Identifying compliance issues and looking into different types of fraud
When running an affiliate program it is important to ensure compliance is met by all affiliates on the program. Below are some examples of types of compliance issues that can occur:
- Affiliate breaches the specific advertiser’s program terms, including their coupon or paid search policy;
- Affiliate or the company they represent is involved in Criminal Activity, such as obtaining commission using stolen credit cards (fraud)
- Affiliate conducts or facilitates the use of SPAM, Malware, Virus, Unapproved Toolbars or Cookie Stuffing;
- Affiliate is deemed under policy definition to be knowingly False Advertising
Below are some indicators of possible fraudulent transactions on your account:
- Abnormally high sale value
- Multiple orders with the same sale value generated within a small timeframe
- Multiple orders coming from the same IP address within a small timeframe
It’s important to look for these red flags when reviewing your transactions for validations. Another way to spot these indicators is by going through your Affiliates’ report and looking for any affiliates’ performance that is abnormally high (set a filter to compare to the previous month). However, just because a transaction is high, doesn't automatically mean it is fraud so make sure to check the Order ID against the details in your backend to verify whether this sale needs to be voided in the Commission Factory dashboard. It is important to regularly do validations as once a transaction has passed its validation period, it gets locked and it won't be possible to revert its status.
If you are unsure about an affiliate’s activity, you can contact them via the message centre or direct email if they have made that available. You can also reach out to your Account Contact at Commission Factory for further clarification on an affiliate in question.