re:Link Breakage and Networks

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windjc

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Sep 24, 2008
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re:Link Breakage and Networks

So, I have a pretty close relationship with several networks. I love to spread the volume around and keep lots of options.

Recently, I signed on with a new network and in my initial conversation with the AM Manager (which is usually me doing a friendly spanish inquisition) he mentioned to me that one of the advantages of his offer and why it was converting higher is that at the end of each day he would gather all the leads that suffered link breakage and reimburse his affiliates the next day.

I said "what?"

He went on to explain that with DirectTrack (and all other independent tracking platforms, in his strong opinion) networks have leads that break everyday.

I said "ok" and then figured I'd see what was up. Well, sure enough, I get about a 5-10% daily add-on from the day before for leads that broke.

Pretty cool.

So we talked again and the first thing I said was, "wow, networks could make a FORTUNE not crediting back these leads". He said, "yep, we'd make an additional 100k/mo profit on this one offer alone." He went on to say that networks do this all the time.

So I asked THREE other AMs at other networks (the ones I know and trust the best) about link breakage. They all said that they had never heard of such a thing except on the rare occasion.

My AMs might NOT know, but someone does. Someone must. There is too much money at stake not to.

This has got me thinking. For instance, at the one network that is crediting back the leads, it might only be a 1% conversion difference, but because I run alot of volume, we are talking about as much as a $1000/day of additional profit on this one offer.

How easy is it for networks not to track these broken leads daily and keep the money? Real easy it seems. It only drops the conversion rate slightly. If it happens on every network, how would we know the difference?

I could go on, but I'll just give this one example. Last week, there was a thread on this forum about an offer that had suffered a dramatic conversion rate drop for 3-4 days. Well, turns out that after I inquired, apparently my network "undertracked". I just got $3000 of leads added to my account. That's $3000 of leads in 4 days that I might have lost had I not inquired.

I know that we could say its just "Directtrack", but 1. a lot of networks are still on directtrack and 2. this particular AM Manager told me that it happens on any and all tracking systems.

I mean, for a network its a brillant way to make money. But for affiliates, it sucks.

I would really like Ruck or Smaxor or anyone else to respond to this topic.
 


the tracking systems call it noncredited leads (douchebags will call them bonus leads). the normal 'failed pixel' rate is ~15%. this is nothing new and is 100% intentional (its built into the software to do it intentionally k% of the time) -- they take 15% of your leads and keep them themselves, give them to the networks to pad profits, and/or sometimes divvy them out to the super affiliates. any merchant knows this. the merch will keep some themselves and then give some to the aff network to do what they want with.
 
jvincent said:
the tracking systems call it noncredited leads (douchebags will call them bonus leads). the normal 'failed pixel' rate is ~15%. this is nothing new and is 100% intentional (its built into the software to do it intentionally k% of the time) -- they take 15% of your leads and keep them themselves, give them to the networks to pad profits, and/or sometimes divvy them out to the super affiliates. any merchant knows this. the merch will keep some themselves and then give some to the aff network to do what they want with.
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What the hell is "divvy them out to the super affiliates" mean?" Hell I am a "super affiliate" on at least a few of my networks. This in particular sounds like tin foil hat stuff to me. Your other claims, not so much.
 
mycountry said:
Where the fuck have you been? Why do you think everyone hates DT & networks won't change?
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I've been right here. Some of the most popular networks on this forum don't use Directtrack. I mentioned that in the original post. Did you read the entire post? Whose to say that networks that have their own tracking systems don't do the exact same thing. Personally WHO CARES what platform it is? Its about conversion % and getting exact credits.
 
This is not a DirectTrack bug -- this is built into the tracking software of basically every tracking system as a way for the merch to pad profits and/or pad the profits of others they choose (the aff networks, etc.)

Anyone who has their own tracking system, I promise, has this feature too.

This isn't hype/rumor/etc -- I've seen this myself from the merch side and every single merch on this forum who runs volume through any aff network knows exactly what I'm talking about.

This is literally marketed at the merchants as a feature, and the sales reps for the direct sales tracking platforms, when trying to pick up merchants, say shit like "yes we could track who generated these sales but why would you ever pay them out, theyre free money".

Ruck and smaxor, absolutely, know exactly what I'm talking about too. Any other answer out of them is 100% bs.
 
jvincent said:
This is not a DirectTrack bug -- this is built into the tracking software of basically every tracking system as a way for the merch to pad profits and/or pad the profits of others they choose (the aff networks, etc.)

Anyone who has their own tracking system, I promise, has this feature too.

This isn't hype/rumor/etc -- I've seen this myself from the merch side and every single merch on this forum who runs volume through any aff network knows exactly what I'm talking about.

This is literally marketed at the merchants as a feature, and the sales reps say shit like "yes we could track who generated these sales but why would you ever pay them out, theyre free money"
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Well, if you are right, this makes total sense.

The amazing thing is that I've seen noone really bring this issue up before.

I mean its black and white. If you get a sale or a lead, you got a sale or a lead. Someone's ass should be in there collecting these for you and you should be getting paid on it. Period. Point Blank. Bottom line.

If not, that's complete bullshit. I dont care if "everyone" does it. I have at least one network that doesnt and that speaks volumes for me.
 
windjc said:
I've been right here. Some of the most popular networks on this forum don't use Directtrack. I mentioned that in the original post. Did you read the entire post? Whose to say that networks that have their own tracking systems don't do the exact same thing. Personally WHO CARES what platform it is? Its about conversion % and getting exact credits.
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Yeah - Advaliant isn't on DT, but I get "bonus leads from breakage" all the time.
 
lol i wonder how many AM's gonna get msg's tomorrow from aff's asking for what % of their leads are non-credited leads and how to get em back.

good luck guys, on both sides of this issue.

I actually would like to hear Mike Krongel weigh in on this, as I'm 100% positive that this is built into DirectTrack -- I'd be interested to hear how Copeac divvy's up the non-credited leads. Unfortunately, despite Mike being in general a stand-up guy (and I love Copeac), I doubt we could get a 100% truthful answer on such a forum... too much liability.

Honestly though, if you're a big affiliate running major volume, pick up some virtual cc's/prepaid cc's and go buy 20 bottles of berries through your link. See what % of leads you get credited for. They won't dick w/ you on the 'fraud' if you're moving volume and let them know after and have them nuke the commiss. on it. When you only get credited for 17/20, ask them why. They'll say DT is fucked, you'll know the truth though. If you're moving $100k/day like you said, a $100 test like this is very worthwhile.
 
jvincent said:
If you're moving $100k/day like you said, a $100 test like this is very worthwhile.
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Just for full disclosure, in the OP when I referred to 1% conversion difference, I'm talking about i.e. 10% conversions instead of 11%, with that 1% equaling $1000. Not 1% of a 100k/day volume.

But lets say I spend 5k to make 10k for a 5k profit on 10% conversions.

At 11% conversions I would spend 5k to make 11k for a 6k profit. So my profit actually goes up 20%.

But I'm not doing 100k a day on this one offer. Yet :)

Still, $1k a day is over 300k profit a year on one freaking offer! That's money that should be in my pocket.

Its pretty simple.
 
windjc said:
Just for full disclosure, in the OP when I referred to 1% conversion difference, I'm talking about i.e. 10% conversions instead of 11%, with that 1% equaling $1000. Not 1% of a 100k/day volume.

But lets say I spend 5k to make 10k for a 5k profit on 10% conversions.

At 11% conversions I would spend 5k to make 11k for a 6k profit. So my profit actually goes up 20%.

But I'm not doing 100k a day on this one offer. Yet :)

Still, $1k a day is over 300k profit a year on one freaking offer! That's money that should be in my pocket.

Its pretty simple.
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Just pm me all your campaign details, and I'll have a looksy.
 
I'm small potatoes but when you guys say this is from "breakage" are you saying that the subids didn't show up on the network?

I'm a little guy and I track ever damn click through to the network. There's one network that is on DT which "looses" a subid about everyday, it just doesn't show up when I look for it. Is that what you guys are saying, it never showed up on the network or it showed up in the subids on the network but you were never credited with the sale?

This missing subid shit has been bugging me for the last few days.
 
jvincent said:
lol i wonder how many AM's gonna get msg's tomorrow from aff's asking for what % of their leads are non-credited leads and how to get em back.

good luck guys, on both sides of this issue.

I actually would like to hear Mike Krongel weigh in on this, as I'm 100% positive that this is built into DirectTrack -- I'd be interested to hear how Copeac divvy's up the non-credited leads. Unfortunately, despite Mike being in general a stand-up guy (and I love Copeac), I doubt we could get a 100% truthful answer on such a forum... too much liability.

Honestly though, if you're a big affiliate running major volume, pick up some virtual cc's/prepaid cc's and go buy 20 bottles of berries through your link. See what % of leads you get credited for. They won't dick w/ you on the 'fraud' if you're moving volume and let them know after and have them nuke the commiss. on it. When you only get credited for 17/20, ask them why. They'll say DT is fucked, you'll know the truth though. If you're moving $100k/day like you said, a $100 test like this is very worthwhile.
Click to expand...

Every network sees this breakage its not intentional (although some cases might be) its due to consumers surfing the net with their cookies turned off which is about 4% of consumers. So you can expect about 4% of your leads to not to show up due to the tracking system put in place.

Most networks build this in to the payout. Some networks might see higher numbers, thats due to pixel placement or done intentionally. This is not scrubbing or shaving of leads it just that there isnt a better tracking than cookies and pixels and since people surf with cookies turned off we cant track that small percentage.

I am so suprised at how stupid everyone here sounds considering youre supposed to be so knowledgable on AM but the responses here are pitiful. You guys need to learn to trust good networks and stop supporting the ones who cheat you so this paranoia dissappears. This happens on every online tracking platform that exists, the only one that i have seen that uses a different tracking system is Hit path (they also have a cookie option), but Hit Path also has a scrubber dial built in to it, to scrub individual affiliates and the offer, this is the only non in-house system that i have seen with an actual function to blindly scrub leads, in the demo i was told its so we can make more money if we want. I wonder how many people moved to hitpath to take advantage of that scrubber

We see less than 4% on the misfire, I have actually responded to posts like this before if you search around

And its not a DT issues, i run a DT network and see less than 4% pixel misfires, its how you manage your pixels that will determine if one DT network sees 4% and another sees 15%.
 
mkrongel said:
Every network sees this breakage its not intentional (although some cases might be) its due to consumers surfing the net with their cookies turned off which is about 4% of consumers. So you can expect about 4% of your leads to not to show up due to the tracking system put in place.

Most networks build this in to the payout. Some networks might see higher numbers, thats due to pixel placement or done intentionally. This is not scrubbing or shaving of leads it just that there isnt a better tracking than cookies and pixels and since people surf with cookies turned off we cant track that small percentage.

I am so suprised at how stupid everyone here sounds considering youre supposed to be so knowledgable on AM but the responses here are pitiful. You guys need to learn to trust good networks and stop supporting the ones who cheat you so this paranoia dissappears. This happens on every online tracking platform that exists, the only one that i have seen that uses a different tracking system is Hit path (they also have a cookie option), but Hit Path also has a scrubber dial built in to it, to scrub individual affiliates and the offer, this is the only non in-house system that i have seen with an actual function to blindly scrub leads, in the demo i was told its so we can make more money if we want. I wonder how many people moved to hitpath to take advantage of that scrubber

We see less than 4% on the misfire, I have actually responded to posts like this before if you search around

And its not a DT issues, i run a DT network and see less than 4% pixel misfires, its how you manage your pixels that will determine if one DT network sees 4% and another sees 15%.
Click to expand...

Most of us do deal with networks we trust, ie C2M, A4D, Advaliant, You guys and a couple of others, so don't make it sound like we don't do our homework. Just look how big C2M has gotten in the last 6 months. The minute word gets out that any of you guys start fucking us over, you would lose a lot of affiliates, and another network would step up to fill the void.

And some of those networks probably switched away from DT because it's a piece of shit system with too much downtime, although it is interesting to know that Hitpath has a scrubbing dial built-in. Who can control that - even AM's? That's pretty fucked up.
 
That's why I only run with networks that pay me before I make any monies like a4d. ;)

But seriously who has the time to be paranoid and always looking over their shoulder?
 
Xrproto said:
That's why I only run with networks that pay me before I make any monies like a4d. ;)

But seriously who has the time to be paranoid and always looking over their shoulder?
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If you're paranoid and constantly looking for someone to screw you, you wont focus on your business and lose much more in lost opportunity. This is the point i was trying to get across. Either the offers work or don't, if a few leads dont get counted but youre making boatloads why focus on the pennies, when you can work on collecting thousands more in new offers

Dont get me wrong this is not to be confused with when a network or an advertiser decides to start scrubbing mid campaign. they should just boot you off the offer or lower the payout, not indiscriminately scrub
 
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