does shaving stats still happen in this industry

[Leatherman]

I talked to an industry veteran the other day and she said sponsors would show less hits when they were paying affiliates for traffic and even add refunded joins to reduce the number of sales they got paid on, is this still happening today.

[TheButcher]

I don't think it is as common as it used to be but 25 years ago nearly every traffic buyer (broker) was shaving stats, and programs were screwing over affiliates with refunded and charge back numbers. It was so common that programs would have on their home page text to the effect of.

"We do not shave"
"We report real stats."

[tacnet]

Unfortunately I still hear of cases of this going on

As a program owner, I never understand it though. Whilst you might make a few extra bucks in the short term, in the long run you are just going to drive your affiliates away

Our policy has always been to ensure our affiliates make MORE money with us than they do ANY other program. That includes not only maximising conversions, but also driving up the rebills by updating our network over 200 times a month ! That way affiliates are more likely to send their traffic to us rather than anywhere else

Program owners need to understand that they are in competition with all the other sponsors out there. You affiliates have a choice who you promote and I dare say that you will promote the sites that make you the most money

[TheButcher]

Unfortunately I still hear of cases of this going on

As a program owner, I never understand it though. Whilst you might make a few extra bucks in the short term, in the long run you are just going to drive your affiliates away

Our policy has always been to ensure our affiliates make MORE money with us than they do ANY other program. That includes not only maximising conversions, but also driving up the rebills by updating our network over 200 times a month ! That way affiliates are more likely to send their traffic to us rather than anywhere else

Program owners need to understand that they are in competition with all the other sponsors out there. You affiliates have a choice who you promote and I dare say that you will promote the sites that make you the most money

It is so short sighted I find it hard to believe, you have an affiliate who is sending the only thing you want from your affiliate, sales, why discourage them and have them look elsewhere to make sales when they are already producing income for you. mar DeForest who ran Adultrevenueservice in the late 1990's would send out laptops, dvd players, gifts to his top producing affiliates. You reward your best affiliates not take a piece of their pie form them. Might explain why he made a shit load of money and got out went on to be a hugely successful player in non-adult.


A lot of serious programs did gifts back then, some even used to add a sale or 2 when they saw an affiliate start out send them good sales. I know a few players who did this, I used to call it "reverse shaving" and it is a great marketing ploy. Think about it affiliate joins program, affiliate sends good sales ratios, you throw in the odd extra sale, big deal it coast you $20 his ratios get even better, he starts pushing your affiliate link to get more sales and to get affiliates under him, cheapest advertising you can have for a few pennies.

There are more ways to skin an affiliate than shaving his income

I know one guy who did this for a number of programs and made a lot of money for it.

I rest my case.

[tacnet]

It is so short sighted I find it hard to believe, you have an affiliate who is sending the only thing you want from your affiliate, sales, why discourage them and have them look elsewhere to make sales when they are already producing income for you. mar DeForest who ran Adultrevenueservice in the late 1990's would send out laptops, dvd players, gifts to his top producing affiliates. You reward your best affiliates not take a piece of their pie form them. Might explain why he made a shit load of money and got out went on to be a hugely successful player in non-adult.

Yeah we used to do something similar. Every month we would give away an Ipad or laptop or something similar.

But we didn't just give it to the top affiliate each month. If you do that, after a week or so only the top 2 or 3 affiliates are motivated to fight it out whereas everybody else realises they have no chance and gives up. So instead we had each signup got you a raffle ticket and at the end of the month we would randomly pick a ticket to win the prize. That way, even if you only made one sale with us you still had a chance of winning so EVERYBODY was motivated

[Abby]

Think about it affiliate joins program, affiliate sends good sales ratios, you throw in the odd extra sale, big deal it coast you $20 his ratios get even better, he starts pushing your affiliate link to get more sales and to get affiliates under him, cheapest advertising you can have for a few pennies.

Huh I would never have thought of that one

[jag]

I don't think it is as common as it used to be but 25 years ago nearly every traffic buyer (broker) was shaving stats, and programs were screwing over affiliates with refunded and charge back numbers. It was so common that programs would have on their home page text to the effect of.

"We do not shave"
"We report real stats."

Those were the good old days

[fetishnews]

I have seen both in my time, they play with the cookie duration and that changes everything.

[koster]

Affiliates can cheat so too can sponsors I suppose.

[cimage]

Third party processor will not play these games,you need your own billing to do this.

[BOB777]

If it was my program then why even waste time play these games.

[tacnet]

If it was my program then why even waste time play these games.

Exactly. If your desperate enough to start shaving stats then your obviously not making any money

It CAN happen the other way round too. ie Affiliates cheating sponsors. A few years back we had a couple of affiliates sign up and in their first month, they put through something like 30 signups EACH

We paid them their commission but then over the next few weeks, every single signup was charged back as fraud. Of course by that time the affiliate had closed their account and dissappeared with the money. I think we lost around $600 that time

[gspotman]

Third party processor will not play these games,you need your own billing to do this.

Seems a logical idea

[misterporn]

lf you have proof post it that is the right thing to do

[webcamhostess]

lf you have proof post it that is the right thing to do

How I would handle it