Shaving? Scrubbing? I know we aren't talking Hygiene...

Scrubbing - This is were the CPA firms generally "chargeback" any action credits to your account due to fraudulent leads, bogus/duplicate information, etc.

Shaving - This is basically something that ALL CPA networks do. They capture some of the leads for their own credit, instead of crediting you for the action. Some networks shave more than others.

BIG problem in the industry.

If they give you a higher payout, they shave more to make up for the difference.

If you sign up under a referral, they shave more to cover the payout to the person who referred you.

They shave to improve their margins.

Anyone who tells you that this doesn't go on is lying to you. Just way too easy to do and very hard to catch if you don't have a private offer or host and post.

So If you join a lead capture system or funnel is that what we would be referring to?

Now that you know what is scrubing and shaving, let me tell you what to do-
[1] Hide your traffic source and never show your landing page/URL to affiliate network and AM and even they insist to see it , change URL [buy a new domain name]of your landing page.

[2] Don't send your all traffic to same network for a particular offer.Rotate CPA networks.

[3] If you are doing well in particular niche then make exclusive deal directly with merchant.Higher payout and no scrubing.

[4] Read payout condition of an offer.For example some mobile offers are 'pay on billing' instead of 'pay on submit'. Make sure when and how you are getting paid.

Lots of advice here. How much is coming from a CPA Network owner?

Hmmm

Just to clarify, the network cannot scrub you. The merchant scrubs you.

If you are asked to show your traffic source and refuse, you will most likely not be paid for you efforts. In the terms and service you agreed to when signing up this is usually stated or something else to cover this.

I'll give you an example:

We had a guy posting fake job offers on Craigslist. He was doing pretty good volume with one of our free credit report offers. Only problem was he was getting those leads fraudulently. He was telling anyone who repsonded to his ad that they had to go get a credit report first, (through his affiliate link), then he would proceed to the interview stage. The problem was it was all bullshit. He did a great job of hiding his referer information. We couldn't see where he was getting his traffic. Fortunately, when you do something like this, the people who got suckered get very angry. We had a couple emails directly to us asking about this guy who was promoting this way. Then we were provided with screenshots of ads, links to live ads and even tested the process ourself.

To make a long story short, this person refused to give us anything to go to bat with the merchant with. We gave him several chances, but he refused. We then sent him a couple links to his cragslist ads and showed him how we went through the process ourself and showed him the emails we received. He then admitted it and accepted that he was not going to get paid. He's now banned from our network and the notes we attach to his account can be read by any other direct track network. He basically blacklisted himself by doing something stupid. He thought if he hid things, he'd get away with it. But he forgot that angry people who think they're getting suckered WILL and DO complain to anyone and everyone that will listen.

So if you're doing something like spamming craigslist with job offers that don't exist, hiding your referers and thinking it's all gravy with the cpa network, you're wrong.

There's blackhat, (gaming the search engines), then there's fraud, (gaming inocent people). Don't commit fraud.



Going direct to the merchant is an option. But get ready for a whole bag of headaches that the network was handling for you. The merchants don't like dealing with individuals unless they're well know big producers. That's why cpa networks exist. To make it easier for the merchant to manage their affiliate side. I am an affiliate too and I can totally understand where some of the advice is coming from. BUT as someone sitting on the other side of the fence too, you just don't see some of the crap we do. The stuff some affiliates will try to pull is insane.

I consider both shaving and scrubbing as a cost of doing business. If I didn't I am sure I would get much more upset at the networks than I do. If you do have a network that employs the tactic too much, drop them and start with another network.

might actually be just shaving and scrubbing...

Anyone able to name off networks which are more "respectable" in terms of not shaving (much) from their affiliates?

Also any that are money stealers?

Dexx,
It's hard to know who does what? I think that is why it is done. For every horror story there is another story about how great a network is. I had a problem with this AM at a big aff network on one of my offers, so I just restarted the campaign with another network and the behavior returned. What this taught me is that the merchant is likely doing something. I had the AM request placing a pixel on the conversion page to the merchant. They did. The stats have been very inconsistent (not sure if this is normal behavior or not), but at least they appeared to do so.

With respect to the post about telling your aff network your traffic sources and the like. I think everyone here needs to realize everyone here is in business. I wouldn't let my aff network know a thing until I developed a relationship with the AM to feel comfortable in doing so. There are a ton of affiliates. A ton of networks. And a ton of merchants. Nobody has to do anything with anybody. Except Google maybe ;-)

Hey dude

Basically, ALL networks want to increase their profit margins and a LOT of them do that by "fraudulently" deleting/not-crediting/not-tracking some of your leads and sales. It's common practice and you can't do anything about it but to go elsehwere.

Is this fair, moral, legal? No! Can you do anything to change that? No! Solution? Direct deals with merchants with upfront payments ... ELIMINATING the network alltogether. You get a better payout anyway this way. Lots of money to be made, so hop onto the gravy train before its too late lol.

Any questions just let me know

Nick

Its basically the merchant sending back invalid leads (i.e. John Doe, Mickey Mouse, fake numbers, etc) ... these are then deleted from your account and the merchant gets a refund.

Kind Regards,
Nick