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Dangers of auto-approving WSO affiliates?

by WFAlex
11 replies
Dear fellow warriors,

I'm looking for your advice in regards to WSO affiliates. I just released my first WSO (with WSO pro) and already got about 6 affiliate requests within a matter of minutes of the thread going live.

Now on the affiliate approval page, there is the following warning:

IMPORTANT: Please DO NOT approve affiliates to promote your products that you do not know and/or trust.

If you do not personally know a person requesting to promote your product, click on their name to learn more about them BEFORE approving their request. If you are the least bit suspicious, DO NOT approve them. This is the best way to keep the WarriorPlus affiliate community "clean", making it the best and most powerful network of affiliates around.
Among the people contacting me there were several that only had like 1 post at this forum. This doesn't have to say anything about them but that coupled with the warning above does make me feel a bit uneasy...so I'm wondering:

What are the dangers of just approving anyone that applies to promote the WSO?
What bad could happen?

Would appreciate your thoughts and comments!
#affiliates #autoapproving #dangers #wso
  • Profile picture of the author Dontrell Lyons
    Warrior Plus, DigiResults and JVZoo is one of the few affiliate networks where you have to approve affiliates... others such as Clickbank have an open marketplace...

    My goal is to get as many eyeballs on my offers, so I pretty much approve everyone.

    The only downside to this, is that some affiliates may spam your offer and your EPCs (earnings per click) will drop. Big name JVs want to see high EPCs in order for them to promote.

    One upside to approving each affiliate is actually contacting them 1 on 1 to build a good JV relationship.

    Hopefully that helps...
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    • Profile picture of the author Haroon Ballim
      You will find that many people apply , but only a few have the correct tools to market or a list to market to .

      The reason you should consider delaying payout to affiliates is refunds . Depending on your commission structure , you may require an affiliate to actually process the refund . If that affiliate is untrustworthy it will make you look bad as the client will see it as you not willing to process the refund .

      So be careful be approving instant payment .
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
        I don't know if it's still going on, but there was a spate of scam affiliates not long ago. They'd sign up, order products through their own links using stolen credit card info, and run off with the commissions. The sellers would then have the problem of chargebacks to deal with.

        There were a couple of reports of people losing Paypal accounts over this, and a few others who lost a bunch of money this way.

        Those recommendations about being careful who you approve aren't there to make things harder for you...


        Paul
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        • Profile picture of the author Robert Michael
          Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

          I don't know if it's still going on, but there was a spate of scam affiliates not long ago. They'd sign up, order products through their own links using stolen credit card info, and run off with the commissions. The sellers would then have the problem of chargebacks to deal with.

          There were a couple of reports of people losing Paypal accounts over this, and a few others who lost a bunch of money this way.

          Those recommendations about being careful who you approve aren't there to make things harder for you...


          Paul
          Those scammers are still out there. If anything, the numbers have only increased.

          Screw your stats & EPC's.. I'd say protecting yourself from fraud is the #1 reason to screen affiliates & NOT auto-approve everybody.
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        • Profile picture of the author WFAlex
          Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

          There were a couple of reports of people losing Paypal accounts over this, and a few others who lost a bunch of money this way.

          Those recommendations about being careful who you approve aren't there to make things harder for you...


          Paul
          I expected the warning to have a reason but not that it would be that bad.

          Any tips on some bullet-proof screening of affiliates? I have already pm'd everyone asking about their promotional methods but these kind of shady affiliates mentioned above could just respond with anything made up.
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    • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
      Originally Posted by Dontrell Lyons View Post

      Warrior Plus, DigiResults and JVZoo is one of the few affiliate networks where you have to approve affiliates... others such as Clickbank have an open marketplace...

      My goal is to get as many eyeballs on my offers, so I pretty much approve everyone.
      Bad idea. There have been several threads about affiliate fraud costing WSO sellers money. There was another thread mentioning a 40% ClickBank refund rate versus a 2% WarriorPlus refund rate, which may be why ClickBank is starting to rate affiliates and terminate those with refund problems.

      There have been a few Warriors I know where I reported an affiliate who was making fraudulent claims. A lot of refund / chargeback requests is not exactly a positive in your PayPal account.

      some affiliates may spam your offer
      I just reported one today, and now the seller has to be involved. Although I wouldn't say a seller is always responsible for affiliate spam, the FTC may view it differently, knowing the seller will almost always immediately pay up instead of fighting the issue.

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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
        Alex,
        I expected the warning to have a reason but not that it would be that bad.
        Most people don't realize how bad some of this stuff can be. That's largely because they've never had to deal with it. By the time you know, you've usually been bitten.

        Just try to choose carefully, and you should be able to keep the overall problems to an acceptable level. There's really no way to bullet-proof yourself completely, though.

        Stick with people you know, or who have more to lose than gain by cheating, and you should be fine.


        Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Robert Michael
    EDIT: Sorry, just noticed you already posted which platform you're using (WSOPro) lol

    I know WSOPro contains a link to their WF profile when someone requests to be an affiliate.

    That way, you can check out their post history & try to get a better understanding of who you would be dealing with.

    If you aren't sure about someone but you think they could end up being a good affiliate, just approve them with delayed commissions (NOT instant commissions) if WSOPro has the option to use delayed.

    Scammers who use stolen CC info typically won't waste their time if they are on delayed payments, because they know they only have a limited time-frame before the real CC owner finds out about the charges & file chargebacks, reports it lost/stolen, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author GailTrahd
    Another reason to edit who is approved and who isn't is that it affects your conversion rates - and affiliates will look at those conversions rates. If they are low because people are sending traffic that is not converting, then affiliates with larger lists will think twice about sending an offer to their list.

    On the other hand, you can wait to approve people who you are not familiar with until a day or two after your primary affiliates have promoted your offer. Now you can test their traffic and know for your next WSO.
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  • Profile picture of the author Barak Hullman
    I make sure someone has a reputation on the forum. If they're active, I'll approve them.

    However, from my experience, most people that ask to promote your WSO don't actually ever promote it.
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by Barak Hullman View Post

      However, from my experience, most people that ask to promote your WSO don't actually ever promote it.
      This.

      Most people who request to promote will never do anything and will never send you any sales. So you put your account under increased risk by approving those people and you get very little value from them in return.

      You are much better off to concentrate on the big hitters. Most of them have an active presence around the forum. If you see people with very little posts or who have joined the forum very recently, I never approve them.

      Some would say those things are not a great indication of a persons intent but it has served me well over the past few years. If you decline someone and they were really keen to promote your product then they would contact you and explain their situation.

      Think about it, if you knew you could sell 50-100 copies of someone's product and you were declined when you requested to promote, would you not at least send them a message and ask why you were declined and explain your intentions? I would.
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