A bit confused over IME...assuming it means In My Experience.

I do believe you are wrong about traffic streams like Zango and other 'somewhat' legal adware/spyware but time will tell.

You are probably right about sponsors not spending so much money on shows but mainstream companies still do it. :)

You'll have to explain it to me. I don't get that from my post at all.

if aff has so much money, why can't they hire a couple of people to surf the web and cancel the accts of people who run their banners on warez, illegal torrent and simliar sites?

Lars never said he is going to stop the pratice.. Instead of standing up and putting a stop to it. Instead he tried to justify it, and they plan to contiune using zango from the looks of his posts.

That's why there is a feeding frezy.. If he would have stood up and accepted it for what it was and stopped. This thread would have never been this big.

No it couldn't be programs like Zango. Without affiliates there would be no adware. Simple reason... the only one to steal from would be the sponsor itself.

Now imagine if sponsors no longer had affiliates. That sure cuts down on an awful lot of sites to pop on, doesn't it? Those like AFF, SexSearch and so on would have to pop up only on other sponsors' sites because that's the only target they have. Makes no sense to target their own site anymore, they don't have affiliates to steal from. All direct type-ins, all natural SERPS, ppc ads, gallery spots, etc. How long do you really think that would last? I can see a lot of lawyers being busy and getting richer...

Missie

Sponsors not already asking these questions should be doing so. But you are looking at the whole issue through a distorting lens.

First, many sponsors are no more professional than the majority of affiliates. Thus they have chosen marketing directions which appeal to their own personalities and comprehension more than because there ever was much financial reason involved. Putting money put into affiliate development would be far more productive, but a lot less glamorous. In consequence, few sponsors even bother to hire reps who are more than minimally competent.

That isn't the only way most sponsors are stuck firmly in the 90's as regards their view of affiliates. The majority still pitch their main marketing straight at newbies, which was fair enough when there was a constant flood of newbies and experienced webmasters were in a minority, but those days are long gone. As you pointed out, very few newbies will make it these days, yet existing affiliates are still largely left to their own devices.

Which is not to say that even if affiliates were monetized more efficiently, there are not alternatives. But diving into the arms of operations like Zango would be one of the most dangerous options. No-one in his right mind would make his business dependent on an operation which is skating so close to the edge of the law.

Settling down to work only with existing "whales" doesn't come far behind on the list of things not to do. This has already been discussed at length in one of these threads and it is obvious how it would appeal to a few of the least bright candles. But it really isn't an option at all for anyone who plans to be in business for more than 5 years or so.

he's pushing the same line of nonsense here: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showpo...3&postcount=22

apparently, to some people "we're gonna keep doing what we've been doing" = "standing up, putting yourself on the line and doing something about it, {insert spin cliche here}, etc"

Peaches,


you would be wrong .. its worth it having the small affiliates.. it keeps the balance .. without the small affiliates zango would charge a hand and a leg for their stolen traffic.

its all a balance.. if AFF gives up on that traffic .. it would be crazy.. if i had % in AFF i would demand they use some of that Zango traffic.. but I would like to keep my normal affiliates .. so to keep Zango's prices under control

did anyone notice Googles charges today.. they are so high ... its unbelievable

that's what happens when one company control too much traffic.. and that's what would happen if all of AFF's or any Sponsors traffic came only from Google.. or Zango or any single big traffic programs

just my 2cent

I don't support Spywere or Adware or any of that scumware .. but i understand the logic behind the people who create it .. the people who advertise with it and the victims of such software(including me in this one).

now that i understand why ratios have been going down so much in the last few years... i will deal with it .. but i don't hate anyone for trying to make money.

that's what we all do

WOW!

That's not what we ALL do. I don't have to steal from anyone to pay my bills. That's like saying you caught a robber in your house, a "coworker", he was blatantly stealing from you. Then he tells you "sorry man, got bills to pay and if I don't rob you, someone else will some day, so might as well be me. Let me see if I can find another sucker to rob, and if I can't, I'll be back to your house, k ?" To which you'd reply "oh no problem, I don't hate you, I understand, we all need to make money somehow, that's what we all do. You can come back anytime you want".

I find a robber in my house, he'll be lucky to get out alive. If he ever came back, he'd leave in a bodybag, empty handed. BANG! You're dead.

Why that's allowed online? Sure beats the hell out of me!

Missie

we'll see how this will all end

:thumbsup ....

no one is born a whale and 1-5% of those minnows will become whales further down the road.

regarding zango, all of the dating sites like aff, sexsearch etc should multilaterally agree not to use them, and then none of the programs lose out to each other (if the bigger programs like aff and sexsearch agreed to do this the smaller ones would have to follow). and if one breaks the deal, affiliates should then boycott that program until they come back on board.

It's obvious a lot of small affiliates think they are more important to programs than they really are. That's why I said my comments would be unpopular with 99% of the posters here ;)

Handpicking of affiliates is probably one of the best things a program can do. For instance, to play Devil's Advocate, programs could now remove all affiliates that are using Zango. In reality, most of the older programs have so many affiliates sending 2+ signups a month, it would take forever to find and remove those using Zango or any other spyware. And I'll bet you it's those little affiliates that are causing most of the problems.

There is exactly one thing that I respect about AFF/ Cams - when they ban an affillate code, they stop taking the traffic as well. That is a class act that other programs should learn how to emulate.

Now if we can just stop buying Zango traffic... :)

Alex

And here an advertising pause :rasta

Competition is trying to make money. Trying to out bid you on adwords, or even advertising on the site sites, etc..

Stealing traffic is not the same. Not many of us do that. You got a little off track there.

I will do what it takes to be competitive. I would open a MC Donalds up across the street from a Burger king, but I am not going to go hire a guy with a gun to sit outside of Burger king and escort their customers to my store.

It has always been my feeling that the affiliate system will die when programs find new ways to get traffic without having to pay so much. Why pay 50% or $105 or whatever if you can pay 10 cents a click and score 1 in 100 "borrowing" surfers from other sites?

Amazing how it all works out.

Alex

Even with that reasoning, sponsors would have to advertise with every piece of scumware available and would still not reach the level of traffic that all their affiliates combined give them now. Advertising would become expensive. Not every surfer on the planet is infected with spyware, not all infected computers have zango or cws or look2me. Some have many of them, the luckiest of the unlucky ones only have one or two and it may not even be one of the application that the sponsor is using.

It would quickly become a "battle of sponsors" and it wouldn't last. To be profitable to anyone involved in these shady practices, scumware advertising NEEDS legit affiliates to feed on.

Missie

You are skipping a few points...

First that if the average affiliate is as big a drain on resources as arguments like your suggest, who is to blame except the sponsors themselves? They drove the payouts up by not having the imagination (most of them) to compete on any other level. They make zero effort to identify and assist affiliates who show potential for further development. They spend almost all their affiliate marketing budgets on impressing other sponsors and attempting to pull in newbies. There is a vast army of affiliates, yet the typical sponsor does absolutely nothing of practical value except give them the URL's for some banners, galleries, etc.

The other major flaw in your reasoning is that the hundreds of thousands of sites which provide traffic, directly or indirectly, for virtually every traffic source, are affiliate sites. Not only are these webmasters the source of the scumware operators' traffic, but they fuel TGP's, directories, sponsors' own consoles... you name it. You can change the affiliates role. You can call them something else. But so long as traffic has a value, they will not be going anywhere.

And it's a damned good thing, because as someone else pointed out, if sponsors encourage anything approaching a monopoly or "club" of traffic sources, they won't get more traffic: it will just become more expensive. The existence of "affiliates" is what ensures that no-one's business is held to ransom.

As I have already written somewhere here, we have enough cowboys running big sponsor programs that I'm sure some will go that route. But hopefully more are smart enough to realize that the solution is not to get rid of affiliates but to utilize them better.

i don't think most small guys care about or even go to parties/conventions. maybe the ones who want to play like something when they're not. they can cut all of that out and still have small affiliates. they can cut out large chunks of advertising and still have small affiliates. the current climate for recuiting people isn't how it always was.

also if companies only choose to work with big guys and zango, they're only stealing sales from the big guys. thats ok with you? and whales don't just appear from nowhere. sure a lot of the established guys are easy enough to find but you never know when the next 20 sale per day guy is gonna come from.

Jay Z rocks!!!!!!!

I was going to say the same thing.. what a crock.. that shit is never welcomed on my comp but somehow sneaks in..glad I have been spared the Zango shit.

adware and spyware are about the same in my book....shit.

Jayeff, you miss two very important parts of the deal:

I don't disagree that the programs have created their own issues with (often insane) increases in payouts, etc... but in many cases they need to do it to make up for the shaving, the outside click buying, and the poor performance of their tracking software. Otherwise people would make so little per click that they would stop sending traffic. The highest payouts are in places like cams and dating, because in most cases they are "mature markets" where your conversions are going to be lower, and many of the surfers you send are already members, long since bought and paid for.

As for traffic, well... there will always be some sort of affiliate programs. If the only dating program left was "bob's dating" it would get all the dating traffic, and AFF and sexsearch would just buy zango consoles off of that, Google traffic, yahoo traffic, and away you go. As long as their is some semblance of an affiliate system there will be a way to use Zango style tools to piggy back on that traffic and make money without any affiliates.

Heck, as long as people keep searching on google, they can pop stuff up on the searches... that would be enough.

Alex

lol

its funny that a few of you think that I think Stealing traffic is ok, I don't but i know that if a company like AFF would like to play by this rules .. well i am ready to take it up a notch .

like you said will76 , AFF is acting like as if you are hiring a guy with a gun to take our customers.. so if that's the way they would like to do it.. we can do it that way..


i prefer to not get angry at human nature no matter how unbelievable some acts are!

nothing is worth me blowing a fuse in my head.. i am just going to accept it.. not get angry and adept to the situation.

Peaches, Sometimes little guys grow up to be whales.

Linkster is trying to build one over at GG&J.

Except it may not be the affiliate using the toolbar. The surfer could just have the toolbar on their machine, and arrive via a real link. That would mean that all these flagged hits should be back checked to verify that the account matches the link on the sending page.

I have been at this quite awhile, and yet do not understand why sponsors just ban affilates over BS like this. Hell, file criminal charges and include Zango, or whoever as accomplices.

So how is your "attempt to address this unforeseen consequence of adware ad buys " going?

It appears that aff (legendary Liar) is not doing anything to end their adware campaigns. They continue to scamming and cheating the webmasters out of their hard work. :2 cents:

Albeit slowly, more "names" are beginning to speak out against scumware operations. Although it remains to be seen how many statements will result in action (and of course some sponsors have stayed ominously quiet), I guess the biggest question is how many affiliates are dropping at least those sponsors who have said they will not stop supporting scumware?

The board drama has its entertaining moments, but if affiliates will not switch from sites which steal their traffic and/or which support affiliates who are thieves, it becomes pointless to be critical of such sponsors.

you know Lars, you are a piece of shit for that response and Alla Akbar I will never promote cams.com or whatever you touch because you a greedy son of a....
oh well, who gives a fuck, i'll keep promoting Zango with allt he crap

350..........

Seems a few are listening and taking action:thumbsup

Combine his statement in this thread with his new thread here.. http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?p=11151788

He must be suffering from stress or something, because this shit is wrong.

He would have been and would be better off now if he would keep his mouth shut...he just makes it worse every time he says a word about it all...

Like I said before..this isnt going away..its going to haunt him for a long time to come..all the promo threads in the world arent going to help...they will backfire on him just as they are doing now..it's just another opportunity for everyone to bring up this entire mess over and over again...and they will.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

YOU STILL HERE? SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! :321GFY

Lars has surely done more harm posting - twice now - what amounts to "fuck you all", than was caused by the original threads that AFF and cams.com were linked to scumware operators.

A lot of his affiliates, for their own reasons turned a blind eye to what he has been doing. Publicly sneering at them isn't exactly the best way to ensure their continued loyalty.

:thumbsup

Soooo you have been looking into the issue ?? :1orglaugh what have you found ?

Lars went from hero to zero in a couple weeks... that's gonna be so hard to build something on that after what happened in the last 2 months.