Affiliate marketing Affiliate Scams – Fake Leads
Online fraud is so widespread that it can even be called the scourge of the 21st century. They also affect the area of marketing, which is affiliate marketing. For untrained people, it may seem very difficult to detect a scam. However, the consequences can be devastating, both for individuals and companies. In affiliation, one of the common frauds is acquiring fake leads. First of all, it is worth finding out what leads actually are, how fake ones are created and how they can be recognized. Both publishers and advertisers need to be vigilant when deciding on this type of cooperation. A good affiliate agency like Onaffiliate will help them.
Know what it is… lead
The definition of a lead can be summed up in one sentence. This is a person who shows interest in a particular product or service of a company. To put it simply, it’s a potential customer. Consumers can be divided into five groups. Indifferent people are people who are not interested in the offer or advertising message. Cold leads are consumers who are not interested in a given product, but could be a target group. Warm leads are when someone may be interested in products/services, but will not buy them at the moment. Hot leads are people who see an offer and want to take advantage of it immediately. At the highest level, there is a customer – a person who has already used the offer in the past and does it often. One of the most popular billing models for online promotional campaigns is CPL (Cost-Per-Lead). A sales lead is the data of a person who has left it on the website of the company whose product or services they are interested in. Data may also be provided in ways other than via the website. This is usually information such as your name, phone number, and email address. In the CPL model, you pay to deliver a lead or perform a specific action, such as subscribing to a newsletter, filling out an application form, etc. For example, the Onaffiliate agency will help you plan effective activities of this type. Her specialties are, m.in, advertising campaigns.
Generating fake leads
Occasionally, dishonest affiliates create fake leads and provide advertisers with incorrect contact information for potential customers. It can also be fictitious personal information. One of the most popular methods used by fraudsters is to create special landing pages and collect real contact details on them, and then automatically fill in advertising forms on advertisers’ websites with this data. Another way is to provide fake lead lists to advertisers using APIs or other related systems that communicate with each other. Some publishers have old contact databases or create them using invented data, and then pass them on to advertisers with whom it is integrated via API or other systems connected to their systems. The advertiser pays for fake and outdated leads, expecting fresh data from potential customers. In fact, the most common is mixing incorrect leads with real ones. Then there is less chance that the advertiser will react to the situation. However, if this happens, the publisher temporarily reverts to a lower concentration of incorrect data, and then gradually increases it again. Other techniques used by affiliates include cookie stuffing, leads coming from manipulated traffic and left behind by bots. It’s important to make sure that your affiliate marketing is conducted in an honest manner. An affiliate agency, such as Onaffiliate, will come to the rescue.
Fake leads and manipulated traffic
Some publishers try to manipulate users into leaving their contact details on certain pages in order to receive rewards or other benefits. Most often, information about where their data will go is written in small print. This fraud is not a crime, but it is still unfair to the advertiser. Some fraudsters also use specially created programs, i.e. bots, that enter a given website and automatically fill in the fields of contact forms. They can even falsify source data to make leads look real. However, people who want to play fair should focus on effective actions, which include, m.in, well-thought-out affiliate campaigns.
Fake or real?
To identify a fake lead, you first need to understand the process of its creation. It is necessary to keep track of unusual lead behaviors. The fake ones are often generated by programs and bots, which can be detected by seeing, for example, extraordinarily increased traffic on the website or leads coming from the same IP address. Another aspect that should pay attention is the sudden changes in the conversion rate. Fake leads are usually of poor quality, they don’t give good results when it comes to engagement and conversion. Today, there are many tools that make it possible to detect fraud. They monitor, m.in, the trustworthiness of IP addresses. Therefore, it is worth taking advantage of the benefits of technology and using it to prevent unpleasant situations. Also, don’t forget to carefully check the affiliate program you’re working with. It is best to combine the use of tools with monitoring the situation on your own. Suspicion should be aroused by very similar or even identical contact details. Onaffiliate agency will help publishers and advertisers who want to start their adventure with affiliate marketing.
Detecting and preventing fraud is not an easy process. You have to be vigilant and pay attention to details. The key here is to educate yourself about the dangers that may befall people operating in affiliation and to support yourself with the tools offered by modern technology. Both publishers and advertisers should take care of the integrity and thus the good reputation of affiliate marketing.
