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How to hide traffic source from the merchant?

by JohnVH
26 replies
Hi,

If I am direct linking from a traffic source to a merchant thru my affiliate link, what is a good way to hide the traffic source from the merchant?

Would something like Prosper202 or Hypertracker be able to do it?

Not trying anything underhand here, just don't want to hand over profitable sources / keywords on a silver platter to the merchant.

Thanks for your insights!

Best,
John
#hide #merchant #source #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Ricky Monetise
    You can use T202, or Clickthroo to do this (look for the 'cloaking' option).
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnVH
    Ricky,

    Thanks for your inputs! Clickthroo looks very good - it seems to produce some great landing pages and does the cloaking thingy too.

    Non-techie question - what if you buy a domain and simply redirect it to the affiliate link? Can the merchant tell what the paid traffic source is and what the keywords are?

    Thanks!
    John
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  • Profile picture of the author thomas1984
    If you need to hide your traffic source chances are you wont be with that network very long.. I direct link all the time and never hide my traffic source.
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  • Profile picture of the author PPV Affiliate
    Why do you want to hide it?

    The 'cloaking' options in tracking tools is not enough btw.
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  • Profile picture of the author Greedy
    There is really no way to 100% do it, unless you cloak and also block browsers that leak the referrer like pretty much everything except IE.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dasilva Marketing
    Tracking 202 will do what you need. They have prosper 202 which is free but tracking202 is paid. Last I checked you can track offers with prosper 202 but not cloak them.
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    • Profile picture of the author Christian Little
      Originally Posted by Dasilva Marketing View Post

      Tracking 202 will do what you need. They have prosper 202 which is free but tracking202 is paid. Last I checked you can track offers with prosper 202 but not cloak them.
      The problem with T202 is that if you tell it to cloak the referrer it causes a big delay. Basically somebody clicks your T202 tracking link and they see a white page for about 6 seconds before getting forwarded to the offer. It does work and will hide the referrer, but you run the risk of people bailing out when they think the page crashed because that's what it looks like.
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  • Profile picture of the author mattjack
    Use Fakereferer.com or blank your referer with Blankreferer.com
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  • Profile picture of the author ChadOath
    It's probably not worth it. If you send a bunch of traffic with blank referrer data, especially to a lead offer, that's going to be a red flag.

    Also, meta refresh cloaking can eat into your conversion rate as well. My CR has dropped by about 20% some times when I've used cloaking via Propser202 or manual code.

    If your source is honest, then there's no need to hide it, in my humble opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Forgive me if I'm wrong but in PHP you should be able to set the HTTP_REFERER to whatever you want.

    And why would you want a merchant to know your traffic source? They'll just put their own ads on there and steal your traffic source.
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    • Profile picture of the author Christian Little
      Originally Posted by brettb View Post

      Forgive me if I'm wrong but in PHP you should be able to set the HTTP_REFERER to whatever you want.

      And why would you want a merchant to know your traffic source? They'll just put their own ads on there and steal your traffic source.
      Setting the value of HTTP_REFERER only works on your own site, it won't work for passing people along to a landing page. In a nutshell, they need to stay on your domain for more than 4-5 seconds for the referrer to be fully cloaked. It's not worth holding them there in my opinion, but it works for some people.

      As for the merchant learning your traffic source, some people will argue that if the merchant learns your traffic source then they will copy what you did and take over your traffic source. In some cases that is true, but it's usually only the really shady networks/programs. All the good programs (i.e. Neverblue, MaxBounty, etc) do not do this, they want to know where your traffic comes from because:

      a) They want to make sure you are sending them traffic that will convert and not cause chargebacks

      and

      b) It tells them what kind of traffic you can get so they can talk to you about other offers that might suit your traffic better (i.e. if they see you sent 10,000 visitors to an offer from a gaming website, then they will reach out to you when they have a hot gaming offer join their network, etc).
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      • Profile picture of the author mattjack
        For my CPA campaigns Faking the referer from google and twitter using that site fakereferer.com , the redirects are almost instant.

        I've never used prosper202 , i have seen people mention before that it takes a while for the redirect to work. Thus visitors closing the browser as they are sat there waiting.
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    • Profile picture of the author rssk78
      Originally Posted by brettb View Post

      Forgive me if I'm wrong but in PHP you should be able to set the HTTP_REFERER to whatever you want.

      And why would you want a merchant to know your traffic source? They'll just put their own ads on there and steal your traffic source.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Can you please write an example code? Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Majin
    Try this new service : Monojump
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  • Profile picture of the author JP Sauve
    Originally Posted by JohnVH View Post

    Hi,

    If I am direct linking from a traffic source to a merchant thru my affiliate link, what is a good way to hide the traffic source from the merchant?

    Would something like Prosper202 or Hypertracker be able to do it?

    Not trying anything underhand here, just don't want to hand over profitable sources / keywords on a silver platter to the merchant.

    Thanks for your insights!

    Best,
    John

    John, is that absolutely necessary? Use whatever third party tracking you think best, but hide the traffic source? That's essentially asking the advertiser to question the legitimacy of your leads. Not sure if you know, but MaxBounty has a specific policy of non-competition with our affiliates. We don't buy traffic to feed campaigns, we don't bid on keywords, etc - we don't compete. So your traffic sources are safe with MaxBounty.

    That said, if your traffic source is kind of gray area and you're hiding it because you're worried, have a conversation with your affiliate manager (or myself) on just how gray it is. We can likely assist you in slightly altering your pitch to the surfer to make it compliant, so everyone is the happy. A happy advertiser is a powerful benefit that leads to more business.
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    • Profile picture of the author fun
      Originally Posted by JP Sauve View Post

      John, is that absolutely necessary? Use whatever third party tracking you think best, but hide the traffic source? That's essentially asking the advertiser to question the legitimacy of your leads. Not sure if you know, but MaxBounty has a specific policy of non-competition with our affiliates. We don't buy traffic to feed campaigns, we don't bid on keywords, etc - we don't compete. So your traffic sources are safe with MaxBounty.

      That said, if your traffic source is kind of gray area and you're hiding it because you're worried, have a conversation with your affiliate manager (or myself) on just how gray it is. We can likely assist you in slightly altering your pitch to the surfer to make it compliant, so everyone is the happy. A happy advertiser is a powerful benefit that leads to more business.
      Affiliates are trying to hide their traffic sources from advertisers (merchants) not from ad networks like maxbounty. You misunderstood the issue.

      In my opinion ad networks must not send traffic sources to their advertisers and must consider to give a guarantee for this to affiliates.

      Why?
      It's not logical to assume that advertisers want to keep paying to an ad network once they know where is the conversions come from..
      Also advertisers should be happy with conversions.
      They don't need to know the traffic sources for a less refund rate.
      They can always get rid of a specific affiliate if they don't like the results.
      They can always get the money back from a specific affiliate.
      They can always contact a specific affiliate to offer a different product to be promoted.
      Some arguments mentioned here don't look to me valid.

      Advertisers pay a small fee until learning where are the gold mines. Affiliates and ad networks can also win in this game but not as much as an advertiser.
      Being an advertiser with a product to be sold looks like the most profitable business until ad networks resolve this issue.
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      • Profile picture of the author JP Sauve
        Originally Posted by fun View Post

        Affiliates are trying to hide their traffic sources from advertisers (merchants) not from ad networks like maxbounty. You misunderstood the issue.
        Same thing really. End result is not knowing where the traffic is from, and all the details about how the surfer got to the advertiser page and what was promised. And that's a problem for most campaigns.


        Originally Posted by fun View Post

        Advertisers pay a small fee until learning where are the gold mines.
        Problem is that there are so many affiliates willing to happily accept that fee for fraud/bad/misleading traffic that an advertiser with a "let 'em run blind" attitude will lose their shirt. Even if your individual traffic is good, so much else from others will be bad. If the advertiser only looks later, it won't be a successful campaign for the advertiser because of that. Networks that were here and now gone, or perhaps struggling to pay bills in a timely manner, this is because they've been turning a blind eye to traffic sources/quality and are suffering because of it.

        If you have good, real, compliant traffic, you should welcome sharing the details with an advertiser as he's a partner of yours and will be paying you for potentially years to come. This is twice as smart when dealing with a non-competing network like MaxBounty who'll never copy your idea to send traffic to the advertiser... we have no internal traffic arm for specifically this reason. The small risk of an end advertiser trying to duplicate your traffic, it happens, but it's so very rare. Most advertisers would prefer someone else do the work. That's why they're in performance marketing instead of doing it themselves.
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  • Profile picture of the author PPC-Coach
    I love these threads.

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    • Profile picture of the author 100k
      Originally Posted by PPC-Coach View Post

      I love these threads.

      Watchya talking about Willy?

      Know something we don't ?
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      Rent this space.

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  • Profile picture of the author danielotc
    i understand why some people don't wanna give away their secret ways how they send traffic but please keep in mind that if you fake or hide referrers it'll instantly make you suspicious for fraudulent activity .

    inform your AM before you do that
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  • Profile picture of the author Greedy
    I always hide my campaigns, I had an AM at a very popular affiliate network copy one of my campaigns.

    He got fired shortly after as they found he was stealing a lot of other affiliate campaigns. The owners were great honest guys, but at the of the day they aren't running everything.

    So sorry I don't buy the "just trust us", and if "you hide your traffic it looks shady."

    If they don't want my traffic that is fine. Other place will take it. I don't usually don't mind sharing my traffic source if asked, but that is about all.

    Jason owner of A4D every recommends hiding your sources, he has said things down the line of 'I'll be first to admit its foolish to not hide your sources.'

    I would suggest ALWAYS hiding your traffic the best you can.
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  • Profile picture of the author mattjack
    Never under estimate an account manager! If any one in this business thinks they can make a quick buck and get away with it.... then 99% of the time they will!!

    Always hide your traffic sources!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author jennyd
    I will add that it doesn't automatically look suspicious and as if you're up to something. As long as the traffic you're sending is of high quality and converts for the merchant, no AM will be forcing you to reveal your sources.
    BUT. If the traffic overall looks like c***, then the fact you're hiding the source only confirms that smth fishy is going on.
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  • Profile picture of the author PPC-Coach
    I can see both sides of this. One rotten apple spoils it for everyone it seems.

    If you can't trust the affiliate manager or network you're sending traffic to, then maybe don't deal with them at all. I've heard horror stories of people getting their campaigns stolen, but to me that's part of the game. No matter what you do, there's affiliates out there that constantly just seek out YOUR campaigns, look at all the spy tools out there now. They can't come up with their own stuff so they steal it.

    Sucks but when you hide it, you put a big "watch me as I'm probably doing something shady" mark on your back. So while you're trying to fly under the radar with the network, you just came into their sites big time because they can't see where the traffic is coming from. Now if your conversion rate is good, then no sweat you're solid. But if it's iffy, then they will watch you like a hawk whether you're hiding your traffic sources or not.

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  • Profile picture of the author badboy_Nick
    Originally Posted by JohnVH View Post

    what is a good way to hide the traffic source from the merchant?
    The best way is still to NOT use direct linking and do Host and Post.

    So don't use his landers and place your pixels for him to see your traffic ... but build your own sites and send him the leads or online enquiries directly

    Nick
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