Affiliate Fraud Detection- Why the Accuracy of Affiliate Tracking Software Matters?

Posted by Selins Jesse on August 25th, 2022

Fraud in affiliate marketing is an eyesore for your company’s marketing team. You are happy to pay commissions to affiliates who create value for your business. But paying commissions to malicious affiliates who take advantage of your affiliate program with fraudulent practices.

Like any other kind, affiliate fraud is deceiving and plays with the reputation of your brand. Many organizations are deploying brand protection solutions to prevent their affiliate network from threat actors.

Affiliate marketing is a valuable channel for driving leads and traffic to your website. Collaborating with affiliates to display ads can increase your affiliate marketing revenue. Some companies spend millions on their affiliate programs by creating massive networks of people.

But affiliate marketing fraud can severely affect your company’s brand image. Thanks to affiliate fraud tracking and monitoring solutions, you can now secure your legitimate affiliates from threat actors.

How much does Affiliate Fraud cost your Business?

In typical affiliate marketing programs, your marketing teams trust the affiliates to promote products. And when an affiliate yields results, you pay them. Affiliate marketing fraud aims to cheat your business and legitimate affiliates out of money. Malicious affiliates involved in fraud mislead your customers and dent your brand’s credibility. Here are some risk factors associated with affiliate marketing fraud.

• Wasted Ad Spend

Affiliate fraud wastes the budget of your marketing team. In the case of affiliate fraud, you tend to pay nefarious affiliates instead of rewarding the legitimate ones. Wasted ad spend can severely affect your marketing team’s operational efficiency.

• Failure to acquire New Customers

In the case of affiliate fraud, your ability to acquire new customers will drop. Companies are deploying the best affiliate tracking software to detect frauds at the earliest. You will also witness fewer conversions in the presence of affiliate frauds.

• Losing Legitimate Affiliates

In affiliate frauds, you end up paying commissions to nefarious affiliates. The legitimate affiliates working with you over the years tend to lose trust. Legitimate and high-performing affiliates will leave your affiliate program during the fraud.

• Credit Card Chargebacks

Malicious affiliates often leverage the long chargeback cycle to commit fraud. Nefarious affiliates rely on stolen credit card information to make purchases. If the bank reverses the funds to you, that can be serious.

Types of Frauds prevalent with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing fraud can take a toll on your advertising budget. Nefarious affiliates are constantly evolving their tactics to target your affiliate network. Here are some of the common types of affiliate frauds you should know.

Lead Misattribution or Cookie Stuffing

Cookies are a standard tool to track a visitor’s browser history. Cookies also assist in attributing that visitor to an affiliate. Nefarious affiliates rely on cookie stuffing to place third-party cookies on the web browser of a visitor. If the visitor goes to a merchant’s website, the malicious affiliate will get credit. Cookie stuffing deprives legitimate affiliates of due credit and money.

Paid Ads Violation

Paid advertising allows your marketing team to bid on the brand-related keywords to display ads on SERPs. Paid ads violation occurs when nefarious affiliates falsify the frequency of clicks of online ads. Fraudulent advertising can make a significant dent in your brand’s marketing budget. Click fraud protection can assist your marketing team to counter violations of paid ads.

URL Hijacking

To take credit for organic traffic, the malicious affiliates might set up a URL online similar to your company’s website. Unsuspecting visitors visit this website to get a cookie stuffed into their browser. The stuffed cookie redirects the visitors to your company’s original website. With URL hijacking, malicious affiliates take credit for generating traffic for your website. 

The Efficacy of Affiliate Tracking Software Platforms

One of the key highlights of implementing affiliate tracking software is that they eliminate uncertainties from affiliate fraud detection. Uncertainties can increase the risk of affiliate fraud. By implementing affiliate tracking software, you can improve conversions and marketing spending. Here are some reasons why affiliate tracking software solutions are a must-have for your company.

• Monitors your affiliate network constantly to identify frauds
• With affiliate tracking software, you’ll protect your users
• Offers legitimate affiliates with high levels of confidence
• Assists you in securing your brand’s identity

Affiliate fraud is a serious issue and affects all the stakeholders associated with affiliate marketing. Affiliate fraud can severely impact your company’s digital marketing growth, and it scares people from trying affiliate marketing and ends up harms your business.

How Does VPT help you monitor Affiliate Fraud?

As one of the top ad fraud detection companies, Virus Positive Technologies continuously monitor your affiliate network. VPT digs deeper into your data to assist you in understanding the specifics associated with affiliate sources. With industry-leading fraud identification and monitoring solutions, you can rely on VPT to secure your company’s affiliate network.