ClickBank - I Smell Something Fishy...

[Jeremy Kelsall]

And I don't live near a Seafood Market!

So, several months ago, I started promoting a couple new clickbank products and was getting decent traffic and conversions. To this day, I am still getting the same traffic, but the conversions suck!

When I started my conversions were like this:

PRODUCT 1 - 1:62
PRODUCT 2 - 1:49
PRODUCT 3 - 1:72

As of last week, conversions for the past 90 days were as follows

PRODUCT 1 - 1:114
PRODUCT 2 - 1:127
PRODUCT 3 - Not even worth mentioning

These are not seasonal products, the traffic is the same as when I started, and it comes from the same places.

So, I set up a new Clickbank account and changed a couple of my links around to go to the new account and guess what? Yup, my conversions are right back in line with when I first started.

Anyone else ever experience anything like this? Seems weird that the conversion rate magically changes with a new hoplink, but maybe I just read too much into things.

Jeremy

[John Piteo]

That's really strange. It's not the Internet marketing niche by any chance is it?

John

[Jeremy Kelsall]

No, I don't market many products from clickbank in that niche.

The hell with it....

product 1 is a weight loss product
product 2 is a panic product
product 3 is a hypnosis product

[SusanUSA]

This is so strange, Jeremy! I have noticed the same kind of swings with my own eBooks! I can't account for it . . . please keep us posted with anything you find out about this!

Stay well!

[Hamida Harland]

I know of a guy on another forum who has experienced the same thing - every time his conversions drop he switches all his hoplinks to another account and then conversions go back to normal. Different accounts seem to be affected at different times. But still people deny there's anything strange going on

[KevL]

Very strange - you contacted clickbank to ask their take on it?

[Seattle Mike]

I did a test earlier this year...

Run through your affiliate link a few times on each product and see how often your id doesn't show on the order page. Tested 8 different products about 5 times each and found 1/3 of the time my CB id wasn't making it all the way to the order page.

CB tracking isn't perfect. One of the gurus had an ebook that talked about this. CB merchants get a few sales without an affiliate showing up in the stats every month even if they aren't promoting it themselves.

Don't know why a new hoplink account has better results. Need to test that.

[affiliateppc]

We've been discussing it here
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/24125-clickbank-hows-strange.html

AffiliatePPC

[athena08]

This is really scary stuff...so easy for this to be going on without your knowledge. You would think Clickbank with all its affiliates would try to do a better job.

Perhaps Clickbank should be notified by those of you who have noticed this funny business going on. Then maybe they will work on correcting it for the benefit of all.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Contacting them won't do much good, I'd imagine.

They would never admit to anything being "wrong" lol

I know I'll be switching my affiliate links up every now and again...Looks like I'll just be getting more checks from clickbank lol

Originally Posted by athena08

This is really scary stuff...so easy for this to be going on without your knowledge. You would think Clickbank with all its affiliates would try to do a better job.

Perhaps Clickbank should be notified by those of you who have noticed this funny business going on. Then maybe they will work on correcting it for the benefit of all.

[visit_faraz]

I was wondering how to protect ourselves from this cookie stuffing thing.

Is it even possible?

bye,
faraz

[Jeremy Kelsall]

I never even thought about cookie stuffing, but I don't think that's it...

I think someone is shaving some of the sales off lol

Seriously, I can't think of any other explanation.

[aikay77]

Guys,

Why not just switch over and promote products from paydotcom.com instead?
The carry the same products and you get paid instantly!

My two cents.

Ronald

[Bishop81]

what about just putting a link rotator in your pages. Have it switch to a different id every X clicks or something.

[Chris Lockwood]

Somewhat different issue: my account is registering sales of my products, but for the past several days, I've gotten few or no of the emails I usually get when a sale is made.

[Hamida Harland]

Originally Posted by aikay77

Guys,

Why not just switch over and promote products from paydotcom.com instead?
The carry the same products and you get paid instantly!

My two cents.

Ronald

There's NO comparison between Clickbank and Paydotcom - I couldn't even find similar products to those I promote at Clickbank. They definitely don't have the same products and you don't get paid instantly.

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by Hamida Pall

There's NO comparison between Clickbank and Paydotcom - I couldn't even find similar products to those I promote at Clickbank. They definitely don't have the same products and you don't get paid instantly.

You certainly don't get paid instantly with Clickbank, either, even if your sales are properly credited.

[matthewd]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Contacting them won't do much good, I'd imagine.

They would never admit to anything being "wrong" lol

I know I'll be switching my affiliate links up every now and again...Looks like I'll just be getting more checks from clickbank lol

That's exactly right... back when this first happened to me I contacted them to see what the deal was and they claimed it was not on their end. It HAD to be something on my end even thought I sent them links to a ton of thread on a bunch of different forums discussing it. Then they blamed the economy AND me... bastards.

Every once in a while there is another day that looks fishy to me... for example, take a look at this screenshot of one of my affiliate accounts:

I understand a normal fluctuation going down to $150 or so and up to $350 or so... but those occasional $35-$50 days are abnormal.

I haven't tried switching links though... maybe I should give that a go.

[Louis Raven]

Exact same thing happened to me (not CB though).

know what it was? Hackers!

You see they are smart enough to know if you think something is wrong, you'll spot them and end their cash-flow.

When I was hacked they'd change the order buttons (via shells) at certain times mostly when they thought I was sleeping I suppose.

Honestly, guys, don't ever underestimate them as they're probably smarter than me and you put together.

Louis

[Daniel Molano]

It's pretty obvious that CB has been having tracking issues lately and it can be seen by some hops not even showing in the reports.

For me, publisher sales are steady and affiliate sales are volatile and fluctuate in weird patterns. So yes there is a tracking issue.

[Peter Burke]

Hi Guys

This is an interesting thread.

I've also had some problems over the last month.

By accident I had noticed a drop off in sales on a site that had been consistently making good money. By some chance one of the CB products had been changed so I re did some work on my mini site and lo and behold my sales went back to normal for about 3 weeks!!

They have dropped off again and I don't believe that it's the recession!!

I don't understand what you guys mean about this 'cookie stuffing' business so I was wondering if someone could explain.

Secondly - How many clickbank accounts are we talking about creating here and can I just interchange my CB ids and see if that does a fix?

I look forward to your replies


Regards


Peter

[Louis Raven]

Originally Posted by matthewd

That's exactly right... back when this first happened to me I contacted them to see what the deal was and they claimed it was not on their end. It HAD to be something on my end even thought I sent them links to a ton of thread on a bunch of different forums discussing it. Then they blamed the economy AND me... bastards.

Every once in a while there is another day that looks fishy to me... for example, take a look at this screenshot of one of my affiliate accounts:

I understand a normal fluctuation going down to $150 or so and up to $350 or so... but those occasional $35-$50 days are abnormal.

I haven't tried switching links though... maybe I should give that a go.

WOW Matthew I'd keep an eye on that. Do you always get such irregularities or was that a one off?

Louis

[ss442]

Peter, "Just Google it brother", there are marketers advertising scripts to rob you of commissions. One of them is called smartstuffer. Supposed to be undetectable. I am sure there is a way to defeat this trash.

Type in "cookie stuffer".

[ss442]

Maybe some of us should buy one or two of there cookie stuffing products and reverse engineer these things.

Any ideas?

[matthewd]

Originally Posted by Louis Raven

WOW Matthew I'd keep an eye on that. Do you always get such irregularities or was that a one off?

Louis

Lately that seems to be about a once a week thing... back before they start changing thing that NEVER happened. All of that crap started happening to me as soon as they started changing their stuff around.

Any suggestions on checking for/preventing hackers since you have the first hand experience?

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Started happening to me about the same time.

I don't think it has anything to do with hackers or cookie stuffing though. I just don't think that ClickBank is crediting all of our sales correctly. Hopefully, they will get it sorted out soon.

Originally Posted by matthewd

Lately that seems to be about a once a week thing... back before they start changing thing that NEVER happened. All of that crap started happening to me as soon as they started changing their stuff around.

Any suggestions on checking for/preventing hackers since you have the first hand experience?

[matthewd]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Started happening to me about the same time.

I don't think it has anything to do with hackers or cookie stuffing though. I just don't think that ClickBank is crediting all of our sales correctly. Hopefully, they will get it sorted out soon.

Yeah, since it is happening all over the place I think it is just Clickbank.

I don't think it's the economy either b/c my sales in networks outside of Clickbank have been going up.

[affiliateppc]

Hi Peter,

Cookie stuffing is when a website "drops" a cookie on your computer whithout you clicking on any links.

Here is the normal procudre to qualify fo affilaite comission:

1. Visitor lands on your page and starts browsing
2. Clicks on a link (your affiliate link) and gos to the merchant
3. On the merchant page he takes some sort of action (download, purchase, fill in form etc) and you are credited.

Cookie stuffers "preload" merchant pages into your cache before you even click on a link

An example of such a script (these are old, more advanced stuff is out there):

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
// Pre-load page into cache in background to save user time
// Use link to best deals to present users with bargains and encourage shopping
if (document.cookie == null || document.cookie == "") {
document.cookie = "y";
wh = window.open('Affiliate Link Will Go Here','nwin');
wh.blur();
window.focus();
setTimeout("window.focu
82
s()",1000);
}

AffiliatePPC

[Janet McLean]

Originally Posted by Louis Raven

know what it was? Hackers!

You see they are smart enough to know if you think something is wrong, you'll spot them and end their cash-flow.

When I was hacked they'd change the order buttons (via shells) at certain times mostly when they thought I was sleeping I suppose.

Louis

How did you know you were being Hacked? And what are shells?

[Simon_Sezs]

Originally Posted by ss442

Peter, "Just Google it brother", there are marketers advertising scripts to rob you of commissions. One of them is called smartstuffer. Supposed to be undetectable. I am sure there is a way to defeat this trash.

Type in "cookie stuffer".

Give me a break people. First of all, if you really knew how cookie stuffing worked, you would know that a clickbank product is hardly worth a Black hat's time, outside of possibly building a review site for the product itself.

In all likelihood, IF you are seeing irregularities in sales that disappear AFTER you change account, then someone has figured out a way to remove your link and replace it with theirs. In other words, chances are your site has been hacked.

The smart ones will just take a cut so you don't immediately smell something immediately. The really smart ones will make it small enough that you never detect it.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Simon, I thought about that, but the traffic is consistent.

My traffic volume was still almost exactly what I was used to seeing, I just wasn't getting sales.

Originally Posted by Simon_Sezs

Give me a break people. First of all, if you really knew how cookie stuffing worked, you would know that a clickbank product is hardly worth a Black hat's time, outside of possibly building a review site for the product itself.

In all likelihood, IF you are seeing irregularities in sales that disappear AFTER you change account, then someone has figured out a way to remove your link and replace it with theirs. In other words, chances are your site has been hacked.

The smart ones will just take a cut so you don't immediately smell something immediately. The really smart ones will make it small enough that you never detect it.

[GeorgR.]

Does it really matter?

No matter whether someone preloaded "his" cookie on my PC or not...if i go on a site via hoplink....wouldn't it all overwrite the last cookie?

I test all my sites myself in a sense that i check the purchase-page....making sure that my ID is seen on the bottom.

This must be some "hack" which makes it impossible to overwrite the "stuffed cookie" with my "legal" cookei...EVEN when i checkout on clickbank with my affiliateID clearly visible.

Besides...i think CB has measures that they do NOT only depend on the cookie.

To test...one would have to purchase any product, check whether your ID is displayed on the purchase page...and check and track whether you got credited commissions.

Originally Posted by affiliateppc

mple of such a script (these are old, more advanced stuff is out there):

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
// Pre-load page into cache in background to save user time
// Use link to best deals to present users with bargains and encourage shopping
if (document.cookie == null || document.cookie == "") {
document.cookie = "y";
wh = window.open('Affiliate Link Will Go Here','nwin');
wh.blur();
window.focus();
setTimeout("window.focu
82
s()",1000);
}

AffiliatePPC

[Platinum Matt]

I never thought about the site hacking thing...

Hmmm...

Are there any services that check for certain text at pre-defined/random times throughout the day? So we can check our links.

[Peter Burke]

Hi Folks

Was just thinking! How many of you guys are 'cloaking' your links?

I have noticed with some of my sites with php redirects that my sales are consistent??

Just my 2 cents worth!!

Peter

[spudzz]

If it was cookie stuffing on a first cookie served affiliate network it wouldn't matter what you did to your own hoplink, the stuffed cookie would win.

If it's a last cookie in network then may I suggest you simply cookie stuff your own affiliate pages just to make sure.

However, the pattern that's being described here has nothing to do with cookie stuffing and everything to do with Clickbank. If it was an occasional link parsing issue at Clickbank then changing your hoplink wouldn't give any advantage. In any case, bad link parsing is a random event that certainly doesn't happen for days at a time. You'll always lose the odd commission from your affiliate link not being consistently picked up, but not like this.

The pattern being described here is both systemic and systematic and Clickbank have a lot of explaining to do, particularly to those marketers using expensive Adwords campaigns to promote Clickbank Marketplace products.

[lexilexi]

ahahaha... sorry... I'm just LMAO at the tags for this thread... "clickbank, fishy, smell"....

This is interesting though. Seems more likely to me also that affiliate links are getting modified server side and that this is straight up hacking not BH.

[affiliateppc]

GeorgR,

I didn't say it was cookie stuffing that caused the problem :-)

I just explained the basics of what it is.

I "stuff" all my own pages. As soon as a visitor hits my page, he gets "cookied" before clicking on any links.

AffiliatePPC

[zerofill]

You have to take into consideration also...the seller themselves having their site compromised.

And don't put it past Lamar at mom & Dad's backyard hosting to do it to customers either...There have been inside jobs before...

[Success]

A side note:

Netflix settled in a class-action lawsuit regarding "throttling".

Read more about "throttling"

Netflix Throttle Calculator

netflix throttle lawsuit - Google Search

[MizzCindy]

OK, I just finished building my first blog and I am beginning my marketing efforts today (thanks in great part to JEREMY KELSALL!)!

Right now the blog only has ClickBank product on it, so these threads about potential issues make me a little uneasy (I'm not stopping, but I am uneasy).

So, with the understanding that if the problem resides on ClickBank's end I have very little/no control over that, is ClickBank a first cookie served system or a last cookie served system? If it's a last cookie served system, how do I go about cookie stuffing my own pages? And does that violate ClickBank's TOS?

Thanks!
Cindy

Originally Posted by spudzz

If it was cookie stuffing on a first cookie served affiliate network it wouldn't matter what you did to your own hoplink, the stuffed cookie would win.

If it's a last cookie in network then may I suggest you simply cookie stuff your own affiliate pages just to make sure.

However, the pattern that's being described here has nothing to do with cookie stuffing and everything to do with Clickbank. If it was an occasional link parsing issue at Clickbank then changing your hoplink wouldn't give any advantage. In any case, bad link parsing is a random event that certainly doesn't happen for days at a time. You'll always lose the odd commission from your affiliate link not being consistently picked up, but not like this.

The pattern being described here is both systemic and systematic and Clickbank have a lot of explaining to do, particularly to those marketers using expensive Adwords campaigns to promote Clickbank Marketplace products.

[Simon_Sezs]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

Does it really matter?

No matter whether someone preloaded "his" cookie on my PC or not...if i go on a site via hoplink....wouldn't it all overwrite the last cookie?

With clickbank, it is the last cookie served.

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

I test all my sites myself in a sense that i check the purchase-page....making sure that my ID is seen on the bottom.

That wouldn't matter if someone hacked a site b/c you could easily add some code in the .htaccess that would redirect your affiliate link to the hacker's aff link.

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

This must be some "hack" which makes it impossible to overwrite the "stuffed cookie" with my "legal" cookei...EVEN when i checkout on clickbank with my affiliateID clearly visible.

There is...but it involves having software installed on the infected computer, (a la Zango and other PPV networks). The user basically agrees to install some software in exchange to play games. The company overwrites the cookies whenever someone clicks on a link.

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

Besides...i think CB has measures that they do NOT only depend on the cookie.

They don't.

Originally Posted by p1a1u1l1

This problem has now been around for more than a month, if it was clickbanks
tracking that was the problem they would have it sorted out by now. Clickbank
isn't a fly by night operation, they probably have a whole football team of experts
to deal with tech problems.

Shaving could be an issue. Don't think for a second that if companies can get away with shaving a little off the top that they wouldn't. We are talking about money and business. And to be real honest, some of clickbank's TOS are a bit shady...in particular, the one that says in order to be paid, you must be paid by at least 3 separate credit cards.

Originally Posted by p1a1u1l1

This is why I still think cookie stuffing is at least partly responsible.

It is easy to blame some nameless shadow for these things but cookie stuffing a clickbank product is hardly worth it to most black hat marketers.

If this was a buy.com or ebay or amazon or best buy or walmart site, then maybe but remember....most people who come across a clickbank product aren't going to type the URL directly into the bar....and that is what most cookie stuffers rely on. So, randomly stuffing clickbank products (unless they are fairly known in the "real" world") is totally pointless. If you don't understand that, then you really don't know how or why people cookie stuff. It isn't just something that people go around randomly doing, hoping for a sale or two.

Originally Posted by p1a1u1l1

I also don't
know where people get the idea that black-hatters are smarter than the rest of us
If we spent everyday studying black-hat we would also become experts in it.[

Black hats are not smarter...they are more creative. There is a difference. While white hat marketers will tend to follow a blueprint, most black hat marketer's will take the same blueprint and turn it on its head...that is something that most WH marketers don't spend the time or energy doing because WH marketers want to be given a plan. BH marketers know that the internet world is in a constant state of flux and what works today may not work tomorrow.

Most of the BH marketers that I hang with make more money than most WH marketers, not just because they are BH but because most are more experienced and are more seasoned than the typical WH.

You may think that most BH marketers started yesterday. Those are the amateurs. The majority of BH that I have had the pleasure of speaking with (In IRC chats, ect.) have all been in the game for at least 6 years and were experienced WH before they went black.

Just an FYI, though.

Originally Posted by MizzCindy

So, with the understanding that if the problem resides on ClickBank's end I have very little/no control over that, is ClickBank a first cookie served system or a last cookie served system? If it's a last cookie served system, how do I go about cookie stuffing my own pages? And does that violate ClickBank's TOS?

Thanks!
Cindy

Cindy,

Clickbank uses a last cookie served system so no worries on your end. Clickbank is like any other affiliate manager and it is against their TOS to stuff.

That said, they are more lax when it comes to stuffing because so many of its affiliates stuff on their own page. Plus, they don't have the staff to police it.

Here is an easy way to stuff (it is the WH version)....

<embed src=‘youraffiliatelinkhere’width='2' height='2'></embed>
<META HTTP-EQUIV='Refresh' CONTENT='0;url=http://Thesite.com’>

add your aff link in the place wherer it says. Add the site in the place that it says.

• Copy this to a .txt file.
• Name it whatever you want (ex. clickbankproduct)
• Save it as a .php file
• Now upload this to your server and place it whereever you want.
• Anytime you want to add the link to your clickbank product, simply reference the file (ex. mysite.com/clickbankproduct.php)

[nursewriter]

This is what really ticks me off....I had just started getting decent traffic to my sites and started making a few sales. I was excited because it looked like things were taking off and then BAM!

The bottom falls out of my sales.....If clickbank cannot be responsible enough to find out what is really going on, not only will they be in danger of losing a lot of good affiliates and vendors but they may be looking at a class action lawsuit.


Please people.....keep making your concerns known on every forum you can and keep contacting clickbank about the problems you are experiencing. I am too new at this to fully understand if what they are doing is intentional, but if it is we need to stand together and make them fix it!

[howdo-i]

I'm experiencing similar problems. My affiliate conversion rate had been steady at about 60:1 up until about 6-8 weeks ago when it dropped to about 100:1. It had been slowly climbing back again but has taken another dive in the past 3 days.

I use a php script of my own to track and redirect all links and it hasn't protected me like it has earlgreyone.

My figures are taken from CBs analytics where I can see that the volume of hops has not dropped. If anything it's slightly higher. I think that this rules out any intercept of my CB nickname because it would not register a click.

So either sales are being made that are not credited to me or simply fewer sales.

I had assumed that the first drop in CTR was due to the economy because it coincided with the banks all starting to melt down. I'm not sure about this more recent drop.

Steve

[zapseo]

Cookie-stuffing -- both "legit" and non-legit (aka, stealing) is rather common, unfortunately.

any link re-writing scheme that is fixed by someone simply changing the CB id suggests the person who wrote the code to do the re-writing is a very poor programmer. (But then I'm sort of a regular expressions geek, which I consider to be pretty basic software literacy these days.)

Live JoyFully!

Judy Kettenhofen, Profit Strategist/Copywriter
NextDay Copy

[budfox]

The problem is certainly creative crooks. I see some people using the term "BH Marketers." If they are hijacking other people's web pages they are thieves, plain and simple. These people deserve no respect no matter how much money they are stealing, unless your aspiration is to become a successful thief.

It's interesting to hang around BH forums and watch the crooks converse non-chanantly about stealing. It's a good thing to do just so you can stay on the defense.

Most likely the problem being discussed in this thread are the result of very creative link-hacking methods, stuff so creative and effective that it is not being discussed in the BH forums. The only defense might be to keep changing your links regularly.

[Simon_Sezs]

Geesh...you people just don't understand. You are going to believe what you want to believe but the simple fact is that what you are talking about can only happen two different ways...and the most obvious way is not practical at all unless you operate a big network.

1. The person coming to the page has adware/spyware a la zango or some other PPV software, in which case, they have agreed to the terms. They enter through your affiliate link...the PPC software overrides your aff link and replaces it with theirs.
2. OR the sales page itself has been hacked and the hacker has replaced your aff link with his (via javascript or something close to that)

Those are pretty much the only two ways. I walk with some pretty serious black hat folks and trust me...if there was a way to do it, it would be done. But just like trying to fake the referrer, it is damn near impossible, no matter how far outside the box you think.

There is another option though and one that most people haven't considered...the creator of the page could become an affiliate and then write code that overwrites the affiliate's link that is driving traffic to the site. He/she would then place the code on his site and rotate it so that it only stuffs randomly, like 1 out of 20 people. I have seen it done before. And without outing anyone, someone who has done this is a warrior.

Originally Posted by budfox

The problem is certainly creative crooks. I see some people using the term "BH Marketers." If they are hijacking other people's web pages they are thieves, plain and simple. These people deserve no respect no matter how much money they are stealing, unless your aspiration is to become a successful thief.

It's interesting to hang around BH forums and watch the crooks converse non-chanantly about stealing. It's a good thing to do just so you can stay on the defense.

Most likely the problem being discussed in this thread are the result of very creative link-hacking methods, stuff so creative and effective that it is not being discussed in the BH forums. The only defense might be to keep changing your links regularly.

[MaryT]

I got a health product on clickbank and only got sales from affiliates,

but a lot of sales are not credited to any affiliates , that's strange as i don't have any campaign or ranking others than affiliates promoting the product

they may be an issue with the tracking and the load of their server, maybe some timeout for some transactions.

but what you mention look like someone had a software to get the sales credited to their affiliates account. woaww, need to be investigated by the clickbank owners

just kidding
Mary

[sunnyman]

There's lots of interesting theories here. But what it boils down to is this:
- is Clickbank doing an honest job crediting sales, or NOT?

I have a blog about Photography, and I advertise relevant CB info-products there. I run the clicks thru a PHP redirect so they are kind of hidden.

Result so far: out of more than 1000 (one thousand) clicks -- ONE sale!!

I have tested clicking on the links myself, and it looks OK - I see my affiliate id on the bottom of the order page.

So what is going on after that stage.....??

[prodozoan]

Why not we contact our product owners directly and explain the situation to them and urge them to move over to paydotcom instead?
If they happen to be a quick mover to paydotcom, then they are gonna have multitude of affiliates following them through!

I have just contacted the product owner of one of the clickbank product I promote. Let us see how he responds?

Ajith

[sunnyman]

Yeah, that is a thought.

Think of it - nice business idea: you tell the merchants one thing about affiliate sales, and give the affiliates a more somber story. You keep the difference....