Anyone sick of scrubs? We are.

[guysmy]

Resveratrol is also a legitimate product that probably does help extend your life.

traditional capsules cannot preserve resveratrol very well because they fail to provide an air tight environment like a bottle of red wine. oxygen makes the supplement less and less effective, the longer it sits on the shelf.

to stay active, resveratrol is stored in a nitrogen environment and refrigerated in the lab. the best way to preserve it for consumers is by using licaps. these high-tech capsules seal the resveratrol in nitrogen. the vast majority of products out there don't use licaps, as they must be pricey.

Resveratrol ~ Is Red Wine a Youth Potion?
Capsugel Announces Biggest Licaps® Liquid Capsules As Powerful Alternatives To Softgels :: News :: Natural and Nutritional Products Industry Center

these are a few things i've learned after rearching the subject. most of the health products out there are no better than what we sling.

people seem to want something "life changing" for next to nothing (thus the rebills). so manufacturers are forced to pump out the little tykes version of everything for the masses.

Care to give up the health related niche your in?

now you know.

 

[conv3rsion]

It's not about the "quality" of the leads, it's the fact that most rebill products in the cpa market are total dogshit when it comes to actual value.

this

if you are producing quality leads in any vertical, you should be able to find someone who is willing to buy those at a fair price, and everyone wins. If you are good at it, you should be better than the advertiser is, even with their built in pricing advantage, so you yourself should be effectively creating value which you can sell.

If the CPA products are complete bullshit, do you really think the advertiser is going to treat affiliates any different than its customers? An advertiser can make MORE money producing a satisfactory product because month after month it no longer needs to pay for a lead on that same customer. Thats why it works for netflix, people generally like it.

A few days ago I cleaned up my tracking system to remove old offers I had tried over the last 3-4 months. More than half of those offers are now gone. Talk about a short fucking shelf life.

 

[conv3rsion]

I invite everyone to do their homework into the advertiser they're promoting and really understand the companies they're working with. This goes back to my idea of trying to get as much information into affiliates hands as possible.

That alone would be freaking wonderful. We get next to nothing to use to actually talk about many of these offers. I'm sure not putting my credit card into a bizopp to find out (not to mention that the actual offer itself will change whenever a cap is hit).

A lot of affiliates are going to use fake testimonials to talk about products they have no actual information on, eventually thats going to result in the wrong people getting more involved in things.

 

[conv3rsion]

How about an offer info file containing more information on the advertiser and offer, the advertiser's preferred demographics for what it considers quality leads, and what the customer will actually get in whatever they are signing up for. You could even get CRAZY and make it an editable wiki, so the advertiser could add more information as it sees fit.

 

[cardine]

That would actually be really cool.

Also, if my leads are shitty quality I would like my AM to tell me that and discuss what can be done to improve lead quality (and if nothing can be done, then I can be asked not to promote that offer). I'd rather have that conversation and know what is wrong with my lead quality. Currently you get scrubbed and you are left wondering if the advertiser is greedy, or if there is something wrong with the quality of the leads you are delivering.

 

[conv3rsion]

Here's another idea. Change the CPA prices to reflect lifetime customer value instead of a single payout. Offer a lower initial CPA (maybe less then half current prices) but continue paying the network as long as the customer stays on. Also actually makes decent products. More shared risk + greater transparency makes everyone win bigger and longer.

 

[smaxor]

That would actually be really cool.

Also, if my leads are shitty quality I would like my AM to tell me that and discuss what can be done to improve lead quality (and if nothing can be done, then I can be asked not to promote that offer). I'd rather have that conversation and know what is wrong with my lead quality. Currently you get scrubbed and you are left wondering if the advertiser is greedy, or if there is something wrong with the quality of the leads you are delivering.

If you work with us you're more then willing to aim me, smaxblog. I'm always happy to share with you the state of affairs with our advertisers. Get numbers for you traffic, see if it rebills well etc. This is all standard stuff for us. I think c2m would do this for you as well if you asked. And really any good network should be able to get you your conversion data from the advertiser.

 

[smaxor]

Here's another idea. Change the CPA prices to reflect lifetime customer value instead of a single payout. Offer a lower initial CPA (maybe less then half current prices) but continue paying the network as long as the customer stays on. Also actually makes decent products. More shared risk + greater transparency makes everyone win bigger and longer.

This has been thought about and tried. Here's the challenge. If you're bidding against a guy that's getting a big lump some up front he's going to be able to cash flow and pay more for the traffic. If you get a lower up front you're going to run out of money waiting for you rebills. Especially for smaller pubs. I think it's a great idea but in practicality it's flawed.

 

[smaxor]

How about an offer info file containing more information on the advertiser and offer, the advertiser's preferred demographics for what it considers quality leads, and what the customer will actually get in whatever they are signing up for. You could even get CRAZY and make it an editable wiki, so the advertiser could add more information as it sees fit.

The thing about most advertisers is they don't want to deal with affiliates. Affiliate marketing is just marketing channel of their businesses. They leave dealing with the affiliate to the networks. Same as they do with outbound calling for call centers and catalog companies for direct mail. Another issue is I think you'll find most networks don't want to give up the advertiser info as they see it as a competitive advantage.

Just trying to hit on the practicalities of all this.

 

[haspen_1]

I have to say...what do you expect? You seem to be promoting rebills. If the customer who signs up cancels, the adverstiser doesn't get paid so why should you? Send better traffic that STICKS and won't cancel then maybe your offers won't be "scrubbed" as much.

By now you should know that a percentage of all conversions will come back as "cancels/refunds" and you should be able to anticipate that. Common sense for most business people.

As for the different conversion rates...yeah some days you get 20 clicks and 5 conversions then other days you get 500 clicks and nothing. If only we knew how to predict what to do to get consistent conversion levels! As long as the actual rate is fairly steady over longer periods of time I think it is acceptable.

your an idiot. get out

 

[MaxSteve]

The fact is that we don't have the data/phone numbers to tell 100% if they're shaving leads. The networks DO have the data, and DO have the phone numbers, and do jack shit. I'm pissed off and tired of it.

Actually, networks do NOT have the advertiser's lead data. Privacy issues aside, merchants paid money for those leads and like keeping their own data to themselves. Similar to how affiliates want to keep their keywords, landing pages to themselves and don't want to share.

Since we don't have this data, we are not able to verify that a merchant is correctly reporting every single lead. Nor will we ever have this ability. Merchants that are honest, open and willing to share all their data for this purpose will not be shaving in the first place. Merchants that are scumbags and do shave will simply leave out the data that they shaved, making it look like they don't shave at all.

 

[MaxSteve]

One other thought I have on the topic, and I think I might take flak for it, is that I really don't believe shaving will ever be eliminated. Ever. Regardless of how many threads are started to out advertisers, regardless of any advertiser accreditation programs that might be put in place, regardless of how much proof is provided, there will always be shaving.

Why? Because those who choose to profit via unethical methods are either unable to make a profit ethically, or are unwilling to do so. They will not be convinced that what they are doing is wrong. If they're suspected as shavers, they'll simply do more to mask their actions. If they're proven as shavers, they'll simply change their company/product names and start right over.

Make no mistake, I'd love to see shaving end completely. Shaving takes money out of my pocket, after all. I only get paid for a lead when a publisher is paid for a lead. I'd also love to see the end of fraudulent publishers. Or even shoplifters for that matter. But I'm realistic. It just isn't going to happen. There will always be people who cheat.

So while it's right (and I'd even say therapeutic) to out advertisers who shave, in the grand scheme of things it won't make much difference.

EDIT: I want to make it clear that while I do not think shaving will end, I have no tolerance for it. Anyone who has worked with me knows my strong position on the need for ethical business practices in this industry.

 

[TVensor]

 

[tacoX]

Advertisers almost always scrub - it seems like it's part of the game. They use HitPath software (the same software A4D uses) so they can easily adjust scrubs and such on a offer-wide level, and an affiliate level. It gets really obnoxious, but it's really something we have to deal with.

New advertisers always seem to come around and offer a less scrubby version - it keeps affiliates and networks on their feet for the next trustworthy advertiser. It's part of the paper chase if you ask me...

 

[DreamMachine]

Advertisers almost always scrub - it seems like it's part of the game. They use HitPath software (the same software A4D uses) so they can easily adjust scrubs and such on a offer-wide level, and an affiliate level. It gets really obnoxious, but it's really something we have to deal with.

It's childish namecalling like this that makes me never want to run traffic to EWA.

 

[fatmoocow]

Here's a question for all of you. How many of you claiming what you run isn't a scam have actually purchased all the products you are advertising? If you're selling acai berries do you subscribe to the acai berry $60 monthly program? Would you even consider subscribing?

This is like saying "I love to work on cars, I guess I'll open a flower shop." We aren't fat housewives. The scam of the month program is a huge pain in the ass. It's a product that you know little about, wouldn't buy, and won't last. It only lasts for a month, and every other retard out there is also pushing it.

Traffic is basically free right now. There's an unlimited number of people in any demographic. Let's say you love soccer for example. How much easier is it to write content about soccer? How much more interesting and genuine is that content. This seams like a really obscure product compared to forex and acai berries, but realy it's the opposite. 18+ million people play soccer in the united states alone. You could sell nothing but soccer balls on fucking twitter and make a living and at the end of the day people will thank you.

The AF market doesn't need better PR it needs exactly what it is getting. If you're a douche selling bullshit products or britney spears not actually sucking cock then you need to get banned from every advertising outlet. Then the customers don't have to sift through the garbage to find what they want and they'll have more money to spend on products with real value.

The reason google and everyone else is dumping AF is because their customer experience = money. It doesn't take a room full of overpaid PHDs to figure that out. We should be on the same page with them. Every problem you run into in AF, from scrubbing to getting your ads approved on facebook, is simply because too many people don't think about their customer experience.

 

[mkrongel]

You guys cause the scrubbing yourself by talking about it on a public forum. Most of these direct response marketers involved in the free trial plus S/H model know nothing about shaving/scrubbing etc...

What all of you are experiencing is credit card processing issues. That is it. Say Wachovia decides on Friday they dont like Acai companies anymore, and all of a sudden a customer of Wachovia decides to buy Acai and Wachovia goes, for your own good we are blocking this charge, there is one less conversion and what you think is scrubbing.

Most of these advertisers do not have access to their thank you pages due to PCI compliance so they cant remove or mess with the tracking pixel.

When an offer tanks move on to an different advertiser, chances are their MID's are havng issues, not that they are scrubbing.

And not for nothing i think smaxor and I may be the only two on this forum who understand this model inside and out from an advertiser perspective, a network perspective and an affiliate perspective.

Its not scrubbing by the advertiser but scrubbing by the credit card companies.

 

[MadHatter]

I hate all forms of scrubs....Even the show sucks too!

 

[TLott]

If (some) of the advertisers started offering higher quality products and made it easier for folks to cancel, there would be a lower incidence of chargebacks and they wouldn't have to switch to their backup international merchant accounts as frequently resulting in fucked conversions for us.

I have talked to so many people who have had a hell of a time canceling some of these rebills and have had to chargeback. Nobody wants to deal with that shit. They just want to cancel their order. Chargebacks waste everyones time. I believe the better advertisers with real call centers that can handle the volume (and have cancellation policies favoring the consumer) are going to perform better over the long run.

Chargebacks certainly aren't everything behind unstable conversions, but they have to account for a sizable chunk of the problems.

 

[MadHatter]

Great point. I could not agree with you anymore!!

Chargebacks are a damn hassle for everyone, especially the customer. Some advertisers definitely make it easier for clients to cancel their orders but what they do not realize is that chargebacks can give you a bad reputation with your credit card company. The more chargebacks the less likely they are to trust you in the future.

But some companies make it tough for clients to cancel their orders or receive the gaurantee that was promised and are left with no other choice.
It causes so much grief and is time well wasted for everyone.

Unforunately, there are many illegitamte call centers making this issue a pressing matter.

If (some) of the advertisers started offering higher quality products and made it easier for folks to cancel, there would be a lower incidence of chargebacks and they wouldn't have to switch to their backup international merchant accounts as frequently resulting in fucked conversions for us.

I have talked to so many people who have had a hell of a time canceling some of these rebills and have had to chargeback. Nobody wants to deal with that shit. They just want to cancel their order. Chargebacks waste everyones time. I believe the better advertisers with real call centers that can handle the volume (and have cancellation policies favoring the consumer) are going to perform better over the long run.

Chargebacks certainly aren't everything behind unstable conversions, but they have to account for a sizable chunk of the problems.