Many digital tech vendors provide services that need a tag to be placed across an entire website – not just on confirmation pages. While often necessary to power their tech solution, this always-on approach can become a backdoor for collecting far more data than necessary. In this article, I am going to share two first-hand […]
Category: Affiliate Management
Notes on Working With TrustPilot
Consumers often consider TrustPilot to be the most trusted review platform on the Internet, but for brands working with them is not always a pleasant experience. These are some notes about getting the most out of what a lot of people see as a problematic or controversial partner. These are real-world tactics I used to […]
The EasyList, AdBlockers and Affiliate Marketing
Major affiliate programs often blame lost conversions on ad blockers. It’s a vague explanation that shuts down the conversation without solving the problem. Yet most marketers don’t understand precisely why performance suffers or how blockers decide what to block, and a lot of affiliate marketers have never heard of the EasyList. Ad blockers rely on […]
HotHouses: Where Affiliate Fraud Gets Even More Toxic
We talk a lot about affiliate fraud prevention in affiliate marketing, but almost never about the business models built around abuse. The publishers who set out to do fraud. Affiliate marketing has always had issues with what we loosely term affiliate fraud – unauthorised PPC, brand bidding, fake coupon codes etc. But what if I […]
Go2cloud.org and subnetworks in affiliate ad-hijacking
If you manage affiliate programs for well-known brand names, you’ll eventually run into unauthorized PPC bidding, or ad-hijacking. You probably already know, but just in case, ad hijacking refers to a practice where affiliate publishers bid on your brand name or branded keywords without permission, or in breach of your affiliate programme rules. It is […]
Unlock the hidden potential of zipped csv files with Google Sheets
In digital marketing product data is often essential to make certain tasks or types of promotion possible. Publishers, advertisers and agencies often rely on simple text files containing product information or keyword lists to power their activity. That is sometimes harder than it should be when the file is ‘zipped’ or the file in in […]
Using copyrighted images in affiliate product feeds
Product images are a key tool for affiliates but they can raise concerns about copyright. Do affiliates need permission from the copyright holder? What do you need to consider, and what do you do if there is a complaint?
Customer-led E-commerce fraud and how it affects affiliates
While Affiliate management for self-managed programs was being written some sections didn’t make the final cut. This is one such section, discussing e-commerce fraud perpetrated by customers, rather than affiliates. It may find its way into a future book, but in the meantime, I hope someone finds it useful. E-commerce fraud and how it affects […]
What is a ‘self-managed’ affiliate program?
Affiliate marketing is powerful and effective because it rewards results. However, the barrier to entry can be quite high, with long term contracts and high access fees. Self-managed programs were born out of a desire to make the affiliate industry more accessible. Since early 2020, several networks have launched self-managed programs to help SMEs access […]
Writing the beginners guide to affiliate management book
Hello. I am very pleased to share a project I have been working on for quite a while – a new book aimed at entry-level programs like Awin Access, Grow by Tradedoubler and Webgains Edge. After the Beginners Guide to Awin Access was well received by the affiliate community I embarked on a much more […]