At Witts end with my network

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Jondoe0069 said:
....but it SHOULD NOT be that way, so don't be fucking idiots and say that it's our fault when we get served up an offer that is not tracking and lose $50 trying to promote it.
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It's not the affiliate's fault. The point is that a network cannot monitor every campaign and during every second of every day. And the idea of generating bot leads to test tracking is ridiculous... hundreds of bot leads per day to know exactly when a pixel is down... well you pitch that to a merchant and see how far you go. "Yes Mr Merchant, we'll flood you with fake leads because we don't trust you..." Tain't gonna happen!

Nothing is 100% foolproof. The $50 affiliates lose here and there is the cost of doing business as a publisher. It's certainly nice to try and lessen it, but it's a pipe dream to think tracking errors can be wiped out completely. Honestly, it's not the big pubs who complain about it either, they typically understand that it sometimes happens. It's usually the smallish pubs who earn the least who complain the most.



Jondoe0069 said:
When I go into McDonalds, I don't have to pull out my chemistry set... I don't have to get mad cow disease to...
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Congrats on winning the least relevant metaphor in this thread. :ugone2far:



It's easy for an affiliate to get pissed when things go wrong. I get pissed off as well when the merchant fails to track. It's even easier to be an armchair critic and bitch about the poor jobs networks do. I think however that most might not realize just how difficult managing a large network really is. Traffic spikes, server upgrades, ISP downtime, merchants pulling pixels, contract disputes, non-payment for sums that would make most publishers shit, affiliate fraud, etc. Hey - we're not complaining - it's our job to work through the problems. But I'm telling you as a network owner that you'll never get a foolproof system. It's just plain ignorant to assume it's an easy to fix and that networks are negligent by not fixing it.
 


kingfish said:
I can do the math and the math tells me that a script can send a metric shit ton of fake leads if thats what's needed to test a site. You're point is
A)Stupid
B)Invalid
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Great, so please provide Copeac with 1,500 unique fresh ip's per month and 1,500 fresh cell numbers per month to test cell offers, and don't forget the 1,500 SSN's and 1,500 CC's to test PPA offers. Oh shit, you didn't realize that not all offers are free signup or require a cell did you.
 
The point is if you have the happiest affiliates and the most affiliate loyalty the merchants will beg to be on your network and will accept all the fake leads you're gonna send them.

I just think there's a huge business opportunity for some network to step out ahead of the flock if they tried. Too bad I have no interest in running a network. I guess people thinking it's too fuckin hard to make is what makes it lucrative. Of course google was too fuckin hard to make until they made it...
 
Well, if there really is a tracking problem, couldn't copeac notice something is wrong when there is a dramatic difference in the avg number of leads that day versus the monthly average or what not? (taking into account ad views)
 
bazaa said:
Well, if there really is a tracking problem, couldn't copeac notice something is wrong when there is a dramatic difference in the avg number of leads that day versus the monthly average or what not? (taking into account ad views)
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you would think so.... Every last bit of traffic no matter where it comes from filters through the network's urls...

:sleep:
 
I would not even think in the realms of "metric shitloads" of fake clicks/leads.

Heck... 48 per day would be enough to check tracking 2 times an hour.
Generate a pool of affiliate IDs to track this.. this does not need to be big either.

Let the merchants know you will be tracking and that you will not charge them for any of the fake leads.

Help those having problems with tracking.

::emp::
 
emp said:
Heck... 48 per day would be enough to check tracking 2 times an hour.
Generate a pool of affiliate IDs to track this.. this does not need to be big either.
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48 test leads x 30 days x 300 campaigns on a network = 432,000 fake leads in a month.

Not such a good idea.
 
JP Sauve said:
48 test leads x 30 days x 300 campaigns on a network = 432,000 fake leads in a month.

Not such a good idea.
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Care to explain why, exactly? The advertisers already know they will be getting x# of fake leads per month which will not be charged by the network. The affiliates then know that they aren't being fraudulently fucked out of their money as is happening currently, and all is well.
 
First, no merchant wants fake leads. Good luck explaining to them which leads are bad to not pay for, and more so to scrub from their database. They'll see it as flooding their data with crap. Worse, some merchants will sell that data on to third parties even though it's junk. (Many do sell their data.)

Second, no merchant would take the idea without insult. Very few would agree to the premise of repeated test leads.

Third, almost a half a million leads isn't so easy to generate. Merchants rarely disclose the full lead logic behind what's defined as a paid lead anyway. You'd need a massive amount of fake data yourself, tons of IP addresses, and that's IF you even know the full logic of what's a lead in their view. What about the campaigns which require credit card. You test those twice a day too? Good luck getting all those charges reversed. The network would eat those costs, and ultimately it would be affiliates who'd foot the bill in lower rates.

Fourth, there'll be far more false positives than real situations where tracking is down. It would be a customer service nightmare to both merchants and networks.

Fifth, when tracking is down, it's often down for only an hour or so. If you start notifying affiliates to pull link when the problem happens, the merchant gets less traffic, affiliates generate less and so does the network. Do affiliates really win in this case? They pull down a link for a day or two because tracking was down for an hour.

Sixth, most merchants compensate for downtime anyway, so a system to notify the network when their pixel has been dropped just so affiliates get notified is rarely needed.

Seventh, pixel tracking errors are rare. Most complaints about untracked leads are from affiliates with crap traffic who couldn't generate a lead to begin with.

Finally... it's just not needed. Such tracking downtime is far less than 1%. Suck it up. Yeah it's sometimes frustrating, but it's part of being an online marketer.
 
This is all great from the defend the merchant side of things. But the point is if you come into from the defend the affiliate side the ultimate rewards could be exponential. It's called unionizing, the fat cats who have to pay out because the workers (affiliates) don't want to take their shit anymore hate it and the workers love it. Just in this case the unionization is organized by a company who is raking in the benefits from it because they understand the affiliates are more important than the merchants.

JP Sauve said:
First, no merchant wants fake leads. Good luck explaining to them which leads are bad to not pay for, and more so to scrub from their database. They'll see it as flooding their data with crap. Worse, some merchants will sell that data on to third parties even though it's junk. (Many do sell their data.)

Second, no merchant would take the idea without insult. Very few would agree to the premise of repeated test leads.

Third, almost a half a million leads isn't so easy to generate. Merchants rarely disclose the full lead logic behind what's defined as a paid lead anyway. You'd need a massive amount of fake data yourself, tons of IP addresses, and that's IF you even know the full logic of what's a lead in their view. What about the campaigns which require credit card. You test those twice a day too? Good luck getting all those charges reversed. The network would eat those costs, and ultimately it would be affiliates who'd foot the bill in lower rates.

Fourth, there'll be far more false positives than real situations where tracking is down. It would be a customer service nightmare to both merchants and networks.

Fifth, when tracking is down, it's often down for only an hour or so. If you start notifying affiliates to pull link when the problem happens, the merchant gets less traffic, affiliates generate less and so does the network. Do affiliates really win in this case? They pull down a link for a day or two because tracking was down for an hour.

Sixth, most merchants compensate for downtime anyway, so a system to notify the network when their pixel has been dropped just so affiliates get notified is rarely needed.

Seventh, pixel tracking errors are rare. Most complaints about untracked leads are from affiliates with crap traffic who couldn't generate a lead to begin with.

Finally... it's just not needed. Such tracking downtime is far less than 1%. Suck it up. Yeah it's sometimes frustrating, but it's part of being an online marketer.
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Lol, and we all know just how much unionization helped the US auto industry .... that little industry that's getting its ass kicked by Japanese and Korean companies which don't have to deal with unions and can focus on improving efficiency.

We need to share information about advertisers who do this kind of shit and start an industry-wide blacklist. However, forming a union is probably the stupidest idea I've seen in this entire thread.

kingfish said:
This is all great from the defend the merchant side of things. But the point is if you come into from the defend the affiliate side the ultimate rewards could be exponential. It's called unionizing, the fat cats who have to pay out because the workers (affiliates) don't want to take their shit anymore hate it and the workers love it. Just in this case the unionization is organized by a company who is raking in the benefits from it because they understand the affiliates are more important than the merchants.
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JP Sauve said:
48 test leads x 30 days x 300 campaigns on a network = 432,000 fake leads in a month.

Not such a good idea.
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Sorry, this is computers we are talking about, those numbers should mean NOTHING to a network.

If you are concerned...fuck it, check twice daily...

Also, these numbers should not be looked at a WHOLE NETWORK level, but at an individual merchant level, where it is really almost NIL.

::emp::
 
I personally, and I'm sure there are other affiliates out there who would agree, would gladly accept lower payouts if the tracking were being actively monitored by the network.

A zip submit with a payout of $.80 that's guaranteed 100% tracking and no bullshit is a no brainer vs. the $1.50 zip submit which will probably start scrubbing leads and randomly not tracking.
 
Wow, you guys should be working instead of bitching about tracking issues with one crappy advertiser. Yeah, it happens, but usually the networks realize it before you actually do, and compensate you before you even know what happened. And seriously wsmith, if you run 1,500 clicks to an offer, and you don't fucking bother to check if its converting, then tough luck. Copeac (as always) went above and beyond, and yet you still keep bitching about them.
 
nickycakes said:
A zip submit with a payout of $.80 that's guaranteed 100% tracking and no bullshit is a no brainer vs. the $1.50 zip submit which will probably start scrubbing leads and randomly not tracking.
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Except its not happening. 100% accurate tracking is wishful thinking. What would happen is a lower payout but the scrubbing/tracking would still be the same. And you guys make this a bigger deal than it is. Besides zip/email submits tracking is pretty good, and you should just account for some inaccuracies when paying for traffic.
 
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