Will fraud kill affiliate marketing? It is up to you. You choose. But here’s a clue: the BP oil spill probably just killed the Louisiana wetlands. I think we should take that as a warning of just what can happen. The affiliate marketing industry is an ecosystem. It consists of a web of interdependent species: affiliates, merchants, networks, merchant processors, etc. … [Read more...]
The Survival Guide For Networks, Part II: the Empire fights back!
The recent discussion of the importance of brand to CPA network survival generated a fair amount of feedback. For an industry rooted in performance, where everything is measurable, the idea that product functions and features aren’t all important is a hard one to accept. But it’s true. Let’s look at exactly why that is. We’ll use Adam Viener’s post … [Read more...]
Affiliate Managers Who Aren't Idiots! More Survey Results
Give me “affiliate managers who aren't idiots,” was the demand of one publisher when we asked what they looked for when choosing a network, while another said, "what i care most about is that they don't shave or scrub my business. I've seen that happen way too often." The survey we recently carried out for the BLUE BOOK Top 20 ranking of … [Read more...]
Botnet of 13 Million Computers Smashed
On Wednesday Spanish authorities announced the arrest of three alleged ringleaders behind the Mariposa botnet. Mariposa is possibly the largest botnet yet discovered and consisted of an estimated 12.7 million computers. The extent of the virus-infection is staggering: more than 190 countries, over half of the Fortune 1,000 large enterprises and at least 40 major banks were … [Read more...]
Big Bucks, Bad Business: Who's Getting Google-Slapped and Why
Google is cracking down. Last month, Google filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Pacific WebWorks and several others as part of an effort to stop fraudulent “Google Money” schemes. These are scammy offers that use Google’s brand to attract unsuspecting customers and then trap them into hard-to-break continuity programs, often via negative option contracts. In a move … [Read more...]
The Great Divide
Over the last five years, almost all of the topics I’ve written about focus on some aspect of performance-based advertising. My fascination with the subject stems from a desire to understand the role performance-based ads play in the broader ecosystem for advertisers, merchants and affiliates.What I’ve come to believe is that the performance marketing world has two … [Read more...]
Affiliate Program Multiplicity
On various stages of their involvement with the affiliate marketing channel, merchants look in the direction of launching affiliate programs for the same products on multiple networks. The most common reasoning for this being that by so doing they will expand their affiliate reach, significantly improving chances of recruiting powerful affiliates across different networks.Such … [Read more...]
Crossing the Line
The roles played by each of the key parties in the affiliate marketing space are very clearly defined. Just like a well-oiled machine, each component has its job to do, each ensuring that the industry as a whole functions, if not in harmony, at least in synergy.Affiliates should drive value added traffic and consumers to a merchant's site.Networks are considered to be the … [Read more...]
Ringing IN and Hanging UP
In the old days, a telephone came in two designs and had one ring. With the rise in cell phones, the styles are endless and so are the types of rings you can make the phone chime. There are master tones, ringback tones, polytones, monotones and they all have a price. Users can download them over the Internet and program a ring to sound only when mom or that special someone … [Read more...]
Fair Play: Q & A with Kellie Stevens
Kellie Stevens is the president of AffiliateFair-Play.com, which is committed to providing a better understanding and interpretation of the behaviors that impact the affiliate marketing space. Stevens' goal is to create a fair and competitive marketplace, and she does this by focusing on the actual behaviors - not the technologies - leading to unfair competition and abuse in … [Read more...]
Out of Commission
How to Limit Commission Theft Find a trusted network and merchants. Ask other affiliates about their experiences with network partners, and if you are not being protected, take your business elsewhere. Likewise, if a merchant partner advertises via adware that is known to facilitate commission theft, you may be better off without them. Study your reports yourself for … [Read more...]
Marketing Muscle
Over the years stories about intimidation and goons knocking on the doors of various affiliates and search marketers have circulated at industry events. Some of these scary accounts have taken on a life of their own - much like a game of telephone where fact and fiction are often intertwined as the stories are told over and over again. The victims claim to have seen a variety … [Read more...]
Scrutiny on the Bounty
As every good bounty hunter knows, capturing your target requires exacting execution of a well-designed plan. But unlike intrepid fugitive hunters such as reality television star "Dog" Chapman, earning sizable rewards by corralling customers online doesn't require risking life or limb.Instead of offering commissions paid in nickels and dimes, bounty programs attract a growing … [Read more...]
Data Double Duty
Website publishers are up in arms about the potential threat posed by employees at companies, who have access to their crucial data that could be used to compete with them.Insiders have nicknamed the situation "Triple Jangro," after the catchy title of a blog post on Revenews.com by David Lewis, CEO of 77Blue. The title refers to ex-BeFree/Commission Junction product manager … [Read more...]
Danger: Clicking Ahead
Sometimes a click isn't really a click. Sometimes the person knocking on a website's door is really a wolf in shopper's clothing, perpetrating a fraud that wastes marketers' advertising dollars or steals commissions. Skip Pratt says his Web hosting company BAPort.com was being defrauded on 20 percent of its clicks. He was so frustrated by the problem that he developed a click … [Read more...]