Methods of shaving

Intentional fraud is not always the reason for traffic shaving. There are two types of shaving: fraudulent and unintentional.

You can read more about “SCAM” in affiliate marketing in this article by AffCommunity.

Fictitious shaving

This type of shaving is fraudulent. In this case, the affiliate program deliberately deceives webmasters.

The following situations are considered fraudulent shaving:

• the received lead is not registered. In this case, the person who placed the purchase order is not included in the webmaster’s statistics. In this situation, the advertiser gets a new customer, and the affiliate program gets money for attracting them. The arbitrageur is left with nothing;
• the conversion is canceled without reason. The arbitrageur receives a notification that the target action was not performed by the customer, so the conversion is rejected;
• An accusation of violating the offer rules is made. Some leads may be rejected by the affiliate program due to allegations of fraudulent traffic. Sometimes the program rejects all leads;
• The arbitrageur is accused of violating the offer requirements. For example, a webmaster may be informed that the promotion terms specified certain geolocations, but the leads are coming from completely different locations;
• the account has been banned. If there are no real reasons for blocking, the webmaster receives a message from the affiliate network stating that their account has been banned. After that, they can no longer withdraw the money accumulated in their account;
• The terms of the offer have changed. CPA networks have the right to unilaterally change the terms of the offer agreement. Some unscrupulous companies do this retroactively. For example, fraudsters may change the size of payments, which the webmaster will only find out after the funds have been credited to their account.

Unintentional reasons for a decrease in conversion

Indicators do not always decrease due to fraud. Sometimes there are completely different reasons for their decline. For example, this may be caused by various errors in the advertiser’s software.

There are other reasons that can lead to fluctuations in statistics:

1. Outdated tracking code. Some browser extensions block tracking code calls. As a result, the client is not included in the statistics even after performing the target action.
2. CPA network malfunctions. Such situations are quite rare. However, they should not be ignored.
3. Antivirus software. Because such programs remove the affiliate ID from the link, conversions are not credited to publishers even when the customer performs the target action.
4. Delayed statistics, creating a false impression of shaving.
5. Violation of the terms of the offer or affiliate network by novice arbitrage webmasters, leading to the cancellation of leads.
6. Change in the offer landing page. Updating the landing page can cause the layout of the landing page to deteriorate, causing customers to abandon their purchases.
7. Discrepancies between the offer contained in the creativity and the information posted on the landing page. Such situations often occur with novice webmasters who are trying their best to lure as many users as possible to the landing page. To achieve this, they begin to embellish real offers with fictitious benefits. After clicking on the ad and reading the actual terms and conditions of purchase, customers do not make a purchase and leave the site. The affiliate program is not to blame for this, but the webmaster.

Before saying that the affiliate network is using Shave, be sure to check the statistics and make sure of this. Perhaps the reason lies elsewhere.