over all success or failures of all affiliates that network has running that offer. Just my two cents, now back to my hole...
this definitely used to be the case where an ad network was a gateway to hide shitty traffic, it doesn't seem to me like this has worked for the past 3 or 4 years at least, as every advertiser knows the individual tracking link of each pub and is quick to shut traffic off or turn the scrub on for only one pub while allowing the others to carry on. you can test this yourself if the epc drops on a freebie offer, you can send the traffic through a new account your old epc will be back - as long as they didnt start scrubbing for the whole network that is
overall internetkings is completely right.. a lot of people say they only run ppc because cpa scrubs etc, but almost everyone simultaneously complains about adknowledge dropping their ppc rate in half or lower all the time. advertisers and networks pay exactly what the traffic is worth to them, the stated payout next to the offer is ultimately completely fake/madeup and means nothing regardless of what platform it is, because if the traffic isn't working for them, they'll just tweak it until it is, and if it's not working for you at that rate, then you'll just stop running it everyone thinks that people are shaving to get "even richer" but in reality they're probably either trying to break-even or get a 5-10% margin on the traffic depending on whether they use the data the offer generates or not a lot of advertisers run razor thin to break-even to slightly negative margins and try to make it up later in other ways
Shaving at it's finest!! Theres a difference however between lower a cpc and still giving partial credit to someone than taking 100% away of a valid sale they made. Do you see the difference?
