Kellie AFP

Hi all,

I'm Kellie from affiliatefairplay which Missie has mentioned (hi Missie & Ben!). She sent me a link to this thread asking for my input, so here I am.

I've been testing adware applications for about 5 years now focusing on how they interact in affiliate networks/programs and in general how they make their money. I believe I was the first to test and report publicly on 180Solutions behavior with affiliate links about 3 or so years ago. Adware issues can be confusing and convoluted at times, so I'd like to just touch base on a few things to help folks understand how these applications work and dispell some myths. Mainstream affiliate marketing have been dealing with these issues for years now.

As mentioned, there are many adware applications out there and they can behave differently. They also tend to change their behavior frequently and rapidly. This is somewhat related to how much public heat they are getting over a particular practice. I'll focus on 180Solutions, since that is the particular adware brought up here. But keep in mind, they are just one of many.

General Behavior:

There are 2 ends to 180Solutions business that get talked about a lot. First is their own affiliate program (ZangoCash). They have revshare and pay per install for folks who install their software. This is Zango's affiliates. Then they have CPV (cost per view) ad network. This is where you open an account with MetricsDirect, pick your kw targets and ad urls for those kw's and place bids for each ad view (i.e. pop up through 180Solutions software). It's completely up to the advertiser what the kw targets and ad urls are. Scarier is that you can let 180Solutions manage all this for you!

180Solutions has been a very active affiliate themselves in the past and operated on all the major mainstream affiliate networks as well as with independent programs, gaming industry and I'm sure adult industry. Over a year ago, they pulled out of being an affiliate themselves with all the major mainstream networks, focusing rather on their Ad network biz. I still see ads coming through their software periodcially where it appears that 180Solutions themselves is the actual affiliate. These are usually independent programs, but their own affiliate links are the minority of ads delivered.

This is technically true. But it is also misleading. Their software doesn't go in and change some else's affiliate links . It doesn't take the tracking cookie file and change in information in it. They don't go into network servers and alter tracking information. In fact, I don't know of any adware applications that do that off hand. Any of those things step into the area of where there is established laws which could possibly come into play. Far safer to stay in areas where there isn't established law. Also they can achieve the same end result without doing that and it's easier and more efficient programming of their software.

What does happen is their software scans every page loaded into the browser on the end users computer. They have a large database file installed on the end user's computer of all the kw their advertisers are bidding on. They scan the page being browsed for keyword matches in that database with content on the web page. They look at things like the page URL and Title tag for the matches. All this is done on the end users computer. If they find a match, the send those keywords to their servers. On their own servers they then check to see what ads are currently available (highest bids, advertisers daily spend caps, day targeting, geotargeting, etc). If an ad is available they then pop the the ad url in a new browser window.

What happens specifically to affiliate traffic and affiliate links depends completely on what keywords the advertisers is using and what their ad URL is. It can be as creative and the advertiser using 180Solutions. Here are just a few of some of the more common practices I've documented:

1. The keyword trigger is the Merchants URL, merchant.com. The Ad URL is an affiliate's tracking link. The result: The end user arrives at the merchant.com (or merchant.com/whateverpage.html as 180's targeting will pick up a partial match in the full URL being browsed). 180 then loads the affiliate's track link in a pop-up. Normal tracking of an affiliate happens. An affiliate 'click' is tracked to the affiliate running campaigns through 180Solution's Ad Network. This is what many call a forced click because the end user never physically clicked on the affiliate link. It doesn't matter how the traffic originally got the merchant.com. It could have been a direct type in in the browser to the merchant, a click from a PPCSE listing, an email link or a click from another affiliate. When the originating traffic was another affiliate, then the forced click results in the first affiliate's cookie being 'overwritten.' But this is done by normal affiliate tracking programming, not by the software physcially altering the first affiliate's link or cookie. The software NEVER goes near those. It's done by setting off the second affiliate's tracking AFTER the first one has tracked and uses normal affiliate tracking programming. The aff using 180Solution is now the 'last cookie in' which is Industry standards. First cookie in situations have been discussed numerous times in the past as a solution. There are a few networks and merchants who actually do first cookie in. However, it is not a generally accepted policy by most affiliates. And I can guarantee that if it did become the Standard in the Industry, then adware would just adapt and modify their programming to accomodate this (I'll not go into how they could do that technically, but there are some applications out there right now that are not impacted by first cookie in because of how their particular software behaves).

2. Keyword trigger is the Merchant's shopping cart/payment page. Ad Url is the affiliate's link. This results in a forced click for the affiliate using 180 as above except it doesn't happen until the end user is in the Merchant's shopping cart. This is what I call shopping cart pouching. They are setting their affiliate tracking once the end user is showing clear intentions of a possible purchase. Again it doesn't matter how the end user arrived at the merchant's site to begin with. This is rather efficient targeting by the affiliate of when to set their affiliate tracking, but it is also extremely bad behavior by the affiliate IMO.

3. Keyword trigger is merchant.com (or some variation) and Ad URL is a page on the affiliate's web site. The pop will contain the affiliate's web site. What happens next depends on what is on that particular affiliate's web page. Sometimes the page is a server redirect page containing the affiliate's link. End result still being a forced click of their affiliate link and the merchant's web site eventually shows in the pop. The reason some affiliates use this technique is some of the major mainstream networks saying affiliate's couldn't put their aff link directly into adware. It's just a work around to that rule. Sometimes the page will be an actual page on the affiliate's site. However they embed coding in the page which still automatically sets off their affiliate tracking code (js, iframes) in such a way that the merchant's web site isn't viewable. So all you would see on your screen is their web site, but they have tracked their affiliate. This is a 'hidden forced click.' Thankfully this particular practice is not nearly as common as it was a couple of years ago. Most Networks and merchants consider this clear cut fraud and is grounds for immediate termination (although they may let them back in after a month or so and the affiliate agrees to stop the practice). It does still happen though and I caught an affiliate recently doing this who was actually setting their affiliate link for 4 or 5 merchants this way through one pop up.

Those are a few examples of what can happen but hopefully you'll have a better understanding how 180Solutions software works. Other things I've seen is merchants popping on affiliate's sites, affiliates popping on affiliate's sites, affiliates popping on network sites (that one just seems suicidal to me but it takes all kinds), networks popping on networks, ppcse listing pages popping on anything. You name it, it can happen.

Obviously sponsors/merchants can be impacted just as much as affiliates. They are having their own organic and paid traffic being redirected (or mischanneled) into the affiliate channel for a paid commission. In the case of paid traffic redirection, they end up paying for the same end user twice. For affiliate's contacting sponsors about adware in their programs, it's been my own personal experience this fact gets the sponsor's/merchant's attention more quickly than anything else. ;)

I did do a few quick tests last night with just a couple of adware application only using some general adult industry kw searches. Through 180Solutions I got pop ups for FantasyFinder, Cams.com and AFF. Through SurfSideKick I got a pop for SexSeach.com. All pop ups were affiliate links.

Sorry for the long first post. Adware issues complex and I actually just skimmed the surface.