The Micro Affiliate

Below is slightly edited post I made in the Affiliit.com forums, in response to a question about scrubbing on email/zip submit campaigns. I wish I had this info when I was starting out with email submits, would have saved me a lot of money (Tyler Cruz take note).

Basically with email submits the experience falls into one of the following 5:

1. No conversions from the start. Complete shave, throwing money to the wind. Run like hell.
2. You’ll get a conversion on the 1st or 2nd clicks, then no conversion at all, while the clicks stack up. They wave a carrot, then cut you down. Particularly amusing when they give you a conversion on a test click, without you even filling out the offer. Chuckle, then run like hell.
3. You start off with a realistic CR then it suddenly drops as they start to shave, after you get a few conversions- sometimes 10-20, sometimes more. This is irrespective of how the offer is backing out for the advertiser, as they’re not checking – ie, they’re simply waving a bigger carrot, before sucking you dry. These can make money initially, but you have to watch them like a hawk. Grab a few similar submits from this advertiser on that network and throw them into Prosper 5 at a time, rotating out the ones that go dead. Careful, the advertiser may drop block you from their offers, and even fresh ones will start off as cat 1. I found a lot of Amped Media’s submits behave like this. Another strategy is to network surf – milk the offer on one network, then find it on other networks and throw them into that same campaign til you run out. One offer that performed really well for me like that is A Maybelline submit that was around a while back. However the last two times I saw it on a network it was already a cat 1! An offer going from 30%+ CR to nothing on another network was obvious bullshit. These first 3 categories are all shaving, rather then scrubbing.
4. From the start they aim for a certain EPC, say 5c. No matter what you do, you get shaved down to that EPC and either you beat it or not. Can make money if you can get an ultra low CPC. Don’t confuse you own crappy, untargeted traffic which is simply not converting with this though. Technically, if the advertiser is evaluating the data before limited creditted leads its scrubbing, if they’re just doing it across the board, its shaving, but who in the end, who gives a shit.
5. Offer converts at a reasonable rate for that offer, which can be anything from 10% to 40%. Unlike category 3 or 4 the advertiser actually checks whether its backing out for them on a case by case basis. If it is they may let you keep going, if not your AM tells you to change traffic source, take a lower payout or stop running the offer.. if you have a good AM and are running with a decent network and the advertiser bothers to inform them. The advertiser may start to shave you down to a lower EPC that matches their own before the AM tells you anything or you ask. This is scrubbing, rather then shaving, btw.

Fact is most advertisers know its just not going to be worth it for them to actually pay out listed by the network. They know most pubs won’t bring a decent enough quality on something as shitty as an email submit, so they skip the quality control and simply rely on noobs running up conversions for them – there’s always more standing in like waiting to be shaved to oblivion, hoping to find that magics submit that actually converts. Why would they bother wading through the flocks of fraudsters, noone actually holds them accountable anyway, one offer runs dry, hey, they’ll throw up 5 more next month.

The better submits have become harder and harder to find over the last few months.

As an example, the other day I ran iPad campaigns from 5 networks – MB, NB, LFM, XY7 and Flux.

Of those 3 fell into category 2 – I got a conversion on 1st or second click, the dozens more clicks with conversions. These were LFM, MB (one of the 1.10 I think, the $3 submits behave differently) and Flux.
The NB was a category 1 from the start.
The XY7 seemed to be a shave down to an EPC, category 4. I had 2 conversions from the first 3 clicks. Then it went down to about 5c EPC and stayed there til I shut it off after a few more leads.

So all these were a waste of time. I cannot 100% guarantee shaving/scrubbing on each of these, you can always argue my traffic just didn’t convert, target being saturated after everyone and their bot army ran the offer, but it sure seems to fit the profile from past experience. Odd also that I was getting conversions on the XY7 (I paused at 6 conversions, as it was going nowhere), but none or just the 1 on the others..

When you get hit with the shave it may transfer to other offers from the same advertiser that are on the same network. They can even drop you down categories, eg all of a sudden all submits from an advertiser give you no conversions at all, even ones you have not run before, as in the Maybelline example above. They used to also blacklist you – your AM sends you an email saying your traffic sucks for the advertiser and they want you off all their offers. Doesn’t seem to happen anymore – they just shave you completely now more often – they’ll still take your crappy traffic for a few conversions if they dont have to pay you anything.

One last tip – if an email submit allows only “Email” as a traffic source it is more likely to be higher category – email traffic converts better for email submits, so the advertiser can afford to shave less. If you have well converting traffic you can ask your AM if you can run the Email only version of the submit, I dont recommend just doing it without asking, before you know it you’ll be getting an email asking your traffic source.

For more info on how email submits work, check out Smaxor’s posts for the perspective from a network owner (he owns Ads4Dough): Understanding How Email Submits Work and My Prespective as an Affiliate, Advertiser and Network Owner on Scrubbing and Shaving.

Brad over at MadPPC.com has a great post on the same subject too, with some further details on the above, if you’re interested in the hows and whys: Submits: How they work and why they are a pain in the ass. He’s got a quote there from Steve from MaxBounty who says about shaving: “no merchant or network would risk their good reputation to do this”. To which I say bullshit, plenty of network and merchants are doing just that on submits.

Anyway, you’ve read all the boring crap, so here’s some candy.

I’m going to share some of the images I used in the above mentioned iPad campaign on Facebook, simply because I got a chuckle out of it and you may too.. and be amazed at what FB let through.

I used about 40 images, mostly the expected photos of the iPad in various titillating positions. The first 20 or so were just regulars. Then in the end I threw a few more interesting images that I thought may or may not get through, for something different and a bit of fun. Worst thing that could happen is they get denied.. best thing an actually decent CTR, considering my images would actually stand out a little. My traffic ran against both types evenly, so no, the below douchebaggary did not compromise the scientific process above.

I won’t share the text, except to say the heading was simply along the lines of “Want a Free Apple iPad?” Well.. along the lines of.

I really have no idea whats going on here:

Hot girl. Apple laptop. What?

OK, this was the absolute winner. CTR above 0.25, clicks were 5c. It lasted less then 48 hours before they actually disaproved it. It is also the only one that got disaproved. On the second day the CTR dropped to about 0.10 when I unpaused it. I suspect people down voted it, so it got a worse position and thus less clicks.

Hot Ass + Apple = WIN

Dont really know whats going on here either:

Random hot girl. I think she’s using her iPad, looks like it to me, anyway.

iLame.

“Well La-De ****ing Da!”

She’s as sick of hearing about the friggin’ iPad as I am.

Feel free to use these in your campaigns! Protip: get these approved for a dating ad.