The clock hit four at PI LIVE Europe and we knew we were facing an uphill battle. A busy day for everyone was culminating in drinks on the terrace, while we were trying to persuade attendees to come downstairs to the Vault.
Despite some prosecco-based obstacles, an enthusiastic crowd gathered for Day One’s final Voicebox session, Let’s Put an End to Affiliate Fraud.
Hosted by Chikay Lo, Founder of Lo Digital, and Andy Cooney, Co-founder of Marcode, we invited attendees to come and gain some insights and share their experiences with these two experts crusading against bad players in the space.
What transpired was an energetic session that covered the what, how, why, and what-to-do-about-it-all of fraudulent affiliate activity and its prevalence across some subnetworks.
We’ve outlined the major points below. You can scroll even further down to watch the full discussion, or listen to it like a podcast.
When the CMO asks, “Isn’t affiliate just entirely fraud?”
One of the primary concerns discussed was the tactics employed by many fraudulent affiliates, particularly those engaged in PPC brand bidding and hijacking.
“Effectively, what they’re doing is making a lot of money by either impersonating brands, running dodgy voucher code sites, bidding on brand sites, and arbitraging clicks,” explained Cooney. “It’s a pretty sophisticated set-up. They’re running thousands of ad accounts and using advanced cloaking technology.”
By doing the above, bad actors steal last-click attribution. They also leverage costly clicks generated through brands' organic keywords to drive commissionable sales, resulting in painful financial losses for brands.
I’ve spoken to Cooney before about just how rife this practice can be; he recalled a case where a fraudster had placed PPC ads on all of a brand's search terms. The brand was not running PPC ads itself, so the affiliate was running wild and capturing the entire territory; in turn absorbing all of the organic traffic and then demanding the brand pay them for it.
