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Originally Posted by mikesinner
..The whole industry was built on screwing people one way or another... You can never expect to have complete honesty from every sponsor just like you can't expect it from everyone you meet in the business world as a whole..
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Netpond as a forum is an example of where some webmasters DO aspire to a higher standard (as in "good business not greedy business").
The world is full of crooks and porn did not invent them.
But to lay that as a fundamental expectation and to tolerate scamming players, will only make things much worse - to the point where you won't even tolerate them. But then it will be too late.
Case in point - when dating sponsors first started out they focused on "dating" and did not, for the most part shamelessly skim (webcam consoles, frontpage banner leaks) and upsell affiliate traffic without paying anything.
Now virtually every dating sponsor spams (not technically - the free members asked for it) the free members with links to most of the same programs (paysites) you are trying to promote. Had affiliate NOT accepted this style of cross-breeding of programs, some dating sponsors might have stuck to "dating".
Today, I cannot think of a single dating (no pun intended) sponsor who will not undermine the NET monetization of my traffic. If one builds traffic to try and match with products/services, it is not uncommon to have mulitple products apply to a surfer's interests. I'm sure I'm not alone by having a cascade (NOT consoles) of offerings for my visitors to increase my chances of some return. But when you give your surfer to a dating sponsor, forget about your other monetization - that customer is gone. They will be milked by the dating sponsor and with the same products you were trying to sell.
Another example of where complacency breeds bad practices is related to watermark cross-branding leaks. I call them leaks because they have the same net effect as leaks. When you promote a sponsor's paysite using their promotional material, and they watermark their images with a DIFFERENT domain - that's going to cost you sales.
The most blatent and shamless example of cross-brank watermark leak I've seen to date is with JuggCash. The watermark their images with Brazzers.com which bounces from Brazzzers.com and stuffs new affiliate code into the link as it returns to the sponsor's site. The sponsor admits to it and responds by saying "you still make money overall".
This is completely unacceptable.
But comments like yours make it clear how sponsors can erode what was left of good practices to start with and not even think of this as a bad thing.
If a sponsor operates on the notion that "some revenue" is all they need to provide to an affiliate, what's the point of "stats"? It's a farce when "real time" stats don't reflect the true picture of how your traffic is being monetized and by whom. Why not just make up a bunch of numbers and pretend?
Forward thinking sponsors who realize some affiliates pay attention to how they conduct themselves and PROACTIVELY engage in healthy practices(not simply responding to PR blowback from getting busted) are going to have a loyal group of affiliates. Otherwise, affiliates will just jump from cheater to cheater as the ROI (or lack thereof) gets too ridiculous.