Determing a SCRUB on CPA

A scrub means they take your info and compare it to their existing database. If the info you're giving them is already in their database, then they don't give you credit for that one. The thing that most don't know is they change the amount of time they'll go back to scrub the lead. Meaning, when starting off with your traffic, they, (they being the merchant), will take a lot more leads because they might only go back a week to find a duplicate in their system. Then they'll check to see if you're leads are converting or not. IF they're not, they will set the scrubber to look back even further into the past, (say a month or two now versus the initial week). So you can think of scrubbing as searching for duplicate leads. The reason conversions drop off usually for poor traffic is explained above, (ie they set the scrubber to go back even further in history).

A CPA Network is not going to tell you you're getting scrubbed as they find out pretty much as you do. The merchant, (who does the scrubbing), doesn't tell you either. You'll notice it though when your conversion rate plummets.

Now there are ways to combat this. First you can spread your traffic thinly amongst related offers to fly under the radar. (They scrub large volumes faster then small volumes of traffic). All the scrubbing talk gets very confusing when the merchant is the cpa network. There are lots of networks out there that run their own offers, dating offers are a primo example. The cpa network will set up a site to collect dating leads and sell them to 3 or 4 dating sites. So they'll pay you $10 and sell that one lead 3 or 4 times for much more then $10.

On email and zip submits, there are a couple of other reasons why some of the leads might be backed out:

1) Under age 18 traffic
2) Foreign traffic (when it's a US offer)
3) Incentivizing (giving points, cash, gifts) to get people to input email/zip

If the offer specifies 18 and old, then be careful running your ads on social networks. A majority of that traffic will be under age 18. Sometimes networks will overlook that if you've tapped into actual spenders.

If a lot of email addresses are being submitted, but on the address page, those people are from a country not specified by the offer, then you'll probably get a call about traffic that "doesn't back out".

Be careful with offering gifts of any kind to get people to input their email/zip. If a network/merchant sees a ton of email addresses coming in and then total dropoff, you'll probably get a call about that. That traffic is basically worthless, since those people are not interested in anything having to do with the offer at all, but are just dropping in an email to get their gift/cash.

Hope that helps you understand what the advertiser looks at. Let me know if you have any questions!