CPA Empire's Response Thread
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There are certain networks that will have a low EPC all the time. But many of the 1st/2nd tier networks will still have different epcs. I wish I could adequately explain why, but in all honesty, I can't.
Yes on the concept, but I would like to also say that not all small networks are 3rd/4th/5th tier.
Also I'll say that the upper tier networks form cliques amongst themselves. Networks they have agreements with, networks they're more likely to crosspublish offers with. Then certain other networks, not so much.
Without the smaller networks as extra choices, it would not be a big strech to say those cliques could easily get abusive in the future. The only way affiliates can really make their voices heard is by switching traffic over. The more prevalent these cliques become, the less significant our actions become.
I'm not so much worried about abuse now btw, as I am in the long haul.
^--this is big issue I'm not sure how to approach.
So our incentive to stick with 2-3 networks is that we can't trust those 2-3 networks to stfu if we change networks? Or are we not supposed to trust the smaller networks?
I agree with the concept; normally big campaigns of mine are going to be on one of a few networks I've come to trust over time.
But smaller networks shouldn't be underestimated.
There's a lot of semi-private ones, or ones that were mostly in-house then started to open up that have offers unlike what's on the main networks. Some of these even have offers where they are also the merchant.
On the other hand, there are indeed a lot that are just redundant crap.
Agreed 100%.
Wickedire's legal bills is a testament to what happens when we're specific.
But if we want to be specific: What criteria does true.com use to scrub it's offer?
It's obviously been a popular offer in the past(and probably still is), but there's no question scrub rates on it are high. There's never been any indicator of any criteria to tell us what they scrub, and there's never been any network that I'm aware of that has actually said what they do. It's an especially prevalent question for copeac itself, given how NoN/SoS work.
I wish it was that simple. But once again, I feel like everyone reacting to "bad habits" will leave a lot of innocent networks in the dust, stuck being responsible for crappy merchants they couldn't control. Every network has them. Spotting network abuse vs. merchant abuse is not exactly an easy feat.
I'm really thinking on how to solve this, but so far nothing seems workable. So many trust issues, too many parties would have to cooperate to make it end. I'd be willing to pursue a few possibilities if there's truly interest though.
Despite me admittedly giving him a bit of a hard time above, I can absolutely say you should. Shit happens with networks(no exceptions), but copeac is definitely handles their business exceptionally well.
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Agree that this is a huge issue. No pixel tracking is perfect and some networks will take advantage of this by either keeping the profit for themselves or boosting the CPA they can give affs.
Some networks add leads to your account on a daily basis and you won't be the wiser.
Other networks update pixel misfires less often, so when they update leads in your account it can be worth thousands of dollars to you. They usually inform you when this happens.
There are other factors to consider as well. Maybe the merchant isn't giving networks a proper log-in to see how many leads were actually generated. When this happens networks rarely get the true lead count. It's hilarious listening to conversations when they reconcile leads at the end of the week:
Advertiser: "How many leads do you show?"
Network: "Not so fast, how many leads do you show?"
Advertiser: "I'm not sure, my reporting isn't working right now"
Network: "Um, I have between 4000 and 5000 leads"
Advertiser: "Oh, it's working now. You have 2500 leads"
Network: (actually has 2000 in their system) "Yup, that looks right to me."
How do we solve this? Integration with Advertiser's databases might be one solution, but good luck getting everyone on board for that. Standards might come in handy here.
Mike has been around long enough to be an advocate for both affiliates and networks, so his advice is good. Get to know your network, learn to trust (but make the networks earn that trust first) and stick with the guys you know will treat you right in business, not just lap dances and weed.
Off topic, but anyway...
Sounds about right to me, I wish I could listen in to those calls. I've had "BONUS" leads credited to me by a network even a couple days later. It's better then the network keeping the leads, but come on, WTF guys?
I'm not even getting any lap dances or weed! sigh.
Its good to have an exchange of ideas,
Regarding pixel tracking there is a way to know what network will yield a higher return before you begin your campaign. IM or PM me and ill explain it maybe you can illustrate it to WF.
youll also understand my point as to why there needs to be a consolidation in the industry
Regarding cliques i think networks work together but are weary of one another. We know Network A is a competitor and we are all competing for the same affiliates.
Regarding advertisers scrubbing. Scrubbing is caused by the affiliates. Affiliate A is running good traffic to an offer, affiliate B gets on the offer and sends torrent traffic to it which is garbage. The advertiser goes, what the hell happened reduce our risk by making our criteria more stringent, for example email submits, if it looks like its not backing out they turn on their duduper which sees if they have that email already and they dont pay for it, most dedupers start at a month but when traffic gets bad they turn it up to 2-3 years. To the affilaites it looks like scrubbing but on their end its part of the rules, they dont pay for dupes.
The advertiser finds out its affiliate B and kicks him off, well affiliate B now gets the offer from Network B and starts the same process, eventually killing the offer for everyone again and again and again. Because theres are so many newbie affiliates and new networks the advertisers get frustrated and do the scrubbing on their end instead of going to a network who has it with another network who has it to another network who has the "affiliate"
Also regards to smaller companies let me say that you shoudl work with smaller guys, everyone was small at sone point. But know who you work with, their reputation, and the people running the company. But we dont need 400 networks and half of them have cross pub offers in their network and thats it.
Thsi thread went way off topic which is my fault. XMCP PM me and i can help make sense of why EPC vary from one network to the other.
This is the part that kills me:
So, I am supposed to be believe that Steve's team launched the campaign right after because they wanted to test out the offer's "baseline conversion rate". Out of my 3+ years of affiliate marketing; I've never heard of a network figuring out the conversation rate of an offer by running it on Adwords. It makes NO FUCKING SENSE. How the fuck can you judge how well an offer converts if your only running it on Adwords. That statement alone from Steven proves to me that he ran the campaign for his own good; not for the good of the affiliates.
Case closed.
So, I am supposed to be believe that Steve's team launched the campaign right after because they wanted to test out the offer's "baseline conversion rate". Out of my 3+ years of affiliate marketing; I've never heard of a network figuring out the conversation rate of an offer by running it on Adwords. It makes NO FUCKING SENSE. How the fuck can you judge how well an offer converts if your only running it on Adwords. That statement alone from Steven proves to me that he ran the campaign for his own good; not for the good of the affiliates.
Case closed.
I understand your point, but I just can’t agree with you at the moment! I liken internet marketing to the wild west: as a dedicated BH I can see what goes on and it’s virtually a lawless “country” at the moment! But, I think in the near future, trust will be an important issue but certainly not now!
In DT under Statistics/Reports->Modify Statistics->Remove Clicks or Leads you can limit clicks/leads but that's only processed before payments and bills are generated, therefore if you're "shaving" you're shaving yourself as well as your advertiser, the network doesn't gain anything.
So sure, you can mess with leads in DT but in most cases the network would only be screwing themselves. I think definitions are getting a little fuzzy too. Scrubbing is what the advertiser does to remove invalid clicks/leads/sales. Shaving is what a network could do to reduce commissions on valid clicks/leads/sales.
Cookie and javascript tracking isn't bulletproof. There's many ways DT tracking can break. There's many errors networks, advertisers, and affiliates can make that break tracking. There's audit mechanisms in both cases for major discrepancies but affiliates are going to lose a few leads when an image doesn't load due to network problems or a user blocks third party cookies. Maybe a lot of leads when affiliates are taking advantage of specific browser behavior. It's not shaving or scrubbing.
The bigger worry for most affiliates should be networks that abruptly change or limit payouts, caps, or campaign durations. You do business with those networks at your own risk. Affiliates should also worry if they're putting ppc into email-only offers or generating other noncompliant or shady traffic. Affiliates do so at their own risk. There's usually reasons (sometimes good) for such restrictions.
Screwing affiliates in any way is not a sustainable business model for a CPA network. To the contrary, most networks go out of their way to give affiliates the best service they can and give every incentive possible for affiliates to promote offers in as many ways as they can for as much money as the network can pay.
The problems are always overrepresented. Often affiliates with a grievance, legitimate or otherwise against a network are happy to complain far and wide. The majority of successful affiliates are quietly and happily promoting campaigns and getting paid.
He just showed you lazy fuck, and show some mutual respect to Mike who is taking the time to educate your ass.
Appreciate the fact a CEO of a network that is well liked on this forum and in the affiliate community takes the time to chime in to add his 2 cents now and then and is not taking the route of indifference.
Now go back popping out zits and finish your homework...
Look numbnuts, I am not part of your brainwash bandwagon. If you can't take the heat, put your diapers back on and jack-off to your cartoons.
If Mike comes on here, he needs to take the heat as well as the praise.
I can take it, no need to be soft on me.
We all have our own opinion, even if we disagree you're entitled to your opinion and allowed to voice it.
Excellent point. Answers a lot of questions affiliates have as to why network A converts better then network B and why email submits start out converting very highly then drop off after a couple days of traffic. From an affiliates pov it looks like the network is scrubbing, (in reality a network cannot scrub, at least on DT systems, only an advertiser can). From a networks pov, the entire network could be getting scrubbed by the advertiser.
For example network A is newer to the game then network B who has been around the block a couple times and has some proven converting traffic. The advertiser knows this and may automatically set the de-duper back a year to start on network A, (the new guy), while setting the de-duper back only a month for network B. So in a head to head comparison, it appears to the uneducated affiliate that network A is scrubbing, (it's not scrubbing from the network though, it's scrubbing by the advertiser). The advertiser is testing network A's traffic to see if it converts under tighter criteria. It, (the advertiser), already knows that network B has good traffic, so it doesn't have to be as tight with it's criteria, (ie how many days/months/years to set the de-duper back). So, what looks like one thing on the surface is actually the advertiser being more careful with newer networks or even networks how are know to send shitty traffic.
There is also a plus side to this for the smaller, newer networks. If they can get only quality affiliates and send only quality traffic, (avoiding the torrent traffic that larger networks have to deal with from scummy affiliates), then the smaller network will actually be scrubbed less in the long run. IF it can consistently provide only quality traffic to all advertisers. This may mean that a private or semi-private network would be best to use once they have "proven" themselves to the advertisers.
I can totally see the confusion in what is scrubbing, what is shaving and why the hell would any network risk their business to do it, but the facts need to be set straight here.
There is also a plus side to this for the smaller, newer networks. If they can get only quality affiliates and send only quality traffic, (avoiding the torrent traffic that larger networks have to deal with from scummy affiliates), then the smaller network will actually be scrubbed less in the long run. IF it can consistently provide only quality traffic to all advertisers. This may mean that a private or semi-private network would be best to use once they have "proven" themselves to the advertisers.
For all the guys who know where you came from/what you're doing this passage was like reading your mind.
Sounds like a good idea actually.
This whole thing only works if they have it direct and not cross published.
Cross published the network affiliate ID passes as the normal aff id, and the actual affiliate id as one subid if I remember correctly. So the merchant turning up a scrub on a parent network turns up the scrub on all associated networks.
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