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Is Commission stealing real?

by haze
15 replies
I'm not new to IM, but I am starting to actually work at it now, and I am concerned about commission stealing.

What is the true, basic definition of commission stealing? Is it another IM'er that puts their hoplink in place of yours, and buy the product from themselves?

Or is it something more sinister, like someone somehow gets your website and changes things in it? I don't know if that's even possible, but it's the web...

I was an idiot, and for the past few years have had an IM product website. Well, now I know why I was never selling anything. That aside, is the make money niche the only niche I should be afraid of commission-stealing?

If not, how can I protect myself from it, without spending an arm and a leg?

~Haze
#commission #question #real #stealing
  • Profile picture of the author BobJutsu
    Normally people are just talking about going directly to the website without using your affiliate link; in other words, buying the product without crediting you for the sale. So it's not really "stealing" at all.

    I've never really seen this as being a problem for two reasons:

    1) Most people don't give a crap enough to copy and paste a url for the sole purpose of keeping you from making a commission. The number of people who are going to copy and paste a url for the purpose of keeping you from getting commission is so tiny, that if you are worried about it cutting into your bottom line then you have way bigger problems to worry about than commission stealing...like actually making sales.

    2) All of my affiliate links are redirected anyway, both for the sake of masking and for the sake of tracking...but never to keep people from circumventing my commission.

    On a side note, why the bloody hell are you trying to sell marketing products when you obviously don't have a clue what you are doing, evidence by the fact that for two years you haven't made a sale? Your commissions aren't being "stolen", you just plain ol' fashioned can't make sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author haze
      Originally Posted by BobJutsu View Post

      On a side note, why the bloody hell are you trying to sell marketing products when you obviously don't have a clue what you are doing, evidence by the fact that for two years you haven't made a sale? Your commissions aren't being "stolen", you just plain ol' fashioned can't make sales.
      Well now, this is why I rarely post a question here. I make sales, thank you just not with that site. I do not make sales with IM products but I have seen hops for those products, which is why I was wondering.

      If you want to be an a** and make someone feel like an idiot for asking a question, then you did well. BRAVO This is EXACTLY what keeps alot of people away from this forum anymore.
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      • Profile picture of the author reapr
        Originally Posted by haze View Post

        Well now, this is why I rarely post a question here. I make sales, thank you just not with that site. I do not make sales with IM products but I have seen hops for those products, which is why I was wondering.

        If you want to be an a** and make someone feel like an idiot for asking a question, then you did well. BRAVO This is EXACTLY what keeps alot of people away from this forum anymore.
        I think the avatar speaks well for itself.

        As for your original question have you installed analytics or something similar? I have many sites. Some products convert well and others not so well and then a lot has to do with the keywords they are finding your site on.

        I have only had commission stealing going on with a merchant that despite they still have an affiliate program and manager the affiliate manager stringing me along and kept promising a check for several hundred dollars and I just finally went out and found a different merchant to replace the affiliate product links.

        Despite the fear of your commissions being stolen most of the fear is generally propagated by those selling a solution. Not saying it doesn't happen but ... something to consider.

        If your selling IM products sort of a different story most swap out links to save the commissions and get a discounted product. Is it theft ... depends on the person doing it but in my book it is very unethical.
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  • Profile picture of the author harro1
    This happens more with cpa offers(email submits,free trials etc.) in my experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author AFI
    I'm not sure why you're getting the attitude from this other guy here, but I guess his avatar speaks for itself.

    Anyway I don't think your commissions are being stolen with every sale. I think you're just having a problem monetizing your site. I think you should find someone who is good at site monetization and have them check out your site and see why you aren't making sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alan Petersen
      Ignore that other dude. As you can see from his avatar and his attitude he just likes to argue.

      Yes, commission theft is real. You can protect yourself a bit by cloaking you affiliate links with a simple php redirection which you can do for fee. But in reality nothing can truly protect you if a thief is out to steal so don't stress out too much about it.

      The most common place I have seen it is on Clickbank where a lot of "affiliates" just use their own CB ID to get a rebate/discount on their own purchases even it means screwing over the real affiliate.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by haze View Post

    I was an idiot, and for the past few years have had an IM product website. Well, now I know why I was never selling anything.
    Indeed. You won't earn many commissions selling products from Clickbank to people who are themselves already Clickbank affiliates. (I'm mentioning Clickbank, in particular, because you said "hoplink" in your post).

    They're not stealing, though. That's something they're entitled to do.

    Product selection, for affiliates, is a vital (and I think underappreciated) skill.

    If it helps you at all, my own list of 10 criteria for Clickbank product selection is in this post.
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    • Profile picture of the author lamberw
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      Indeed. You won't earn many commissions selling products from Clickbank to people who are themselves already Clickbank affiliates. (I'm mentioning Clickbank, in particular, because you said "hoplink" in your post).

      They're not stealing, though. That's something they're entitled to do.

      Product selection, for affiliates, is a vital (and I think underappreciated) skill.

      If it helps you at all, my own list of 10 criteria for Clickbank product selection is in this post.
      Alexa, they're not entitled to buy products through their own affiliate links. It's against Clickbank's terms and conditions, although people still do it a lot, especially in the "make money online" niche. Clickbank want new affiliate accounts to get payments from 5 different credit cards before they release payments. This is done to safeguard against this sort of activity.

      However, it doesn't take a genius to work out that people can form a syndicate and buy products from each other's affiliate links so they can all save money and make sales.

      My best advice is to assemble a bonus product/package to sell with the product you promote to incentivize the buyer to buy through your affiliate link.

      The bonus package must have a greater perceived value than the commission which the vendor is offering.

      It is more important than ever that even affiliates have a stockpile of products they can offer to accompany vendor's products.
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  • Profile picture of the author haze
    Thank you, harro1 and AFI. There are decent people still here, it's nice to know that. I knew better than to ask - this is exactly what happened to keep me away from this forum to begin with. I do not have 'thick skin', but I also don't believe you have to, to be a marketer.

    I actually only asked because I keep hearing about how to stop your commissions from being stolen, etc. and wondered about it. Probably just a marketing thing?
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  • Profile picture of the author AFI
    You'll find there are more nice people on here than there are jerks. Come back and keep posting!
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by haze View Post

      Well now, this is why I rarely post a question here. I make sales, thank you just not with that site. I do not make sales with IM products but I have seen hops for those products, which is why I was wondering.
      If you are seeing the hops, people are following your links. They just aren't buying when they get there.

      Commission theft is indeed real.

      The theft can come from many places, including unscrupulous vendors. The only protection you have against such vendors is not sending them your traffic.

      Here's another good thread with some solid information:

      http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ank+optin+list
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  • Profile picture of the author haze
    Thanks to all of you. I'll just cover my butt and stay away from IM products. And CPA for now.

    As far as the vendors themselves, I join the mailing lists before I become an affiliate. Out of 9, there is only 1 that I'm leery of, and they don't work with CB. So if they wind up screwing me, I've learned another lesson.

    In all honesty, I think the safest way is still making your own product. But then, again, we have people that buy it and violate copywright(sp) rules.

    I'll just switch the IM site to a PLR site. That way I don't have to worry about it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by haze View Post

      As far as the vendors themselves, I join the mailing lists before I become an affiliate.
      A popular fallacy, I'm afraid: that doesn't actually protect you, Haze.

      This point's discussed in some detail in the thread John linked to, above, so I won't go over all the arguments again here - but if you're selecting products with a vendor's opt-in on the sales page, you may still be losing commissions even if you yourself detected nothing adverse in the vendor's autoresponder emails to you. The thread linked to above by John really is worth a very good, long, slow, careful read. These problems are all pretty much resolvable.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tyrus Antas
    There's also the payment processor side:
    commission shaving. If I were promoting
    Clickbank products, I'd be more worried
    about this

    Tyrus
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  • Profile picture of the author FitnessMonster
    I've noticed that in the non-IM niches where I'm active, it's not really much of an issue, as a large number of folks you're selling to probably have no idea that it's even an affiliate link they're clicking.

    If you're selling IM products, then it seems like it would be a natural concern - even if you're cloaking your links, it's pretty easy if, for example, you see a product's being sold on ClickBank, to just purchase it with your own affiliate link.

    I totally agree that the bonus product/package is the best way to incentivize the buyer to purchase through your link - especially if you're selling IM products.
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