Fact: every single program shaves
 

this applies more for revshare programs, as i do understand that pps programs have no choice but shave if they are to offer high payouts...

redirecting foreign traffic is shaving
doing cross-sales is shaving
doing up-sells is shaving
cookie expiration is shaving

shaving is shaving

i'm sure i forgot something, feel free to ad to the list

my point is that outright click or sales shaving probably represents a much lower lost revenue amount than the other issues listed, cause a program can only shave so much before nobody will promote it cause its not profitable.

for all the bitching though, i doubt that there is a single revshare program out there that does NONE of the above.

i thought of that before also...

AFF popups on index pages piss me off.

not much you can do about cookie expiration - they gotta expire sometime.
Thing is, they expire way after the guy has changed computer.

DB storing users has it's faults also.
So not one kill-all situation for preventing a user dropping off the affiliates paycheck - it's not intentional. Shaving is intentional.

now the idiots don't even bother hiding their stupidity.

Upsells isn't shaving since no statistics have ever come close to proving that they hurt retention. Actually the stats have shown to be the other way since more loyalty is built if the upsell product isn't trash.

Bitching about upsells is like me bitching that you cross promoting on my review.


And to add to the convo :) Taken from my blog on Sponsor Errors Losing You Money.

* Incorrectly coded or broken a href links on warning pages, tours, and join pages.
* Large amounts of 404 errors. No affiliate ID through the 404 errors.
* 404 pages overwrite the affiliate ID, they have popups/exits, and offers to other affiliate program websites.
* Websites with standalone member login pages: Only a few pass the affiliate ID to the login pages from the tours. Less than a few pass the affiliate ID to the login error page.
* Login Errors (401 error): Most error pages offer a cross-site promo. Half had promos to other affiliate programs. Almost all reset the affiliate ID even if one is present in the cookies.
* Tours and more often the sign up forms, which provide a link back to the main tour page did not pass the affiliate ID back through to the tour, correctly.
* HALF the programs tested reset the affiliate IDs on the warning pages.
* Overly strong exit chains on tour pages, sub tour pages, and join forms.
* Links to sex shops, dvd stores, and a mixture of other upsells directly on the tours or featured links (such as blogs and diary’s) which do not pass the affiliate ID through.
* Outbound links to other paysites within the same site network and other affiliate program sites, hard linked through keywords. On the tours and the warning pages. These often do not pass the affiliate ID through even if one is present.
* Hosted galleries: A large mixture of 404 errors, broken – non-working affiliate ID links. A large amount of incorrectly coded galleries that produced some links to have an improper affiliate IDs. Incorrectly linked paysite tours or simply linking to the wrong paysite. Bonus or extra sites don’t have affiliate IDs. No title, description, keywords, body text, no alt tags, all graphic galleries, no 2257 statements, or non-working or found CSS files.
* Bookmark links on tours and galleries that don’t contain the affiliate ID.
* Join form errors: No open or close of the form tags, improperly coded or missing form options. Incorrect posts to the processor or cascade software creating errors.
* Some tours do not work or pass the affiliate ID through if JavaScript is OFF!
* Tours with bad/error warning popups from improper language settings, expired or missing SSL Certs, and some other stuff I didn’t click on.
* Some affiliate programs provide improper coded linking codes within the affiliate program. These codes did not pass the affiliate ID through at all.
* I have seen MANY Free Sites / TGP’s, ect which incorrectly wrote or placed the affiliate ID within the HTML. Creating fresh traffic to the affiliate program that doesn’t contain an affiliate ID.

nice one... its the second really good post i notice on your blog... will head there more often :)

Hey Thanks Rabbit.. Glad to know that you are a reader of my Blog, thanks again! :thumbsup

You guys should see mainstream, its much worse. Adsense ads on landing pages, popups onload for email collection, phone numbers for credit card ordering is the first method of payment, etc...
WG

Oh I agree.. I heard over and over it was easier in mainstream but I honestly found it to be 100 times more screwed up due to the lack of knowledge from the program owners.

What got me most was, they want me to build the tools to promote them. Banners, ads, all of it. I just laughed and went and found the next company that had tools, which was oddly hard.

teach me o wise one... on how to burn bridges with people you're not doing business yet

Totally. They expect you to use links and banners that you make yourself, lol. And when I finally took the initiative to do that, I got my affiliate funds for one advertiser seized for making the ads too explicit. It was a landing page of girls for a freaking dating site that had nothing racier than cleavage.

I swear mainstream people are complete idiots and don't know the concept of affiliate programs.
WG

Great way to not get yourself listed on one of the largest review sites on the net :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Porn industry influencing your marketing decisions, eh! :)

hahahaha, not to burst your bubble or anything but any bridge I choose to burn has been carefully valued before hand.

If you actually believe what you've written, I certainly have no use for your business sense.

Gee, I'm sorry Bryan. I guess you agree that your program shaves, eh?

I take offense to that kind of talk. I never realized you guys shaved and were proud of it.

Traffic leaks off of tour pages

Where did I say we shave??? We dont,
I said being a smart ass is a great way of not getting yourself on an excellent review site that sends me lots of sales :thumbsup

I'd say read the T&Cs before sending traffic... anything that is disclosed ahead of time as a practice would not qualify as shaving. Affiliates need to pay more attention to what they agree to in the first place.

I'm not saying there isn't shaving out there, because we all know there is, but to call something shaving when it's been disclosed before the first hit is sent is a bit of a misnomer.

I agree, mainstream programs are way too uptight. They seem to want affiliate traffic, but only if the affiliates use very specific promotional techniques. Some adult programs are the same way, but in general, I've noticed adult affiliate programs are more lenient and open minded.

i just made a whopping $1.26 with amazon on a $26.00 sale.

Viva La Mainstream ! :thumbsup

haha, thanks for the advice, sales rep. it will be useful as I climb the affiliate rep ladder.:1orglaugh

Its not like it was a Christian site and these ads were more or less to the same caliber of ads they buy on myspace/facebook themselves. In my opinion, they just wanted out of their $1500 bill.
WG

No prob anytime :thumbsup

Not the best guy to insult around here. :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

not really... i'd do business with anyone that will make me money... but im baffled as to how name calling would benefit anyone, unless you're pimpdog and thats your whole strategy :)

Holy fuck 12clicks, do yourself a favour and pay yourself to stay away from here.. You lose more business by coming here than you gain, by far.

Rabbit, do you do anything when you see any of these things happening? I think it happens a lot more than we think, especially amateur promoting their one other site and stuff..

I wouldn't call the above listed techniques for monetizing affiliate sales, "shaving." Those techniques are part of the standard model for adult affiliate programs.

What really pisses me off are the affiliate programs which selectively shave certain affiliates and the sales they send, on a case by case basis. There are plenty of them out there.

you statement that everyone shaves is idiocy. as are your thoughts on upsells, crosssells, and higher payouts.
I question your business sense and thought process to post this crap.

Those of us who own programs know better. the truth may hurt but its no less true because of it.

Mainstream companies just have bigger beauracracies behind them. I was in the same boat with a semi-major company and promoting them. They had a division of the company that apparently has nothing better to do than complain about the shade of maroon used in their logo or the amount of whitespace in between the letters of their name.

I don't think it's that they are idiots, just new to online. They're used to offline marketing and the hoops you have to jump through. They don't understand that online is much more independent.

I can see where 12clicks is coming from.. Rabbit did come out and call some revshare programs shavers.. in theory at least..

He acually did call me a shaver, I do xsales and I do upsells, yet I'm in the top 15 for his programs. So even his own logic is flawed when one of his top performing revshare programs does exactly what he says is shaving.

I do agree that revshare programs redirecting traffic is a level of shaving if it isn't stated on the Terms. And some programs purposely set cookies to expire early, which does take a very small percentage away from the Webmaster.

Either way, 12clicks point is very valid and an understandable view point, not that I agree with his method of attacking it.

hahaha, sure kid.

let me give you a bit of advice in return. no matter how many years you put in as an affiliate, you never know 1/10 of what a program owner knows.
That would include business gained or losst from a chat board.
:thumbsup

you're missing the forest for the tree. im making a point here. and obviosly i wouldnt expect any other bias from somebody that runs a program

fact: every single program shaves


I got your point. You called all of your present and future employers thieves.
I take exception to that.

That title will get way more views :)

What about when an affiliate uses sponsor content to generate SE traffic, and then that SE traffic is sent to another more profitable sponsor? What's that called?

no no, thats just smart business. You know the affiliate can do no wrong. :winkwink:

only the program owners.

Oh god, if we could start a thread on the screwed up things Webmasters do to Affiliate Programs.. It would be a monster. If programs participated it would easily be the largest thread in gfy history.

Webmasters bitching about programs only need to look in the mirror.

Chances are it was the text and links that was used to generate the SE traffic, not the images/videos.
WG

Sometimes it seems like the tail is wagging the dog - but the dog is the one paying the bills.

Quote of the year? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

yeah, fuck affiliates. who needs em. they don't even have bills ... :1orglaugh

ok maybe I should clarify - anything owned by the sponsor program is content... domain names, trademarked words, etc, etc.

i have notified the tmz of the adult business. this is good materials.

...you're completely missing the point, but ok.

Na, they build up promo pages, text, images, galleries, ect.. on some slick domain, it grabs a ton of keywords, ect.. The sponsor doesn't perform how they like so they drop the traffic to a new sponsor. Even though the Webmaster used my content, my wording, girls names, all that to build the traffic. To them it's all fair.

Having ads next to my review is fair to the review sites - it's shaving to me.


Program Owners have as much room to bitch as Webmasters do.

who are you and why did you pick today to want me to notice you?

Boy, you're even DUMBER than I though..

Damn..

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Don't you guys just love all this love/hate relationship between affiliates and sponsors :)
WG