Parasite Removal

[Moxy]

Hi guys. I'm an AM who just took on a "bare bones" affiliate program at my company a few months ago and I'm in the process of giving it a much needed facelift right now. Our market is a bit different from most others and because of the lower commission rates it provides, conversion rate is our key to driving sales. Our conversion is very high right now, and I'm looking to keep it that way. Enter my dillema: I have a few affiliates that seem like they might be trying to prey on our program by making tons of clicks from the same IP every month (Joke's on them because we're on a PPS program and only pay for sales ). Generally, I make it policy not to deactivate affiliates, so I'm hesitant to kick them out of our program, but they have TONS of clicks every month and not one lifetime recorded sale, which is driving down our conversion. Is there a way I can find out for sure that they're trying to cheat us, or are thousands of clicks from the same IP evidence enough? Thanks for the help!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Mike,

1st off these are probably not what we in the industry call parasites, parasites are something else and very serious. They are affiliates that steal sales from other affiliates and also from your other online marketing channels.

What you are experiencing could be a couple things. One thing I've had happen when I used to manage programs was very innocent. The affiliates had software designed to check their site for dead links. The software did what it was supposed to do and kept hitting links. The affiliates didn't even realize it caused a problem for the merchant.

One bad thing that could be happening is the affiliate is cookie stuffing. Every time their site loads, even though no one clicks a link it registers a click and plants a cookie or sometimes they autoload a new window or popunder with your site (bogus forced click). Cookie stuffing is unethical and should not be allowed.

There are other things that could be going on too. So you see it could be something innocent or malicious and you don't know how to tell it sounds. So what I would do is contact the affiliates and ask them how they are generating all those clicks. Tell them the clicks need to stop or you are deactivating them in X number of days. That way you at least give them a chance in case it's something innocent they can just turn off, like a link checker.

 

[Moxy]

Thanks a ton, Linda!