How do you stop Webmasters from Reffering themselves?
 

I was wondering how you go about to stop webmasters sighing up for two accounts. One they sent small amounta of traffic too and then they refer themselves and send the majority of traffic to the second. I guess the 15% can mean big money for some people.

Not really a big deal but I saw that today and I was wondering what methods do you have in place?

do they have the same tax id?

Allow only one account per person, address.

You catch them when its payment time.

only Americans would have a tax id... that eliminates one country but there's a few other countries out there that people might be living in.

Derek, we've caught a few trying to pull that as well. You just gotta keep a close eye on these things (address, emails, other similarities)... which can get trickier and trickier the more you grow.

depends, is it better to loose only 15% comparing to the whole source?

Kill there old acc, the one that's getting the referral money.

Neat idea! Well not really. What is harder is when a small group get together to play games.

There is no way to stop webmasters. As mentioned, you need to look for similarities among the accounts, but that certainly isnt going to work everytime. Make sure to state clearly in your TOS that if webmasters refer themselves, their accounts will be terminated. I remember, back in the day, everyone thought they were so smart because they would signup under themselves to clickcash and make bling bling. Little did they know clickcash had it's own "adjustment" methods of dealing with that :winkwink:

hmmm I refer my brother sometimes and we use the same po box....same hosting and same register....

I got my girlfriend into the webmaster biz and she uses my domains sometimes. I have referred her to a few programs. I don't feel it's the same thing though.

I sometimes use several accounts for tracking purposes. I never considered whether I was getting a referral fee from my other accounts.

Hand approve accounts is one way. Long way to do it, but it will stop it.

That's where campaigns come in handy, I wish more programs implemented that.

yep.. hand approving accounts. and paying very close attention to some of the details that some people already listed here.

I have a question for you, If a signup is worth your normal payout to one person and a 15% override to a referring webmaster, what difference does it make if it all goes to the same webmaster? It's not like it's hard to sneak an account in on those programs that are concerned anyhow. I think I'd focus on something more important.

It's a huge difference, you either pay out anywhere from $30-40/signup you add 15% that's $34.50-46.

Programs run on a small profit margin, and hope for large volume and rebills.

What programs pay 15% for reffers? Sign me up!

If those programs are any good I would love to push them on http://www.affiliatesrus.com.

Let's see some links!

Ummm hello!? If a webmaster signs up under someone elses code instead of their own it costs the program the exact same thing.

you say that like 15% isnt shit

fuck that. 15% is fucking huge. and if you are going to offer someone else that cash if they refer me.. i refered myself.. why am i not intitled to that 15%
besides.. is my traffic thats making the sales anyways right?

Yeah a legit signup under someone else ... I'm not gonna pay someone an extra $4.50-$6 if I don't have to. I have a webmaster that does great job referring other webmasters, I have no problem paying him. I do have a problem paying someone that would sign up for my program if no one referred them and they are trying to skim more money off of us.

It's the principle of the matter. If I wanted to pay $34.50-$46 a join, I would. But the point of referring webmasters is to get more people promoting the program, not double one that is already active.

shoot them>? :321GFY

I don't buy it. You can't list $34.50 to $46 per signup because then the 15% override would be that much more. So it's ok for a webmaster to post on GFY "Hey I want to signup to X.com give me a link code" but not ok for a webmaster to get it himself? It's 100% sponsors trying to pad their bottom line.

Now, I don't sign up under my own affiliate codes but if I wanted to you would never know it. That being said, I make my own creatives, do my own footwork, and rarely if ever talk to support. If a sponsor got pissy because I kept my referral % myself while spending thousands of dollars providing everything free under the sun to other webmasters I would just pull my traffic.

WildWestCash pays 15%. They've got some nice sites too.

Do reports when your paychecks are about to go out to see who are the biggest referral checks, then backtrack to check those people aren't signing themselves up.

Check for duplicate payto/tax information and check if the accounts are referring each other.

WG

Personally, I won't sign up under anyone's referral code solely because it gives you an additional point to your argument when negotiating for higher payouts.

:2 cents:

Exactly, when you wouldn't have to argue at all if you just referred yourself. Sponsors worrying about this is just petty.

nice ideas here..

But now you have two people promoting your program, not one.

You send traffic to XYZ company and get 10 joins a day.
10*$30/join = 300
$300*1.15 = $345

Now if you refer someone else and they send 10 joins a day, I still have your $300 and now someone else's $300 and have to pay the referral. I'm now paying $645, but have twice as many joins.

The bottom line is just because you refer yourself doesn't mean you'll twice as many joins. If you refer someone else, they'll send joins.

Yes, you may find a way around it and companies won't know, but I know of larger companies that shut down accounts or tell webmasters when they find out they can't do it.

It truly cuts into the profit margin, paying $30-40/join already hurts bad enough.

Thanks for the great ideas and Kristin I love how you threw you 2 cents in. Killer!

You act as if the referral whores running around here send actual traffic. You aren't going to get double the sales if they refer me because I'm going to send more sales than they do 99.9% of the time.

And on that note by me not using their referral code will the ones actively promoting suddenly stop sending traffic? Nope. You just want those loose webmasters signed up with no referrals at all. Like I said, 100% bottom line. How much do all the promo tools you offer every noob in the world cut into your bottom line? What about all the time on ICQ explaining to morons how to insert a link code correctly?

It's hard to stamp that out. It affects the bottom line more than most people know.

Everything affects the bottom line. Bitching about your webmasters who are actually sending sales is pretty damn pathetic.

I understand your thinking but the fact is very few webmasters are referred.

You do bring up good points from a sponsor's look on things, realistically though I think your numbers are a little too optimistic. I don't think that one person referring another person will result in twice as many joins - nor do I believe that every person who refers webmasters actively promotes the program themselves. It may just have a good percentage (like webcamcash apparently) of referral payout.


I don't know that it truely cuts into the profit margin, perhaps if every single webmaster did it within the program it would. I think affiliates large enough to truely cut into the profit margin are pushing enough volume to negotiate higher payouts anyway.

Maybe. But the guy that would bother to sign up under his own code would just make a friend join and sign up under them as they obviously know about the payouts.

Dwreck can you cross refrence your daily signups?

wow, thats kind of low. :(

I don't think they're bitching about webmasters sending sales, at least that's not the original intent of the thread imho. They're bitching about webmasters trying to be shady. :2 cents:

Promo tools are regardless, it's not the point about the promo tools. You may not use them, but webmasters large and small do use them. We have to offer them for noobs and experienced webmasters. Hell, more experienced webmasters tend to be worse sometimes, they want everything ... link codes ICQ'ed or emailed to them, blah, blah, blah. You just happen to be one of the good ones that will do everything on your own. We now offer incentives for webmasters who do their own footwork. We buy hosted galleries...$5/per approved gallery and we appreciate those who submit and they appreciate the extra money.

So little things like this matter, but taking an additional $15% is just not right. You aren't sending more joins and by someone else referring may not equate to more joins, but it has a better chance than referring yourself.