Fraud Friday has made it back into the hearts of all the weirdo’s who like to read this crap. I was getting emails from networks, managers and advertisers regarding how much they liked the Fraud Fridays. I was actually very surprised, but I guess it’s because nobody really talks about it much. Well, for awhile I took a dump on the Chinese and pissed a few of them off. Well, a little anger turned into a full fledge war. These morons took the situation to another level and must have assembled a small army to come after me.
I began receiving loads of Chinese spam. I mean these guys really went to a whole other level. They decided to opt me into about a million bullshit email lists. I started receiving Chinese lotto crap, land from other countries and all that crap we’ve seen before. However, I was dealing with tens of thousands of messages daily. This wasnt the occasional spam we are used to, this was setup and targeted specifically at me.
Then came the phone calls. I started getting weird phone calls at all hours of the day. I started receiving death threats and then they pushed even more. They started threatening my family and saying things about my kids. I layed off for a bit but now that I have the help of proper law enforcement, I’m going to start pushing some buttons again. Convert2media hasnt suffered a fraudulent lead in months. We’ve dealt with a couple of compliance issues but we’ve been fraud free for quite some time now. However, the fraud applications are still rolling in so I know they are getting into networks across the industry.
So now we come to an issue that is occuring rapidly. Affiliate Fraud Account Sharing. The fraud has been taken down to a level where we have forced them to adapt once again. These people are HIGHLY motivated and will adapt to everything and that’s what is happening currently. They arent just hiring actors to get accounts approved now. They have raised the bar and are actively seeking whitehat publishers who run legitimate leads and offering them payment to promote from within their accounts. The whitehat publisher is paid in full of their earnings and then they receive payment on top of what the fraud brings in.
I’m sorry to say that this is absolutely ridiculous. I cant imagine why a legitimate publisher would participate in something like this but it’s happening. They are “blending” the fraud now. Networks, you are not helping the situation by letting it go on. However, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt because you may not realize the situation in full.
Here’s a quick rundown on how and why they are getting away with it. A publisher’s account is promoting diet offers thru pay per click and landing pages legitimately. However at the end of the month, they have 5-6 leads on a debt offer, maybe 3-4 leads on another credit card offer and probably 15-20 leads on dating campaign followed by 30-40 leads on other lead gen campaigns. While the volume comes in from the legitimate campaigns, these other campaigns appear to the Affiliate Network as if this publisher was “testing” the market and it didnt work from them. At that low volume, you may not even get a “bad quality” or “fraud” report from the advertiser. Also, these frauders are going to pick offers they know are widespread across networks and will try to “blend” the fraudulent leads.
At the end of the month you are probably hit for $300-$500 per account. Add in the fact they have at least a few thousand accounts in the industry this comes to quite a substantial hit to advertisers. It also puts the network in hot water because if your quality sucks, you lose the offer. It puts all the legitimate publishers at risk too because they lose the offer as well obviously.
It’s a freaking mess out there, so pay attention to your publishers. Something has to be done because even C2M has been affected even though we have had 0 fraud leads in months. We have been promoting offers that have been pulled because they were frauded elsewhere and this truly sucks.
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Starting tomorrow, there will be a contest in which we will be giving away 3 Silver Affiliate Summit East passes. ASE will be held at the Hilton in New York City August 9-11. Convert2Media will be exhibiting there this year and you can find us at:
- Aug 9th Meet Market Table #70
- August10-11th Booth #1808
We have 3 Silver passes to throw out and the rules of the contest are simple. Starting at 12:00 am tonight all you have to do is generate 100 leads on Twitter Cash Kit. This is a hot offer that converts from 10% to as high as 18%. The first 3 publishers to generate 100 leads will win a Silver Pass to Affiliate Summit. We will be updating the contest results throughout the period on the company twitter, so start following.
Let er rip!
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It’s upon us. I’m finally sorted out and ready to go. Let it be known that Convert2Media will be the first network to stream live publisher training sessions. The rest of who follow (if anyone even will) will always be second. If I remember correctly, Second is the first loser. We’ll leave it at that. This will be live streaming and pretty much whatever I want to do. I’ve scheduled 3 question type sessions for July. In the blog at the beginning of each week, I will write up a post asking for specific questions you may ask and I will respond with. Serious questions will be the only ones considered.
I’ve streamed a couple of times now and I will tell you that if there is any screwing around, I’m going to ban. I’m not going to ban you temporarily, I’m going to ban your username permanently. Please dont waste my time or anyone else’s time in the chat. From pruning the network over the last few months, I would like to think that I have banned and terminated all of the jackasses from within. Time will tell I guess to see if I can get another one.
There will be 6 Broadcast Training Sessions in July. These will most likely be pretty lengthy. Here are the sessions and topics for the broadcasts. I will be streaming from the C2M uStream (/convert2media).
- July 11th 4:00pm – Q & A Sessions – Please start sending any and all questions from now until Saturday in regards to affiliate marketing. I will cover them all on Saturday July 11th starting at 4:00pm.
- July 14th 8:00 pm – Pay Per Click Strategies – I assure you. You do not want to miss this one if you are a Search Engine Marketer.
- July 19th 8:00pm – Q & A Session
- July 22nd 8:00 pm – Display And Media Strategies
- July 26th 8:00 pm – Q & A Session
- July 29th 8:00 pm – Basic Affiliate Strategies (Cashflow, Offer Selection etc.)
If you are not following my Twitter or the C2M Twitter, then start following it so you will know the day of the castings of where I will be at. Between the Florida office and Kansas Offices, I travel alot so times will fluctuate between Eastern and Central.
Please email your questions to ruck at convert2media.com
See you then!
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This post really gets me going. A little over a year ago, Convert2Media was started. A little over a year ago, this publisher began his Marketing and Advertising Career online. Through the months going forward from the start, this publisher and I met and he began publishing with C2M. From the start I saw strong characteristics of a hungry publisher. When you have been doing it as long as I have and then turn around and manage a few hundred businesses online for people, you pick up REALLY quick who’s serious and who’s not. As agreed, I have permission from the publisher to write the following post but I am going to leave his name and specifics out for privacy reasons.
First off, this publisher achieved $1,128,000.00+ change in the month of June. An incredible feat by any means but what is truly remarkeable is that he’s only 21 years old and been in the business for a little over a year. I’ve had the pleasure of working with this publisher VERY closely over the course of his work with C2M and I would like to share some tips and characteristics about this publisher for the people who are looking to reach a level such as this.
I would first like to start out by sharing some of the things he DOESNT do:
- He doesnt bitch or complain. He understands how I run C2M and he trusts that I am going to get with him on any problems he may face. Much like I treat every publisher in the event of something happening.
- He doesnt post or read shit on forums. Seriously, this is THE #1 downfall or thing that kills productivity. The amount of disinformation on the net is ridiculous. I’ve coached, managed, moderated and spent more time than most in forums and even my communities to know that 99% of the people talking, are full of shit. He knows this too. The amount he earned alone, reflects that. When you are earning a million dollars a month as a publisher, there is not a whole hell of lot of people talking in forums that you can trust to take advice from. It doesnt make sense at that level to take advice from a 1K a day earner. (Nothing wrong with that number BTW, you get the point).
- He doesnt concentrate on trying shit that is not advised. Seriously, after talking with him tonight, over 90% of his income was with a SINGLE offer. He doesnt spend time jerking around testing. He utilizes his resources wisely. ( Such as C2M advice, his traffic reps, his intuition).
Some of the things he does do:
- He concentrates heavily on optimization. I dont think a single day has gone by in the last couple of weeks where he hasnt made a change to his campaign. He’s always concentrating on a higher ROI whether it being changing ads up, landing page critique or how to get more out of his traffic sources.
- He listens. Period. Enough Said. He asks a question, I tell him. He takes ideas and suggestions and he tries them out. We’ve switched offers multiple times in his vertical and he is never afraid to give something I recommend a shot. This takes a lot of faith because I have shot him duds, and I have shot him winners. In the end he understands and trusts that I am trying to reach the same goal he is.
- He has his cashflow in order. This is something that very many dont really get. I’m not going to go into his spend amounts but he has taken upon himself to better himself in terms of credit and keeping the cashflow going. This even means coming to me for early payouts or getting him money whenever he needs it. A lot of publishers are afraid to ask for that but you ABSOLUTELY must. If I know you are making an effort I damn sure will be more flexible. If you are screwing around then I’m the type of guy that isnt going to take you seriously. Sounds harsh right? It is.
- His work ethic is tremendous. This goes in hand with traffic, cashflow and optimization. He’s a robot that doesnt stop. I dont know exactly what his goal is, but I’m pretty damn sure he hit one of them this last month. Constant moving and building your business is what it takes. At 21 and producing those kinds of numbers, I’m honestly VERY surprised he still sits there and talks to me at 2 am and often beats me in the morning getting on AIM.
- He understands the Industry. He knows that this could all end at any time. Affiliate Marketing can be a crap shoot especially with FTC Regulations, Search Engine slaps, offer instability. He knows that he has to move as fast and smart as possible to make every dime he can, while he can.
You know, after adding up the numbers and talking with him tonight about this post, we both had a little reflection. For me, I remember when C2M started. We were the 300+ Direct Track network to start up and I took a lot of shit from many who said we wouldnt be anything. I know in this industry that I dont have to be the best to make a ton of money and I really dont care. C2M exists because of it’s publishers. Publishers who have stuck by us thru the thick and thin like this publisher. Knowing you had a small hand and getting the priviledge to work with someone of his marketing caliber is simply amazing. I thank you for sticking with us thru it all. I only hope we can continue doing what we do and helping even more publishers reach their goals as well. Hopefully with the upcoming video broadcasts I will be providing, we will get to have more monthly millionaires very soon.
People are starting to realize more and more what we are about. I would also like to thank Andrew Wee because I know he understands FULLY what we are about. To all the pubs who work with us, we appreciate you more than you know.
C2M loves you all. – Ruck
