Dealing with Dodgy Merchants & Affliate Networks

I’ve been following a thread on Wickedfire closely over the past few days that talks about dodgy affiliate networks. I realised that I’d never really covered this topic in any detail on the blog, so here’s my spin on it all.

Dodgy Merchants

It’s inevitable that if you’re trying out hundreds of merchants every month you’ll eventually run into a few dodgy ones. It’s easy to think that everyone in this industry is nice & “looking out for one another” but if you think that then you need a serious reality check.

You’ve got three types of merchants

1. Those that manage their affiliate program in house with a dedicated team
2. Those that outsource the management to a network but still approve the leads/purchases themselves
3. Those that manage the program by themselves (1 man show)

Speaking from experience I’ve had trouble from all three types. But, most of the time it’s from numbers 2 & 3.

So what are the ways that merchants can cheat you out of your well fought after commissions?

Scrubbing Leads - This is unfortunately very common in our industry (especially in the adult space). It happens at the merchant level & at the Network level. This basically means that the merchant or network won’t credit a certain number of your leads, pocketing the profit for themselves & you won’t even know it’s going on.

How to combat - There’s only one real way to combat this & that’s to generate your leads locally, or get friends to generate leads for you & catch the merchant red handed. Bottom line is, if you suspect your merchant is doing this move on….quickly.

Lead Lag - This is quite common in the financial sector & relates to the processing time of applications for loans or credit cards. Make sure that the merchant is regularly approving or declining the leads that you’re sending through.

How to combat - A quick email to your AM or their manager will usually get the ball rolling on this issue. If the leads lag too long just switch merchants & save yourself the headache, their loss.

High Refund Rates - I’ve come across a number of merchants in my time that have a very high refund rate. This is one to be very wary of, especially in the financial space. If it’s your job to provide someone with a “lead” then the merchant should not be entitled to refund it for a failed application, but some merchants just don’t get what the meaning of a lead really is.

How to combat - There’s no way around this, if there’s a high refund rate then call the merchant & ask for an explanation. If it’s not worthing pursing then just move on.

Test Orders - I also get these ones from time to time, it’s possible that the occasional one or two is fine but any more than that & you should start to get worried. Why on earth are you testing so many orders under my affiliate ID, don’t you have a test ID?

How to combat - Ask the question above.

Bidding on their own Brand with an Affiliate Tracking ID - This is one of the ones that pisses me off the most. I can do all the work & presell to the customer but if they decide to go away, think about it & then come back through typing the brand into Google the merchants Cookie will overwrite mine. This is extremely common & is something that I check for before starting any campaign.

How to combat - If you can, outbid the merchant on their own brand & test how many other affiliates they’re ripping off

Non Payment - Perhaps the worst thing is not getting paid for all of your effort & hard work. Remember from time to time merchants can be late with payments or perhaps forget, but there’s a difference between a late payment & not getting one…ever.

How to combat - Email your account manager or affiliate representative first, if there’s no response then try again. If you’re talking to a brick wall then get in touch with a lawyer, they’ll write you up a letter that may provoke a response. Remember to try & research potential merchants as much as possible before you put any serious volume through them & ALWAYS have a backup incase things go belly up.

Dodgy Affiliate Networks

Running In House Campaigns - If you were an affiliate manager who was paid on the performance of their affiliates & you had access to “what was working” would you run your own campaigns? Well, there’s plenty of AM’s out there that do this & you have to cover your tracks to not give away any secrets.

Keeping your campaigns secret not only protect your profits, but they also protect your niche. Ever been bidding on a keyword with 0 competition then almost overnight you’re up again 1 or 2 competitors?

How to Combat -

Use Redirects: PHP redirects generally pass the referrer string right through so you’ll want to use a redirect that doesn’t. Meta Redirects or Javascript redirects normally do this pretty well (remember that some people do turn Javascript off). When I want to keep stuff really hidden I’ll use double redirects to prevent the AM from back tracing the redirect or seeing the real redirect as a referrer.

Encode your SubID’s: If you rely heavily on Sub ID’s don’t go naming them stuff like subid=affiliate_marketing_blog, you may as well give away your top converting keyword list on a plate. It should look something like subid=9954412, if you don’t know how to code then simply put the real subid value in a spreadsheet. If you’re a dab hand at PHP you could create a simple tracking script of your own that will identify the subid with the real search term in your stats.

Stand your Ground: Don’t let the network bully you into revealing your traffic sources once you start killing it with your campaign. If the traffic stands up on the merchants end then they network have nothing to worry about (except you not giving your campaigns away ;)) Bottom line is that they won’t risk losing you if you’re sending a decent amount of leads.

These are just my experiences over the years, I’ve learnt to become much more secretive about how I do things (especially when it’s PPC). I’d love to hear your experiences & what measures you take to protect your IP. Please don’t name any networks in the comments.