Archives for January 2005

On the affiliate solution provider side, it is very encouraging to see that a proactive stance is being taken against fraudulent affiliates.

Be Free

“Be Free has been doing a lot on the technology and services side to combat fraud,” according to Tom Gerace, founder and chief marketing officer of Be Free.

“Antifraud initiatives are critical for cost-per-click [CPC] and cost-per-lead programs, and Be Free recently released BFAST V6.70 to assist merchants in detecting suspect activity,” continued Gerace.

Be Free is also looking into methods for sharing community knowledge about affiliates that have been disabled by other merchants, and soon there will be an anonymous service called “Fraud Watch,” where affiliates and merchants can report suspect sites.

The recent BFAST V6.70 update from Be Free provides additional functionality to its “Suspect Activity” report, such as a new click-threshold value, new columns in the “Suspect Activity” report, and the ability to disable multiple sites.

Commission Junction

Todd Crawford, VP of strategic alliances at Commission Junction (CJ), recently shared with subscribers of the United States Affiliate Manager Coalition email discussion list some useful information about fraud.

“There are hundreds of sites offering robots to cheat CPC programs. There are actually organizations of cheaters (for both CPC and CPA [cost-per-ad] programs) numbering in the thousands. They are all over the world, and they range from kids clicking on each other’s banners (‘Click Clubs’) to criminal organizations,” said Crawford.

CJ has a very reputable compliance department composed of eight people who work full-time to detect and prevent fraud network-wide.

The group United Against Cheaters lists CJ as one of the companies with a strong stance against cheaters. The site states that CJ “maintains an active stance against cheaters and fraud” and “tries to come up with solutions that will benefit all members and advertisers. [Its] attacks against large cheat sites have resulted in shutdowns. [Its] sophisticated cheat prevention and manpower produce a large task force for taking down cheaters.”

LinkShare

In the LinkShare vernacular, the various forms of cheating and fraud are categorized as “invalid activity” to limit the legal risks involved with fraud allegations.

According to Stephen Messer, chairman, CEO, and cofounder of LinkShare, “A lot of the affiliate solution providers think of invalid activity as good revenue for them, so they are not as proactive as they could be in combating it. But we saw it as our responsibility to protect our merchants, and we built a SWAT team to combat affiliate activity that is detrimental to our merchants.”

In its efforts to protect CPC merchants, LinkShare utilizes a program called Cupid, which limits activity to one click per user ID. This method is helpful for catching the less sophisticated cheaters who attempt to manually click on their own link repeated times.

“We cannot share details for some of the more complex techniques utilized by LinkShare to root out invalid activity. There are some very smart affiliates that create programs intended to mimic all sorts of authentic Web usage, and we utilize a program we call Honeypot to identify and halt these sorts of actions,” according to Messer.

FreeFiliate

The high-end affiliate solution providers are not the only ones who take fraud seriously. FreeFiliate, a free affiliate solution provider, has also incorporated antifraud features for CPC programs.

JB McKee of FreeFiliate explained that these antifraud features employ cookies “to determine whether somebody has clicked on a link previously. If they have, the affiliate is not credited for the click. If the visitor’s browser is set to not accept cookies, the affiliate is not credited for the click at all.”

After determining that some hackers were able to circumvent this preventive measure, FreeFiliate also integrated a system for fraud detection where it monitors affiliate activity.

Unique Solution

As the cheaters become more sophisticated, affiliates are making greater strides in their antifraud efforts to keep pace. One of the ways Webclients.net tries to prevent fraud among its affiliates that run CPA offers is through the use of an authentication code.

Its “R Tag” technology generates a unique code for each sign-up in a JPEG format so that bots (programs that automatically fill out forms) are not able to read them. The user must type in the code in the box provided.

The cheaters and hackers are out there, and they’re fleecing affiliate programs all over. What are you doing to checkmate these rats? It’s essential to incorporate some antifraud measures into your affiliate management, or your program could be the next one to fold.

When it comes to affiliate fraud, follow the sage advice of that mean sensei from the Kobra Kai dojo (in “The Karate Kid”): “Strike hard! Strike first! No mercy!”

Fraud! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again!

If you are running a pay-per-click or pay-per-lead affiliate program, there are people out there trying to rip you off. Fraud is widespread in affiliate marketing, and it comes in all shapes and sizes, from pimply 13-year-olds who repeatedly click a link on a cost-per-click (CPC) program to sophisticated crime rings.

But what is this fraud that the affiliates are committing on us, you ask? On the surface, it’s really any sort of deceit, trickery, or cheating performed to steal from an affiliate program.

The Faces of Fraud

The bottom feeders are kids who repeatedly click on CPC links or fill out registration forms. They can be difficult to detect because they often do not produce a lot of activity. On the other hand, they can be sloppy and tend not to cover their tracks well.

The midlevel cheaters utilize automated scripts and programs that simulate real, human activity. For instance, there are JavaScripts that can fake clicks or open windows. Then there are programs that cover all of the bases for affiliates that don’t even have a site. These programs simulate impressions and clicks, and are capable of setting up a desired click-through rate.

Top-dog fraud perpetrators are the most dangerous of all. These affiliates write programs that create a large number of cookie-cutter sites. The innocuous-looking sites often never generate any red flags because the affiliates are savvy. Rather than achieving ridiculously high conversion rates, these affiliates set up their programs to operate at a level that is just above the payment threshold.

To paraphrase ESPN’s Dan Patrick, you can’t stop them; you can only hope to contain them.

I Didn’t Want to Do It

Before I became an affiliate manager, I was an affiliate for a few years, so I was well aware of the arguments on whether a program should have automatic or manual approval.

I was steadfastly against manual approval. After all, when I’m in front of the computer, churning along at Internet time, I want to do things in the here and now. If a merchant wants to approve my site before I can put up links, I’m often driving traffic to their competition by the time they approve me.

That thinking was applied to the ClubMom program from the time I launched until a few weeks ago. I wanted every interested affiliate to be able to get my links up as soon as possible.

Then reality hit. From month to month, I found myself spending more time identifying and researching fraudulent sites. I was spending far too much of my time vetting out the unsavory sites (and a great deal of them were banner farms and other tragic wastes of the human spirit).

So I finally pulled the switch. Geez… affiliate managers wonder why they have so many inactive affiliates? It’s simple: Most of the monkeys that applied to their programs don’t know the difference between HTML and the AARP.

No More Teachers, No More Books

I was approving the vouchers for February 2001 affiliate commissions when I came across an affiliate that I did not recognize. As I investigated this affiliate’s account further, I determined (through my top-secret antifraud tactics) that I had a cheater on my hands.

My suspicions were confirmed when I went to the URL supplied by the affiliate. The page consisted of one of my 468 x 60 banners and the following copy, which outlines how this guy was committing hot-line server fraud against me:

Click on the banner to get your access to my server!! You will get a username and password that gives you full access.

Instructions:

1) On the top-left, click the button to join the site. If the button does not appear, you need to click on the “ClubMom” icon on the top left, then sign out, and sign up again.

2) On the final page, titled “Thanks for joining ClubMom!” the username and password are the first word on the last line. (All lower-case. It begins with an “e.”)

NOTE: You do NOT have to verify your email address. You can type fake info if you like.

I followed my usual protocol of disabling the affiliate and sending a note about how I had determined that the affiliate had committed fraudulent activity and that the account was being closed. This is usually where it ends, but this affiliate decided to antagonize me with multiple messages.

It was then that I noticed that he had committed hot-line server fraud with his student account. This particular affiliate was attending a prestigious university in the Northeast, and I was pretty sure that committing fraud violated the student code of conduct.

To make a long story short, I received an email from the vice president for information technology at this university, updating me on the situation. He stated “The student will be meeting with our administrators later today. As of Sunday evening the student was contacted, his student account was disabled, and his residential networking port has been deactivated for a year. Not just the rest of this school year, but until this time in 2002.”

The school administration is currently deliberating whether this student will be suspended. He fought the law, and the law won.

You see, it is possible to win the battle against affiliate fraud.