Affiliate Networks Don’t Care About Cookie Stuffing
Last month I wrote an article called Making Dirty Money From Affiliates With Cookie Stuffing, which for those of who you didn’t read it, basically outlined a technique to deliver your affiliate cookie to loads of people, grabbing affiliate commissions you didn’t really earn.
As I expected, there was mixed reaction, some people taking the information onboard and others calling for me to be burnt at the stake. Whatever. I thought it would interest the nay-sayers to post an update on a cookie stuffing experience.
A good friend of mine thought he’d give cookie stuffing a try. So he started delivering cookies on an e-commerce site he had, as well as a video blog.
In short, he made over £1,000 in two weeks from using this technique. Then he got caught.
Exactly as I predicted - even a major affiliate network (commission junction), working with some major merchants (ebay), did absolutely fuck all. He got a rather polite e-mail from CJ, highlighting his cookie stuffing code and was asked if he could please remove it within the next seven days - that’s it. He gets to keep his £1,000 he made.
So for all of you who moan about blackhats, you should be directing some of the blame to the affiliate networks who let people get away with this. They are just as greedy as the blackhats after some extra coffee cash!
Some interesting points about the cookie stuffing programme he ran:
- He only got caught because he got cocky, making linkbait articles, submitting to Digg then getting thousands of cookies delivered - my hunch is a Digger saw the code (after a status bar flash of the iframe) and reported him
- The most successful cookie stuffing was on the e-commerce site, which he was making approximately £40 per 1000 visitors, which goes to show the power of the “ready to buy” mindset.
- The linkbait articles got tens of thousands of visitors but made very little per 1,000 visitors
- He only cookie stuffing 2 affiliates (but large ones)
Affiliate networks could really stamp out this behaviour if they suspended payments of cookie stuffers and banned their accounts, but they don’t. They want money just as much as everyone else.
I’ve kept details light on his cookie stuffing activities as I don’t want to identify his sites and maybe get him in more trouble (:
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At that scale they probably don’t care unless the merchant notices and gets pissed.
Believe me, somewhere in the neighborhood of $150k a month it raises some red flags.
Comment by Rockwell
December 22nd, 2007 @ 6:05 am
@ Rockwell,
I understand you, but I don’t see the difference and why someone scamming £1000 ($4000 a month) should be treated differently to someone scamming $150k.
It only takes 38 people scamming $4000 a month to take $150,000 a month away from merchants! Affiliate networks should either put out or shut up.
Comment by Mark
December 22nd, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Yep, this is maybe sad, but on the other hand, it’s just reality: money makes the world go round. Of course that the big affiliate networks are only after money. They would never ban a man who earned so much money because he could make it again. Only if this became a popular trend, then the said networks would do something about it, but probably in a hypocritical way, like the big G does.
Comment by extreme webmaster
December 22nd, 2007 @ 2:23 pm
That he got away with it with CJ is surprising since I often heard of people getting their CJ accounts shut down and all payments forfeited.
He might have been lucky this time as he was a “small fish” only. If he does it again and doesn’t stop you can bet he’ll get his account shut down. So to say CJ or any other major aff. network doesn’t care is not quite correct.
Comment by Mike
December 22nd, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
Long time reader, first time commenter. Love your blog, Mark!
Anyways, just a quick question about all this. It seems to me that when using this technique, unavoidably, your impressions will outnumber your clicks. Isn’t this alone enough to ‘raise the red flag’?
Regardless, I think you’re spot on. Why would the affiliate network care? If you’re ‘discovered,’ then sure, a slap on the wrist. And yes, Diggers are rather notorious bell ringers.
And @Mike, you said, “That he got away with it with CJ is surprising since I often heard of people getting their CJ accounts shut down and all payments forfeited.” Do you mean for the exclusive practice of cookie stuffing? Seems to me that bans are handed out for things nastier than lining the network’s digital coffers.
If anyone has actually been removed from a network for cookie stuffing, would you mind elaborating on the experience? I’m fairly certain the route would almost always be a ’slap on the wrist,’ for fairly obvious reasons, unless the person was an extreme repeat-offender.
Comment by Elijah
December 22nd, 2007 @ 11:11 pm
Personally I think this goes to show that you really can get away with an awful lot when it comes to affiliate schemes. If you really wanted to do this on a big scale, put it through a tonne of different accounts setup in your friends names and randomise the stuffing.
The affiliate networks, like every other business, are in it for the money. I imagine if you’re pal hadn’t used Digg users he probably wouldn’t have been caught so easily. We all know Digg users hate monetisation and are the kind of geeky virgins likely to snitch about this kind of shit.
Thumbs up to Mark’s mate for having the balls to try it out and get caught!
Comment by the1982smith
December 23rd, 2007 @ 1:53 pm
Hi pal, I read your articles regularly. Really interesting and helpful. I have been following many things you said earlier about the video blog and Subvert and Profit. But, I am not able to complete understand cookie stuffing. How do I create a cookie and stuff it in 1 pixel. I humbly request you to guide me on this. If you think it would not be possible to give detailed explanation here, you can mail me. I am waiting for your reciprocation.
Thank you.
Praveen Chandar.
Comment by Praveen Chandar
December 27th, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
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Comment by Victory
January 2nd, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
This is became very common now a days.
Every one doing the same job here.
Just like gambling some gains many looses
Comment by bob marley
January 8th, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Hey man, crazy blog, I love your writing style. I noticed in your other cookie stuffing post you were talking about affiliate networks, is there a particular one that you prefer for this?
Comment by Ryan
February 20th, 2008 @ 3:59 am
Seems like this is pretty common-place nowadays…
Comment by John
March 9th, 2008 @ 2:37 am
I for one was VERY careful with my cookie stuffing, got away with it for about 3 months.. then once I finally started making enough - they snipped me!! I don’t think it really matters how much you make, just if someone complains.. you’ll get banned no matter what.
Comment by Fred P.
April 8th, 2008 @ 5:48 am
Sure on a single case basis and dealing with CJ you have a problem. However there’s ways to hide cookie stuffing which without looking at the headers or the cookies after each page load makes it near impossible to find. There’s lots of money to be made with cookie stuffing if you have buyers ready to go and stuff for all major vendors for the product they’re looking for. There’s a good chance they’ll hit back and go to the vendor direct. Why shouldn’t you get paid for that? One other thing if you can put some sort of video on the page where you’re stuffing to capture attention while everything gets done you’ll improve you success.
Comment by Smaxor
May 17th, 2008 @ 3:48 pm