Shady as F#@!

We all know how shady affiliates can be…cloaking, spamming, flogs, etc. But what about CPA networks? Yeah we know about the shaving/scrubbing.. blah, blah…how else do affiliates and advertisers get screwed by CPA networks?

Networks are middlemen between the advertiser and affiliate. As a result, their goal is to get as much volume as possible. Often, this is at the expense of the advertiser, the affiliate, or both. I didn't know a lot about this until I met people working on both sides and saw the big picture.  Now I see how they can afford the big parties.

CPA networks have ‘compliance' departments. The stated goal of these departments is to keep affiliates in line with the networks rules, the FTC's guidelines, and the advertisers rules or requests (no trademark bidding, etc). If you think about it, though, they really don't have much incentive to monitor compliance all that closely.

Here's an example:

An advertiser has a problem with the way an affiliate is promoting their offer.  They have bits and pieces to demonstrate that the affiliate wasn't in full compliance, but the network claims it's not enough to reverse the leads.  All the same, they remove the affiliate from the offer because they know the advertiser isn't going to stand for it any longer.

Cut to a week or so later when the advertiser gets contacted directly by the very same affiliate. The affiliate is wondering why all his leads got charged back. The advertiser is confused and doesn't remember this happening. It turns out the CPA network had charged back the leads but did not credit the advertiser back.  The network says it's all BS, and that they had already paid the affiliate.  Who's telling the truth here?

Now let's talk about host and post. This cautionary tale is more for advertisers who put offers on CPA networks, but affiliates might be surprised to know how this works in some cases. A host and post offer means the affiliate or the network hosts the offer and collects the data that gets submitted (leads, etc.). The networks generally present this to advertisers as a way to do multi-variate split testing on the fly to maximize conversions.

This can be great, but what is the downside? Essentially, when the CPA network gets this data they can do whatever they want with it (unless explicitly stated otherwise by the advertiser in their agreement). So what do networks do with this data? They use it to promote offers of course! Some CPA networks run huge internal operations using this data. If you own a car insurance offer and allow the CPA network you use to host and post it, they can even use that data to fill out your competitor's offers. Yep…your competitors can be getting the exact same leads as you.  I'm sure you can guess what this does to the value of the leads the advertiser has just paid for…and the payouts they can afford to give affiliates…

And what about fraudulent affiliates?  I know it's not cool for affiliates to “out” other affiliates, but have you ever stopped to think about what shady affiliates are doing to your payouts?  I don't mean the weekend floggers or guys who fill out a test lead whenever they're at a free wifi hotspot – I'm talking about the massive 3rd-world networks that make purchases with stolen credit cards or auto-generate thousands of leads with fake data.  These guys are a major thorn in the side of advertisers, and the networks aren't always doing everything in their power to stop it.

Take, for example, a case I recently heard about.  An offer was getting slammed with phony leads and they had documented evidence.  They passed it on to one network, and the network kicked the affiliate off the offer.  Sounds good, right?  On the contrary – an ethical network would have banned the affiliate and made the information available to the networks that run their offers under affiliate accounts there…this particular network did no such thing.  The affiliate was still totally free to run offers on the network – even the very same offer, once they found another network's affiliate ID to run it through.  Nice to know the networks are doing their part to preserve value to the advertisers and keep the payouts high…

Keep in mind – these are limited cases.  Not every network is guilty of these sins, but they definitely do happen.