I have about 5-10 different different affiliate offers from different affiliates on my website. They are all pretty much the same offer from different companies and are on rotation on my website. Yesterday, I added a new offer I found into rotation. Since then, its recieved about 6 clickthroughs, and 2 sales already. My original offers now all have had 40+ clickthroughs, with 0-2 sales each since I started. I've looked through each site, and this one is not particularly special in deisgn or form, yet it enjoys a 33% conversion rate, while my other offers are all 0-5%, most of which are 0%. This is a huge difference, and I find it really hard to believe that 9 affiliates are all cheating me, and only 1 new one is not. But the facts remain the same, and this is a huge statistical difference. I will let everything run a while longer to make sure this conversion rate isn't a fluke. But if it continues, is there any way I can prove that my other offers are in fact cheating me out of comissions? And if they are, is there any action I could take against them? Also, removing all of them is not possible because I've integrated the offers into the content. It would be like removing 90% of the content in a way.
I'm not sure what your "proof" would be even though there is a large statistical difference in conversions. Also, I doubt very much that 9 affiliate programs would be cheating you. There must be something about this new program, maybe just the fact that it is new on your site, that you made 2 sales the first day. Jim
I get very paranoid about my affiliate programs cheating me too. Especially when I see huge differences in conversions and I can't figure out why from their landing pages. As far as how you can tell? I don't think you can really. All you can do is go with the one that is sending you more sales. In the end they would have to be pretty stupid to cheat their affiliates because those affiliates will just stop promoting their products/services. I've had a couple of affiliate programs just flat out not pay me, sure they are cheating me out of some cash and I'm sure they've done it to many others as well. But now I've removed all of their links from my sites, in the long run they are losing money by being cheats.
In cases like these, isn't there any legal action you could take? This is fraud after all, a serious crime in the US anyways. I know several of the companies I am dealing with are US companies, one of the domains is registered in the same city I live in. I am asking my lawyer friends if there are any legal options I may be able to pursue and if anybody here had gone done this road before
I would wait till you can get some more data ... 6 clicks and 2 sales could just be an anomaly. If you would have gotten 1 click 1 sale... you cant expect 100% for every affiliate program. In my experience 1 day I may have 1:10 another day 1:40 ... but overall average I get say 1:22. Just the way the dice falls. You can also email the affiliate program and ask them what their conversion rates are .. many will give them to you so you can compare. But at least wait for 200-300 clicks before getting 'averages'
I have the same problem....not sure how to deal with it. I work with about 20 different affiliates. I decided to try most out and purchase product. Three of them did not put proper sales. One of them put 1/2 sales, the other two did not put anything. Two responded positively after mailing them and credited my account (only after complaining mind you) the third did not respond and did not credit my account..... I really dont know what to do... I took most off, but still....kinda needed them on a commercial basis....
Very good point. During this month I went through a stretch where I sent about 600 uniques without a sale to one of my affiliate programs... Then I made 3 sales in the next 100 uniques. You really need a lot more data than 40 clicks to know anything.
The thing is that if these programs sites look reputable and have been online for sometime and also have a brand that is recognizable, then cheating their affiliates is not something that they would really want to do. If they do this then there are bound to be a few affiliates that will notice and then chat about it on the forums and once people look more into it and find that they are really cheating then that's not going to look good on the company behind it at all, especially if it's a good branded company.
I was going to say pretty much what s&ptrader said: After you have at least 300 clicks you could start making some deductions. Then, you must realize there could be other things at play besides cheating and each one of the non-converting merchants could have something different going on. Possibilities are: Technical tracking glitches on the merchants site or the network has a tracking problem (not intentional), some merchants could have leaks (including Adsense or alternate payment options like Paypal or Google Checkout that arent set up to track), some merchants could be using a network that's blocked by lots of the big anti-spyware and anti-adware software programs so a larger percentage of those ads are not being seen or are being seen but don't track. So I just I personally believe, as others have said, that most merchants are honest and would not intentionally cheat affiliates. Other things can be going on.
Thanks for the great ideas. I also agree the sample size is still too small right now. I just found it really surprising to have such a high conversion rate in the midst of so many crappy ones. I will probably buy something through my affiliate links or have somebody else do it as people have suggested. It's going to cost me like $200+ to test all of them though. Not looking forward to that, but I guess its a good way to protect my investment
Remember also that some affiliates show at different times and shows later, have you gave it long enough, I have had sales where the sale and payment shows within a few minutes to an hour of happening, when others that I know have happened are not showing until 4 - 7 days later, but nonetheless they still show up.
It's all relative, spending 200- 300 dollars to test whether a program is profitable and tracks is much better than buying a small bricks and mortar store for about $20k, only to find out 3 months later your losing money ... Spend a couple hundred bucks, test the product/program for a week and then if its still not profitable cut your losses and move on. You will find a profitable one sooner or later
EXACTLY! I was waiting for someone to post an answer that made sense (I didnt want to have to do it, lol)
Collect more data... I agree with the above. If you're making money for their program, the *LAST* thing they want to do is cheat you. The fact is that 95% of affiliates do nothing. So for the 5% that actually make money for the program, they REALLY REALLY REALLY want them to stick around...
Hmm. You seem to be basing your conversion ratio based on 6 clicks... To get any statistical significance you have to go at least 500 clicks from TARGETED traffic.