I currently manage an affiliate program for a fortune 500 company. (for fear of making our program a larger target I do not want to disclose our company name) Over the past year we have been experiencing an alarming increase in affiliate fraud. Our current Affiliate Network ( CJ ) has been unable to detect or stop the fraud/bogus leads. We are in desperate need of an efficient and effective solution. If we can’t find a solution soon our CMO wants to pull our affiliate program. Are there any Affiliate Networks out there that offer true fraud prevention? I have done a lot of research and can’t find any companies being monitored by an outside party. I fear Affiliate Networks basically allow affiliates to steal the Advertisers money because they earn a percentage. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I would love to be in your position! It would be great to have the inside running on the ip matching, cookie filtering and stats to weed out the scamsters. As with shoplifting it's going to continue to be a problem - but you get to work the odds. I don't have any advice (sorry) except to have a good talk to the CJ people and DigitalRiver. If it's a Fortune 500 company they should be happy to fly you to CJ so you can really thrash out the issues. I guess you could always follow the hackers route and employ one of the bad boys and get him to spill the beans.
Affiliate fraud is a growing concern for many people. And changing your program host may not be the best solution. Shoplifting has been reduced by introducing necessary measures (cameras, security guards, price bars, etc). That being said here are somethings that I have recommended to other netreprenuers. 1) Create affiliate payment policies that encourage fair trade. E.g., a digital software with a 30 day money back guarantee should pay affiliates only after the customer submits a "Client Satisfaction" form. This will reduce the amount of people who will become an affiliate just to pay less for your product 2) Use web "trackers": to connect your user and affiliates. Ip addresses, email address, cc info, etc can help to reduce theft and scams 3) Do not prepay affiliates. 4) Setup a regular schedule for affiliate payments. Most companies use a 30 day or monthly method. Improving your security is the best way to go. Most fortune 500 would easily employ a fraud or security department if the affiliate program is viable.
It depends on your program too and how it is set up. Programs that tend to be big targets are ones with PAY PER LEAD, FREE TRIALS (high payouts and small fees). How is your program structured?
Not sure what the details are here however perhaps you can look into phone verifiers. One of my programs has it - and it has now reduced fraud orders/opt-ins etc by over 90%. People are already working solutions for it (BH'ers), however I think it's a great way to minimize your fraud as rarely will a scammer type in a real phone number... Your prospect fills out your lead form They come to a page to put in their phone number They get called automatically and have to put in the code they see on the screen Once they do the page automatically proceeds forward to the next action you want. Give this a good read - feel free to contact me if you'd like - http://www.phoneconfirm.com/ Cheers, NC