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Part 2 -- Report From Affiliate
Summit, January 2009 in Las
Vegas By James Martell In my first issue (see archives), I raved about how much fun Arlene and I had at the Rio in Las Vegas during Affiliate Summit's first event of the new year. My friends at Digital River did it right by renting the Rio's 10 lane bowling alley for a private party. In was nice of them to also invite several of my students (current members of the SUPER BootCamp) to attend. As you can see in the picture below we all had a good time.
But this year's lineup was excellent. I was particularly fascinated by the session entitled "Fraud Prevention". The panel was lead by Todd Crawford, one of Affiliate Marketing's pioneers. Todd and his uncle basically got Commission Junction going in Minnesota on the premise that this emerging industry could use a service that acted as a bridge between merchants and affiliates. Todd has now formed a company of his own, but there is no doubt he must be proud as he considers there are now an estimated 200 companies who have copied his business model. Anyway, Todd Crawford, someone I have a lot of respect for, did an excellent job moderating this panel on fraud. Normally I would have little interest in the subject since it is mainly a merchant issue, but I knew Todd and was very familiar with Joshua Sloan, affiliate manager for 1&1 Hosting, so I sat in.
No, this dealt with something I hadn't thought of. It seems that merchants are fighting a daily battle to insure they don't get ripped off by thieves who join their affiliate programs only to maliciously generate fake sales, for which they get paid, after which they disappear before they get caught. As you can imagine, merchants who are not careful can inadvertently send money to a affiliates who have faked their credentials and generated bogus sales. And in many cases the merchant's have no recourse because often these bandits are located in third world countries or former communist states. So going after them can be futile, which is why the emphasis now is on prevention. It was fascinating to hear of their struggles to combat this online form of piracy. It gave me a new appreciation of the merchant fraud department's, who essentially work on our behalf because if they don't prevent losses, those losses eventually carry over as reduced commissions for us; bona fide affiliates. I now understand the current trend of delayed approval of new affiliates. It seems the days of auto approval are going away due to the need to ensure the validity of each new affiliate application. I applaud that. All the best,
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I've
been attending Shawn Collins &
Missy Ward's Affiliate Summit
since 2004. And I usually find a
nugget or two of useful
information.
For
those wondering if this
discussion refers to affiliates
not getting paid due to having
their tracking code stolen, that
was not the case, although that
can be an issue in rare cases.
