What would you say if an affiliate program, looked at your referrers....
 

And then handed out the information to their other affiliates.

For instance a "directory" that pushed mad traffic that you could get free listings on.

Like hey try this...its working out great for "this guy".

And then the traffic source dried up....or at least got split in half.

How would you handle it?

btw...

this is not pointed at anyone

this is not an "outing" thread.....just a general consensus

Several years ago I had something similar happen. I had written a kick ass text link for a site that drew and converted like mad. They asked me how I was sending traffic because my ratio was really good. I talked to the affiliate program and showed them the link and they told me the thought it was really good and congratulated me on it. About two weeks later my text link shows up on their banners page. I contacted them and told them to take it down that they didn't have my permission to use it. They just didn't return my emails. I pulled all my links to them and then suddenly they wanted to know why I stopped using them. After telling them they apologized and pulled the link, they also gave me a raise. I tried them again for a few months then they stopped paying and eventually went out of business.

It really pissed me off.

Post on here..... so people can stay away..

Interesting....

Yea I'm curious as to how much "information sharing" goes on in this business.

When i speak to someone I just consider it confidential.

I don't do business with just anyone. So i just assume all people i work with are consummate businessmen/businesswomen who would hold my information confidential at all times.

So I'm just wondering from the webmasters out there who don't have such "tight" relationships....have you seen anything like this before? And how did you handle it?

Thanks for your comments kane btw, very informative.

Sadly most affiliate managers know nothing at all about traffic and how to get/convert it. But they do know how to copy what works for others.

I would guess that there is more of this type of stuff than we would know. nothing is sacred. I used to promote AFF a while back (this was in 99-2000) and had a killer text box I used on on my galleries. It wasn't long before half the TGPs I submitted to had the same text box.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that an affiliate manager took a good look at some of his bigger affiliates, found out how they get traffic and then started quietly sharing that with other affiliates.

1000000% confidential.

As an affiliate myself I have to say that I think anyone that runs a program should have to have affiliate experience. Its the only way you can feel the pain.

No way in hell would I ever share traffic info affiliate to affiliate. If anyone is doing this, I would question their ethics on other things too. It's not acceptable in my opinion.

This is also the reason that I do not promote the programs that I build and run/manage. No conflicts of interest that way.

I would be pissed. I look at which galleries work best for an affiliate and let him know which ones he is getting the new joins from but I would not tell another about that. I would not use the same gallery either. All that shit adds up and for the most part word of mouth means a lot

Ask the affiliate if you can steal the text and give them some cash for it.

We did it when I worked at EGC with hosted galleries. We would pay our WMs $5 per approved gallery they gave us. Put the galleries into our system and bam, open for all WMs to use.

Thats one reason I don't have one...
And I keep affiliate stats and even chats confidential.

so you're saying some form of compensation would at least be in order? :pimp

I'd shit can them

I hide my referrers pretty well. On the flip side, I'd love to get access to those kind of logs :)
WG

all i know is if i found out someone did it to me

they'd be on the ground screaming "DONT TASE ME BRO!"

for u .. googspy.com .... :)

I would use a redirect to mask my refferers

thats fucked

I'd be pissed and if the program was highly profitable for me I'd approach them and ask them to keep your traffic sources confidential. I can see how a narrow sited affiliate manager might think that divulging the information would benefit his program as a whole, but letting him know that you're considering moving your traffic should wake him up.

In mainstream we ALWAYS hide our traffic source from our sponsors. If they ask, move on. Don't show them your landings either. They always steal your shit

if anyone thinks that sponsors aren't checking your refers and using that info to their advantage is an idiot.

That's not what he said. He said they gave the info to another affiliate. Of course a sponsor sees where you send traffic from, but that info should be kept private and not shared.

I have a feeling I would want more than $5

They also buy your stuff.

That's interesting... I always figured that sort of behavior made sponsors suspicious. I'm going to start doing this :)

they are not going to share it on a public msg board...but i can assure it one person shares your info with another whether its inside the company or to top whales or whatever....its not your info once its on their site.

give me the name

They usually only care when complaints or chargebacks happen. If the traffic is clean, there should be no problem hiding those referrers.
WG

yup it's a two way street... we love to get info on what is working for other ppl but don't want absolutely anything revealed about ourselves :error

but like you said if there are no complaints the sponsor will usually respect your privacy and not push you for exact details that they could use themselves or give away as tips to their favorite affiliates.

The company was called Island Online and their program was called Sex Bucks http://www.sexbucks.com/ the program page still exists, but it hasn't been active for several years (that I know of) They stopped answering my emails and stopped paying a while back. I think some of their sites are still up, but I don't know if they still work or not.

They owe me around $2500 still, but I know I will never see it.

Not good. I would out them if I was COMPLETELY certain they had done so.

charles, you should do a demo with me on t3report :)

Fight the plug!

It would need to be a meta refresh or javascript-post redirect, since a HTTP 301/302 redirect will preserve the referer. Even then you may get the occasional "leak" from oddball browsers... :2 cents: