Many people ask what is Affilate Marketing Fraud?
Basically there are two separate types of Affiliate Marketing Fraud.

The first kind of Affiliate Fraud is carried out by the Affiliate Marketing Business Owner. It generally happens in a PPC (Pay Per Click) situation.

How does it occur?

Let’s look at the working relationship between merchant and affiliate.

In PPC circumstances the vendor receives traffic through the affiliate marketing website. In return for directing traffic to the merchant site the affiliate receives revenue. More Traffic means more hits which will result in more Affilate Marketing Revenue.

The temptation is for the Affiliate is to increase their Affiliate Marketing Revenue through the following scenarios:

Scenario 1:
The Affiliate is not producing sufficient traffic to the merchant site therefore the revenue received will be quite small. The Affiliate Marketer could now fall into the trap clicking his own advertising links or ask all his friends or relatives to visit his site and click the advertising links. Because there is intention to purchase this is classified as Affiliate Marketing Fraud!

Scenario 2:
After a while and with more experience the Affiliate Marketing Owner understands more about his business and has come across some magic software which promises to increase his PPC payments. The Software tool is generating fake traffic and the vendor will be forced to pay the Affiliate Marketing Company without ever receiving any real traffic. This is a more sophisticated and serious case of Affiliate Marketing Fraud.

The second kind of Affiliate Fraud affecting the Affiliate Vendor and the Affiliate Marketing Business Owner.

Also here are different scenarios how this can occur.

Scenario 1
A merchant in competition could be tempted to pose as a Affiliate and use the above scenarios to damage the competitor through fraudulent traffic and extracting money.

Scenario 2
This version is more complicated the fraudulent merchant infects an Affiliate Marketer’s computer which phony Software which will produce false clicks. If the merchant discovers the fake clicks the unsuspecting affiliate marketer gets accused of Affiliate Marketing Fraud.

In a pay per Sale Scenario the Affiliate Marketing Fraud Scenario can be more devious.

The first Scenario is affecting the Affiliate Merchant Site

A criminal affiliate who is in passion of false identities or stolen credit cards sets up an Affiliate site with a false identity and then he uses the stolen credit card to purchase goods. Not only receives he the goods in addition he receives the Affiliate commission. By the time the fraud is discovered the fraudster can have cashed thousand of dollars plus goods.

The second scenario is affecting the Affiliate Business Site.

An experienced ill intended Affiliate Marketer infects your computer and replaces your affiliate merchant link with an imposter link. The ill intended Affiliate Marketer will receive your commission and you receive zero dollar of affiliate revenue. In addition you are perhaps out of pocket because you may have used legal means to create traffic and most likely paid for your efforts.

How can Affiliate Fraud be detected?

Google and the other search engine provider like Yahoo or MSN have methods prepared to spot affiliate fraud. Some Affiliate Marketing people have been successfully taken to court. In some countries Affiliate Fraud can get you in to jail.

Avoiding Affiliate Fraud

Do not click your own ads of you are receiving PPC affiliate marketing revenue is the easy way not to get involved in this type of fraud. Monitor your clicks and your affiliate revenue and you will discover if things don’t add up.

Keep your computer firewalls and virus scanners up to date to ensure you are protected against malicious software.
Monitor your traffic and results, keep your firewall’s and virus scanner up-to-date and if possible cloak your Affiliate links. This should ensure to maximise your affiliate marketing revenue.

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