Tips for reducing customer acquisition risk in affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing has many great features. It can be tracked and monitored, and it is possible to attribute conversions. Advertisers can track exactly how much advertising money is spent and how many leads are generated.

Affiliate marketing does not eliminate customer acquisition risks.

Businesses are prone to looking for ways to lower customer acquisition costs. This is why affiliate marketing is so well-known. Affiliate marketing can be impacted by many external factors, such as user acquisition fraud.

Lemonads has spent many hours creating mechanisms to eliminate user acquisition risks such as fraudulent interactions. We are familiar with all the nuances of this practice.

We’ll be covering the affiliate marketing environment and explaining what customer acquisition risks this type of advertising presents. We’ll also share tips on how to reduce user acquisition risk and maximize your affiliate program.

The Entire Ecosystem is at Risk from User Acquisition Fraud

User acquisition fraud is a major problem. It costs the advertising industry billions of dollar, but the effects are far more than the financial ones.

These deceptive practices often involve unsuspecting users, who view the incident only as an example of the marketing industry. This could affect consumer trends and surveys. Millions of marketers use this data to create their campaigns.

Simply put, fraud will continue to be a problem and consumers and businesses will lose faith in online marketing.

How to reduce customer acquisition fraud and other similar risks

Modern customer acquisition strategies, such as affiliate marketing, aim to generate leads efficiently while not compromising the quality or prospects. However, affiliate marketing can present risks when it comes to acquiring customers through this channel.

Advertisers can take steps to reduce the likelihood of fraud and other undesirable incidents.

These include:

For proper monitoring, set up an analytics tool

You should start by researching different software providers for ads fraud protection. There is no one way to find the perfect fit. You will need to evaluate all options and choose the one that suits your needs.

Implement Device Fingerprinting Solutions

You should implement a device fingerprinting tool into your platform, along with an ads fraud detection system. Instead of using cookies or other traditional means, device fingerprinting solutions can be used to identify the base they are connecting through.

Create a Scoring System to Evaluate Behavior

You should have enough information about your customers to be able to draw conclusions from what you know and what data you collect through your website. A scoring system should be developed that allows you to assess the legitimacy of any conversions. This system will allow you to spot-check the conversions you receive and ensure that only real users are being reached.

Affiliate Networks that create a safe ecosystem

Affiliate networks connect trusted publishers and advertisers who want to work with reliable partners. Only work with affiliate networks that create a safe environment for publishers and advertisers, such as lemonads. To help you create an open ecosystem, we have developed several in-house mechanisms. Contact us today to find out more.

Affiliate Marketing to Get Customers

It is important to understand the nature of the ecosystem and who participates in it before we discuss the risks associated with customer acquisitions in affiliate marketing. There are variations depending on industry and program structure. However, the main players in the ecosystem are publishers, advertisers, consumers and affiliate networks.

Let’s look at the roles these stakeholders play.

dvertisers

Advertisers are companies who promote their products or services via an affiliate program. These businesses partner with affiliate marketers to drive traffic, generate conversions and send these leads to advertisers. After receiving the leads, advertisers pay commissions to affiliate marketers to help convert the prospects into customers.

Advertisers have full control over the affiliate program. They decide what conversions are possible, which demographic requirements publishers must meet, and any other pertinent aspects.

Publishers

A publisher is an affiliate marketer who develops and distributes web materials through various channels. They can work with one platform and focus their efforts on that channel. They can also own multiple platforms and publish content through different channels, such as websites, social media profiles and messaging app groups.

Publishers have two options: sell their traffic to media buyers, or join affiliate programs to monetize visitors who visit their websites. Advertisers from different industries can benefit from the assistance of affiliates who have access to different target audiences.

Consumers

Advertisers and publishers are looking to attract consumers, as you likely know. Affiliates are able to engage these consumers and create content that can influence their behavior. Online shoppers behave differently than people who shop in stores.

ffiliate networks

Affiliate networks, in turn, are platforms that connect advertisers with top publishers within a secure ecosystem. Lemonads is an affiliate network that helps advertisers create attractive affiliate programs and manage their relationship with publishers. This allows these companies to concentrate on converting leads into clients.

Lemonads partners with leading publishers in a variety of industries. We aim to create a stable and profitable environment where advertisers can establish long-term partnerships, while knowing there is minimal risk in customer acquisition. Get in touch with our team to learn more about how you can partner with us.

What are the risks associated with affiliate marketing customer acquisition?

Because affiliate marketing is performance-based, it has lower risk than other forms of advertising. Ad fraud is still a concern, so advertisers must be aware of the risks and how they work in order to make the best decisions.

The following are some of the most common forms of ad fraud that could hinder your campaign:

Domain Spoofing

Digital ads are more expensive if they have a better placement. Advertisers expect the best placement possible when they pay top dollar to place a bid. This is true in a transparent environment. However, domain spoofing is a fraud that trick advertisers into paying high prices for poor placements.

There are many forms of domain spoofing. However, the goal is to make advertisers feel that their ads are being published on top publishing platforms. These impressions, clicks and conversions come from low-quality platforms.

Cookie Stuffing

Cookies are text files that store data about the browsing history of a user. Although this basic system offers many benefits, fraudsters can alter or “hijack” cookies to alter the data stored in them.

Cookie stuffing is the act of hijacking text files and editing the information to gain credit for an interaction that never took place.

Influencer Marketing Fraud

It is a great way for your affiliate marketing campaign to be boosted by working with influencers. Deceitful influencers use bots to increase their social media followers and other statistics to convince businesses to work with them. These influencers are actually very small in reach with advertisers.

Be aware that fraudsters can create fake profiles or websites that are entirely controlled by bots. Some people create duplicate profiles and websites for known influencers. Make sure you work with the publisher before you do this.

Click Bots and Farms

Click farms, as the name implies, are places where fraudsters work to generate large numbers of clicks and converts. Click farms are usually run by human operators who use dozens to hundreds of devices.

Because click farms can be difficult to identify using traditional methods, the interactions often appear to come from different users and devices. Click fraud detection platforms often identify click farms based on the shared IP address or erratic patterns.

Fraud at d Impressions

Advertiser fraud can come in many forms. But this deceitful practice focuses primarily on charging advertisers for impressions that never occurred or were not on a high-quality platform.

Ad stacking is the most prevalent type of ad impression fraud. This involves immoral publishers putting multiple ads on top. These fraudsters charge all advertisers when the ads that were layered on top of each other are not visible.

Lead Generation Fraud

Advertisers believed that multiple steps were the best way to avoid fraud in digital marketing. The theory was that only real users could complete every step of the conversion flow. This would mean that each lead would have to come from a real person.

Fraudsters continue to look for new ways to profit from affiliate stakeholders. These fraudsters have created bots and other mechanisms to aid them in complex conversion flows. They can exchange opt-out lists to create new lead databases. This is a problem for both advertisers and consumers.

Are you ready to set up an affiliate program? Get in touch with lemonads today to become an affiliate!

Advertisers should consider the risks of user acquisition, such as fraud. This will help you make better business decisions and protect your program from deceitful entities.

Lemonads is the best place to find out more about how you can partner with an affiliate network that provides a safe environment for your partners and you.