{"id":948,"date":"2010-01-13T09:01:56","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T01:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/?p=948"},"modified":"2010-01-13T09:01:56","modified_gmt":"2010-01-13T01:01:56","slug":"trust-affiliate-network-with-campaign-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/internet-marketing\/trust-affiliate-network-with-campaign-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Trust Your Service Provider and Affiliate Network With Your Campaign Data?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My recent post “The Truth Behind Amish Shah’s Magic Bullet System<\/a>” has had some affiliates riled up about the security of your campaign data being stored on someone else’s system. I think it’s a lot more than that though, it boils down to this: Do you trust the people you’re working with.<\/p>\n

If you don’t trust your service provider, affiliate manager, affiliate network, then fine, don’t work with them.<\/p>\n

At the same time, anyone with mediocre skill in using any of the search engines, or who’s subscribed to keywordspy, spyfu, keycompete, or have adware installed on one of their computers can see what you’re promoting.<\/p>\n

Granted, they may not have your analytics and conversion data, but anyone with 1-2 years marketing\/affiliate experience will have some ways to figure it out.<\/p>\n

When I was a regular visitor to internet marketing\/affiliate marketing forums, there was always the fear that showing your campaign data to a network, affiliate manager or service provider would give them the means to steal your campaign.<\/p>\n

Having been in the role of consulting for networks, service providers and affiliates, as well as being an affiliate manager\/backend ops for a couple of merchants, I’ve had access to campaign data. I’ve also critiqued an affiliate’s campaign, given them advice on constructing a sales conversion funnel as well as advised them on building email lists, which would have been used to promote competing offers too.<\/p>\n

Although I could’ve gone to replicate their campaigns, there isn’t any point to. First, stealing\/cloning\/copying is a short term strategy. If you haven’t planned out the system, then stealing one or two steps out of the system is pretty stupid and short term in thinking. Given the choice, I’d rather work on long-term business relationships, rather than a couple of short-term ones (even if they’re very profitable…for a short period of time).<\/p>\n

Secondly, if you don’t already have a full plate from other projects you’re working on, then you’re probably in trouble already. And stealing is a short term solution at best.<\/p>\n

Third, if you’re found out, you’re done.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

While stealing\/cloning\/copying does take place not just from your network, affiliate manager or even your traffic provider, analytics provider, heck, even your web designer might make a knock off on your campaign, there’re a couple of ways to protect yourself:<\/p>\n