The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam • Hacker News Board

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#81

Post by johnward » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:12 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #43

joosters wrote: post #40

If you visit the site, put stuff in your cart and get all the way to the checkout page, you must know by that point who sent them to your site. If the customer then goes away and googles for voucher codes, it shouldn't change the source. When (if?) they return, you should know they are the same person, from the same original source. How did the affiliates manage to steal these customers? It seems to me like your refe…

Affiliate networks require you put their code on the "thank you" page shown after checkout. Conditionally removing that code would be seen as an attempt to scam the network and get out of paying commissions owed. What you're proposing doesn't work anyway -- you don't know that they didn't come through an affiliate link a week prior; the cookie isn't on your domain, but you owe a commission for that referral.

Many times it's the last referral that gets the commission. This is why coupon code sites are a pain to both affiliates and site owners.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#82

Post by brorfred » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:14 PM UTC

martin-adams wrote: post #49

"So basically, the affiliates are claiming commission on a sale that was going to happen anyway" You have someone in your checkout process. Why on earth would you give them a reason to leave that process and go search for a discount code if you know they won't find any? Assuming they will come back doesn't feel right. What if their search for a discount code didn't prove there wasn't one, but did prove a competitor w…

isn't having a form field for discount codes at checkout a very common approach? I'd say that 90-95% of the websites I normally buy stuff from use it. Amazon does...

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#83

Post by johnward » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:16 PM UTC

antr wrote: post #27

eps wrote: post #21

I don't follow. Where did the extra $200K in sales come from and why is he not happy about it? It sounds like there is a pool of customers that will not finish the purchase unless they can google "kogan coupon" and hit few coupon sites beforehand (even if to leave these sites emptyhanded). So the affiliates appear to help convincing on-the-fence visitors and push sales to completion. If anything, it's a clever hack.…

I came here to ask the same question. The post comes across as if those $200k were on top of baseline revenues.

Right. He made it seems like he got an additional 200k in revenue and then proceeded to reduce commissions to zero. Some might call this scamming the affiliate. After the affiliate has put the work in to drive the traffic to your site then you fuck them over on commissions. To be honest there is a lot more fraud on the advertiser side of the deal. Conversion shaving, reducing commission on high performing affiliates, non-payment by advertisers. Affiliate take on a great deal of risk, especially when they PAY to generate traffic.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#84

Post by johnward » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:17 PM UTC

brorfred wrote: post #82

martin-adams wrote: post #49

"So basically, the affiliates are claiming commission on a sale that was going to happen anyway" You have someone in your checkout process. Why on earth would you give them a reason to leave that process and go search for a discount code if you know they won't find any? Assuming they will come back doesn't feel right. What if their search for a discount code didn't prove there wasn't one, but did prove a competitor w…

isn't having a form field for discount codes at checkout a very common approach? I'd say that 90-95% of the websites I normally buy stuff from use it. Amazon does...

Being common doesn't mean it's working. Every single time I see a coupon box I have to search for a code. Then sometimes I get pissed if I can't find a discount and go somewhere else.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#85

Post by taude » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #77

iopq wrote: post #12

You have a discount code at your checkout? So basically instead of capturing the sale you're ASKING the buyer to google for discount codes. Think of a sneakier way to give people discount codes that doesn't show it RIGHT THERE ON THE FORM. It makes me feel like I'm getting ripped off when I see discount code and I don't have one.

I always thought this about discount code boxes so when I finally had a store checkout of my own to play with I added something like "Got no code? Enter code YAY for a small discount :-)" and it gave 4% off (almost nothing at my margins). Surprisingly, under half of users even bothered to used it :-)

That's a clever customer focused solution.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#86

Post by johnward » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

trg2 wrote: post #55

While the OP did run into some interesting problems that many of us in Internet Marketing face, I was very thrown off by the direction this post took. There was a pretty substantial lack of understanding of cookie tracking and first-click/last-click attribution. The affiliates didn't do anything wrong here, which was ironic, because I've met affiliate marketers at conferences in Vegas, and there's PLENTY of shady stu…

"and there's PLENTY of shady stuff that some of them do". I assume you are talking about things like cookie stuffing and fraudulent purchases. In that case yes it is a scam, but this author is crazy to just flat out say all affiliates are scammers. I bet he sent $400 to nigeria and never got his $2.3 million royalty back.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#87

Post by johnward » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

Destitute wrote: post #7

There's a lot wrong with this article and it stinks that this person paints the entire affiliate canvas with a poop-colored brush. The fact that they continuously pushed the commission all the way down to 0% is also terrible for affiliates. As people in the comments stated, this was a poorly run affiliate campaign and is no fault but their own. There's "shysters" in every business, and the fact that they pushed down…

I want to know what kind of network would keep an advertiser that pays nothing.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#88

Post by johnward » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #75

This is more than a scam, it's outright theft.

It's not theft. You put a coupon code box on your checkout. How can you NOT expect people to go look for coupon codes?

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#89

Post by AznHisoka » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:25 PM UTC

This is not a scam, but simply unawareness by Kogan. Affiliates want to make money - they're rational people. They'll do anything to make money as long as you don't take action.

The funny thing is if you forbid affiliates to have discount codes/coupons, affiliate marketing is not worth it at all. It's only the loopholes that keep affiliate marketing as profitable as it is right now. I mean who in their right mind would want to exert effort to bring traffic where .01% of it converts just for a measly 5% commission? No. You have to cheat a little to make it worthwhile.

Re: The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam

#90

Post by johnward » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 1:25 PM UTC

blackdogie wrote: post #34

This is another reason why you should rank for [your brand name] + coupons / discount. Read Zappo's take on coupons http://www.zappos.com/truth-about-zappos-coupons . If people know they can save 5-10% by a simple search they will at least try a quick search.

Zappos understands that coupons are bad for all sides of the equation. Just give customers the best possible price. Then you don't have to worry about people hijacking your checkout process (which you are pretty much responsible for causing if you use coupon codes).