Both affiliates and merchants should be aware of this contextual adware application which is already acting as an affiliate in multiple affiliate programs. Here’s a screenshot of their information from Commission Junction (taken off their today’s application into an affiliate program):

Why should you be concerned?

Well, they are not exactly a “Virtual Mall” as they try to portray themselves on CJ. Kellie Stevens has more:

This is a contextual adware application which displays a web site (the ad) based on the web site the end user is currently viewing. The trigger for the ad display can be based on a URL or keywords from the viewed web page…

Revenue Generation Behavior

We observed two primary revenue sources for the LinksAdor adware:

• Affiliate links belonging to LinksAdor. We have found multiple affiliate accounts on various web sites owned by LinksAdor.
• Displays of ads purchased by advertisers on a CPV/PPV model. These ad buys can be by other affiliates and we have documented such instances. Merchants may also engage in these ad buys directly. In other instances, the ad buys may display PPCSE listings [source and more detailed information].

Why you do not want this affiliate aboard your program? Because LinksAdor has been documented to:

(a) Open up new browser tabs with affiliate ads of competing merchants, or diverting traffic from one merchant to another, but through an in-between affiliate site of their own [see this video]

and

(b) Hijack browsers, redirecting visitors to the page of user’s choice but through a LinksAdor’s affiliate link, or interjecting themselves into the sales channel without actually adding any value: neither to the end consumer, nor to the merchant [see this video]

For more details please read the following material, and stay away from LinksAdor:

• LinksAdor Adware Fact Sheet
• LinksAdor (Kellie’s thread at ABestWeb)

Yesterday an important information has been posted by Kellie Stevens of Affiliate Fair Play in the 5StarAffiliatePrograms’ forum. Her alert is about a fairly newly created contextual adware that operates according to a model similar to Zango, Clicksor, or MediaTraffic. As an advertiser, you may buy traffic on DirectCPV.com which will be driven to you through their LoudMo adware. LoudMo also has a pay-per-install affiliate program (paying affiliates $1.25/install) to spread their downloadable software to Internet users. Once the adware is installed, it will display DirectCPV’s advertisers’ ads based on competitors’ URLs or relevant keywords, and do so right on the original website. LoudMo is different from Zango in the following:

Their adware has the ability to deliver interstitial ads. So the end user is browsing a site and suddenly they are shown a page to another site in the same browser window. …the page is loaded in frames, so the URL in the address box remains the same for the site that was previously being viewed by the end user. Even though the browser is titled LoudMo and there is a link to “skip” the ad …this can be confusing for some end users as to where the ad is really coming from. This also has implications with regards to the http referrer information.

The software also delivers inline ads. …sometimes these links look very similar to the legitimate links on the targeted web site, again potentially causing confusion for the end user. [more here]

Per Kellie Stevens, DirectCPV is now marketing their services especially aggressively. Watch out for them coming through/on the social media too (in forms of applications suitable for Facebook, etc):

Both e-tailers and affiliates should be aware of LoudMo. The majority of affiliate networks (not to be confused with so-called “CPA networks”*) prohibit adware use, and justly so.

Read more in Kellie’s thread here.

____________________
* The CEO of DirectCPV is also a VP at RevenueGateway CPA network

In continuation of my last two posts, and pondering on some of the comments at Econsultancy.com, let’s see what parties can benefit from adware pop-ups, and if anyone really gets hurt.

To begin with, let’s list who is involved in the game: (a) adware affiliate, (b) merchant,  (c) affiliate network, (d) sometimes an O(A)PM, and frequently (e) another affiliate.

A) The adware affiliate benefits from it. Period.

B) The merchant may benefit from a loyalty adware affiliate in some situations, and may be hurt by it in others. Much depends on the merchants own objectives and strategy. I am not going to comment any further on this, as much has already been illustrated in this video of mine.

C) Both the affiliate network and (D) the O(A)PM (outsourced (affiliate) program manager) can benefit financially as well.

E) What about the other affiliate?

Let’s see the following quick video:

Something is telling me that there is no way for an affiliate whose link was clicked prior to that of the adware affiliate to be a happy camper.

I have been thinking and discussing the issue of parasitic affiliates a lot over the past 40 hours (since the publication of this post, and the recording of this video), and there are 2 things that stand out to me as the main downsides of having a parasitic/adware adware affiliate aboard an affiliate program:

1. Channel cannibalization which I have illustrated vividly in my yesterday’s post.

2. Growth hindrance which I have touched upon back in February [see this post], but would like to re-emphasize today as well.

By having an open-door policy for parasitic affiliates, merchants (or often it’s their affiliate program managers – remunerated on performance basis – who are doing this, and the merchant isn’t even aware) hinder the growth of their affiliate program. We hear the talk about super affiliates all the time. Where does one find them? How does one get them on board of an affiliate program? By cleaning it up!! No serious affiliate will join an affiliate program that is actively partnering with parasites. They would much rather promote your competitor. Yes, the immediate results of partnering with an adware affiliate may look attractive, but the moment you do, your affiliate program loses its long-term growth potential.

Earlier this morning I published an article on Econsultancy.com where I talked about the problem of parasitism in affiliate marketing, and channel cannibalization, and how it should not be viewed as a problem for affiliate marketers only, but be tackled on a much wider scale.

As I was adding more affected merchants to the comments under that above-quoted article/post, I’ve noticed that some of them run affiliate programs on more than one affiliate network. This drove me to the recording of the below video where I show how a parasitic affiliate could hurt affiliates in all of the programs that you run, as well as all other channels of marketing that you may be utilizing (yes the offline ones too! you could be building a brand that drives direct type-ins of your domain name, but those get cannibalized as well). Here’s the video:

If you’re a merchant/advertiser, check your own affiliate program for this particular parasite. If you’re an affiliate/publisher, check who you’re partnering with, and notify them of the problem if We-Care.com is in their affiliate program too. From the lists of merchants [see my comments to the Econsultancy's post], it is apparent that this parasite is an active affiliate on at least the following three affiliate networks: LinkShare, Commission Junction, and Google Affiliate Network.

Today is a U.S. national holiday – the day when America commemorates the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., a passionate activist and proponent of the civil rights movement.

This morning I have spent a some time flipping through the writings of the Reverend, and two phrases especially spoke to me in light of the current state of affiliate marketing. These two were:

• “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
• “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

With the current spread of parasitism in affiliate marketing (I refer to such unethical operations as OneCause, We-Care, TrialPay, SaveNDonate, ShopForYourCause, to name but a few), and lack of both affiliate and merchant education on the subject, the above two statements put an additional emphasis on the situation. Let us not be silent, and keep on writing and speaking passionately to eliminate the deadly ignorance! It is our industry. If we don’t clean it up, no one else will.