Why do we accept shaving?

[BradM]

I don't shave, but that's just a personal thing. We set up our payouts to make money right away. That means that every sale the webmaster makes, we make money. That way they can earn more, profit more - buy more ads and sell more of our product thus earning us MORE than if they sold 3 product and left due to losses or shaving hunches.

[_LB_]

I have to agree with some of you, and I also never see any proof.

Also shaving nowadays is illogical. The competition is so fierce why would you put yourself and your program further past the starting line ? I know for a fact reverse shaving works and many people do it (they add signups to good affiliates accounts), but never seen current proof or instances of shaving. Just because you may suffer a dry period of signups doesn't mean a program is shaving you.

[fsudirectory]

Click Thru Cash shaves hard from what I can see from my out-clicks on wordpress compared to clicks registered to their backend...

[hardcoreblogger]

Originally Posted by _LB_

Also shaving nowadays is illogical. The competition is so fierce why would you put yourself and your program further past the starting line ?

in many smaller niches there are extremely few really good sites with good content that convert. the competition for the owners of these sites to attract webmasters is not very fierce. plus there will always be program owners who prefer to go for the quick buck, so there's enough motivation for shaving around. what may be true for you and your program doesn't have to be the same for every program out there.

Originally Posted by _LB_

I know for a fact reverse shaving works and many people do it (they add signups to good affiliates accounts), but never seen current proof or instances of shaving.

if reverse shaving is happening, then someone gets shaved too. or do you think the program pays that sale out of pocket to the good affiliate? nah itll take it away from a smaller, unimportant webmaster. so if you have proof for reverse shaving, you have proof for shaving too.

Originally Posted by _LB_

Just because you may suffer a dry period of signups doesn't mean a program is shaving you.

the good ole saying...what would you say if you make 10 sales/day on average with site A from program B every day on 3000 daily uniques you send to it, the same targeted traffic from one site continuously. every day is between 5-15 sales. but each month in the first two weeks there are suddenly 4-5 consecutive days where you make 0 sales. not a single one. this happens every single month. would you consider that just a dry period?

i have no proof of shaving at all, this is just a hypothetical example

[fsudirectory]

I mean that happens to me with NATS sponsors and i figure thats about as secure as your gonna get...

[teentime]

After reading through the last group of postings I am disheartened to know I have more fraud to look out for.

The first company to set up multiple payment processing combined with affiliate tracking/management that actually protects the affiliate from all sorts of fraud will be enormously successful.

What affiliate, especially those that are affiliates only, wouldn't give a point or two off the top to know that every sale they earned is coming to them.

Everyone here seems to agree that there is fraud committed on a daily basis by sponsors (not all sponsors). I see some try to pin-point the amount of fraud to a percentage. I think that whatever percentage it's given, it is probably much higher. Just think of the tip of the iceberg. When you calculate the percentage of fraud you can only work with what you see or feel reasonably sure is taking place. If you add in the iceberg factor, the actually amount of fraud in dollars and cents would astounded you.

It's kind of strange that affiliates just let it go by. I would think the hue and cry would be much louder. I would also think that by now, some enterprising young programmer/business-person would have built a small empire by offering to protect affiliates from internal fraudulent transactions.
Quite obviously this thread and countless others demonstrates the demand for such a product. Sponsors to first adopt a transparent, anti-fraud system would do very well also.

You know Sam Walton, the greatest retailer on earth (affiliates are retailers) must just be laughing his ass off at us.
We use some of the most sophisticated technology to make sales on the most technologically advanced network on the planet. But when it come to collecting the cash we have a blind man guarding an alms box.
A system that relies primarily on trust to make sure the money gets into the till, in this day and age is remarkably foolish.
That I actually try to make a living as an affiliate, well folks what does that make me!

Cheers peeps

[mikesinner]

There is very little shaving going on, just webmasters that use it for an excuse for why they can't make sales.

[teentime]

Originally Posted by mikesinner

There is very little shaving going on, just webmasters that use it for an excuse for why they can't make sales.

I noticed you use the words "very little"
I guess it all depends on ones interpretation of "very little"
For certain, if we can say "very little" then we can also say it's not "none".
I would like to see even the "very little" fraud be stopped.
Is bilking someone out of $14.00 ok?
How bout $140.00 ?
Or $1400.00 ?
All "very little" amounts by todays standards but fraud none the less.

[mikesinner]

Originally Posted by teentime

I noticed you use the words "very little"
I guess it all depends on ones interpretation of "very little"
For certain, if we can say "very little" then we can also say it's not "none".
I would like to see even the "very little" fraud be stopped.
Is bilking someone out of $14.00 ok?
How bout $140.00 ?
Or $1400.00 ?
All "very little" amounts by todays standards but fraud none the less.

I mean very little in that very few sponsors shave. I would say it's less than %5 of sponsors. I find that many people who complain about shaving don't realize how many quality hits you need to send to a sponsor to convert them. Good sponsors will convert after a little over 1000 hits but the average sponsor takes from 5 to 10k and some will take more and I'm talking about good blog traffic. if you running a tgp it will be way higher.

[hardcoreblogger]

Originally Posted by teentime

It's kind of strange that affiliates just let it go by. I would think the hue and cry would be much louder. I would also think that by now, some enterprising young programmer/business-person would have built a small empire by offering to protect affiliates from internal fraudulent transactions.
Quite obviously this thread and countless others demonstrates the demand for such a product. Sponsors to first adopt a transparent, anti-fraud system would do very well also.

i fail to see how anyone could implement an affiliate "protection" application. all that would be needed is that some sponsors would operate transparently, with external audits by folks like PWC who check all their figures and confirm that all figures are correct and no one has been cheated. many would promote such a sponsor and competition could then push others to follow up.

Originally Posted by mikesinner

I mean very little in that very few sponsors shave. I would say it's less than %5 of sponsors. I find that many people who complain about shaving don't realize how many quality hits you need to send to a sponsor to convert them. Good sponsors will convert after a little over 1000 hits but the average sponsor takes from 5 to 10k and some will take more and I'm talking about good blog traffic. if you running a tgp it will be way higher.

as usual you're talking out of your ass without having a clue. how do you know it's less than 5%? i don't know if it's 1% or 40% and you don't know either, so don't talk shit.

hmmmm the average sponsor takes 5 to 10k uniques for you on "good blog traffic" to make a sale? either you're doing something very very wrong, mike, or you get shaved very hard

[pam]

Originally Posted by mikesinner

I mean very little in that very few sponsors shave. I would say it's less than %5 of sponsors. I find that many people who complain about shaving don't realize how many quality hits you need to send to a sponsor to convert them. Good sponsors will convert after a little over 1000 hits but the average sponsor takes from 5 to 10k and some will take more and I'm talking about good blog traffic. if you running a tgp it will be way higher.

Can you tell me which sponsors are shaving, Mikey? I mean, you state it's less than 5% of sponsors, and there are about 4,000 sponsors out there, so please tell me the names of the 200 sponsor programs that are shaving, please.

Your stats are a bit skewed. How many TGPs have you run? You claim 1000 hits to convert a sale from blog traffic. Can you please show me the data that backs up that claim? My stats are vastly different.

I agree with hardcoreblogger, it you're doing 1:1000 or 1:5-10k you are being shaved.

Or, you really suck at promotion.

[_LB_]

Originally Posted by hardcoreblogger

in many smaller niches there are extremely few really good sites with good content that convert. the competition for the owners of these sites to attract webmasters is not very fierce. plus there will always be program owners who prefer to go for the quick buck, so there's enough motivation for shaving around. what may be true for you and your program doesn't have to be the same for every program out there.


if reverse shaving is happening, then someone gets shaved too. or do you think the program pays that sale out of pocket to the good affiliate? nah itll take it away from a smaller, unimportant webmaster. so if you have proof for reverse shaving, you have proof for shaving too.

Not really. Your argument is illogical.

Many programs admit to adding unallocated signups to webmasters accounts in an effort to keep good affiliates. Why would they do that and then invest time into shaving webmasters of their signups? Seems like a stupid idea to me ... why not just do nothing and save yourself all the work?

Shaving is just an urban myth nowadays. Sure it existed several years back when there was crap loads of money around and so few programs, but with the incredible competition amongst programs now .. you simply cant shave and stay in business ... no affiliates will stick with you.

the good ole saying...what would you say if you make 10 sales/day on average with site A from program B every day on 3000 daily uniques you send to it, the same targeted traffic from one site continuously. every day is between 5-15 sales. but each month in the first two weeks there are suddenly 4-5 consecutive days where you make 0 sales. not a single one. this happens every single month. would you consider that just a dry period?

i have no proof of shaving at all, this is just a hypothetical example

10 sales a day isn't that much, and the maths behind probability proves its quite possible to have bad days and good days with so few sales. If you were doing on average 100 sales a day and then dropped to a few then yes ... the probability and odds of that drop are far smaller and it is a symptom of a problem.

For more reading on the maths behind it : http://www.buildinganempire.com/poisson2.html

Hope that helps

[12clicks]

Originally Posted by Kamilla

T
Almost all sponsors have leaks on their tours. It has become common practize.

lets not get carried away and start lying.

[12clicks]

Originally Posted by teentime

Every time I think of how affiliates do not control their own cash registers, I imagine Sam Walton sitting in heaven and laughing at us.

this is also pretty funny.

son, you don't own the store so imagining you somehow have a right to the cash register is silly at best.

well run programs don't need to shave. The problem with this industry lies mostly with the affiliates. As long as you keep letting yourself be mezmerized by the shiny penny, you'll keep getting screwed.
There are enough programs run by people who've been around long enough to be trusted but you clowns keep on putting up links to ultrajuicymegabucks.net, getting screwed, and then running back to the boards explaining how most programs shave.
its comical to watch.
you people are clueless.

[hardcoreblogger]

Originally Posted by _LB_

10 sales a day isn't that much, and the maths behind probability proves its quite possible to have bad days and good days with so few sales. If you were doing on average 100 sales a day and then dropped to a few then yes ... the probability and odds of that drop are far smaller and it is a symptom of a problem.

mate, i am not a math genius, but pls show me the maths that say that the statistical chances of what i described happening 12 months in a row (every month 5 CONSECUTIVE days with each having 0 sales, all other days average 10 sales per day) are higher than 0.001%?

Originally Posted by 12clicks

well run programs don't need to shave. The problem with this industry lies mostly with the affiliates. As long as you keep letting yourself be mezmerized by the shiny penny, you'll keep getting screwed.
There are enough programs run by people who've been around long enough to be trusted but you clowns keep on putting up links to ultrajuicymegabucks.net, getting screwed, and then running back to the boards explaining how most programs shave.

just because ultrajuicymegabucks is running that incredible 100$ signup promo, right? i agree on that. i also agree that well run programs don't need to shave and there are plenty of them. on the other hand there are scammers in every industry and some folks will always fall for them - which doesn't excuse the bs they're doing.

[12clicks]

Originally Posted by hardcoreblogger

just because ultrajuicymegabucks is running that incredible 100$ signup promo, right? i agree on that. i also agree that well run programs don't need to shave and there are plenty of them. on the other hand there are scammers in every industry and some folks will always fall for them - which doesn't excuse the bs they're doing.

no one is is excusing them. however, it also does not excuse the asinine statements made in this thread and every other concerning shaving

[BadWolf]

Originally Posted by mikesinner

I mean very little in that very few sponsors shave. I would say it's less than %5 of sponsors. I find that many people who complain about shaving don't realize how many quality hits you need to send to a sponsor to convert them. Good sponsors will convert after a little over 1000 hits but the average sponsor takes from 5 to 10k and some will take more and I'm talking about good blog traffic. if you running a tgp it will be way higher.

Please. Blog traffic that converts at 1:1000 is crappy traffic. I have teen sponsor sites that convert at 1:750 with blogs.

Blog traffic that is converts with '5 to 10k'........I'd drop them like a hot potato.

[daedal]

There is bound to be some shaving going on, as in every type of business, even high street businesses there are some dodgy people, how wide spread it is, its virtually impossible to know. The company behind NATS could probably tell us, but they won't.