I’d say the biggest issue with our industry is the horrible amount of brokering that goes on. One network runs an offer from an advertiser, another network gets it, then brokers to another network, which then goes to an affiliate. It’s a practice that needs to stop that a lot of people have spoken out against, and frankly one that is really bad business practice in general.
Quickly, the issues with this, and how it affects both affiliates and advertisers
– Most Advertisers Don’t Want to be Brokered. If they want to be on that network, they will broker. A lot of bad players will move from network to network to get offers since they are banned from running a certain offer.
– Affiliates get screwed with customer service. If an offer is brokered, there is nothing the CPA Network you work with to do to ensure payment. They are completely dependent on another network.
– Horrible CPA Pricing. By the time you get the offer, it’s so low that it can’t really convert. Why run it then? Most of the people running at the low CPA are scammers, running it on multiple networks, hoping they wont get caught if they run a few dollars here and there.
So, what to do? Find out where the offer comes from. Here’s a simple tool that will allow you to enter the affiliate url that you have, and will show you all the urls that it goes through.
Look at the last affiliate network in the chain, and that’s where you need to get the offer. If the CPA Network you are working with has tons of redirects, maybe you need to find a better CPA Network to work with.
