Google Mobile Targeted by Affiliate Hijackers

Jennie Scholick Jul 21, 2011

Part of the agenda of an affiliate hijacker is to always stay one step ahead of merchants by continuously exploiting new methods of hiding fraudulent ads and avoiding detection. Here at BrandVerity, our goal is to stay one step ahead of them, providing increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring and management to our clients.

A recent improvement to our product is the ability for managers to specifically target Google Mobile search when monitoring affiliates. This change is significant as we have seen affiliates increasingly target their ads on Google Mobile exclusively. Hijackers have realized that for many merchants, Google Mobile is a kind of blind-spot, allowing them to post fraudulent ads without detection. In fact, in the couple months that BrandVerity has been monitoring Google Mobile, we’ve found that when an affiliate runs an ad on Google Mobile, 80% of the time they are doing so exclusively. This number strongly suggests that hijackers know that even when closely watching Google and the Google Content Network, affiliate managers often overlook Google Mobile.

 
Current forecasts expect 20% of all searches to be conducted on mobile devices by 2012.

You don’t need to do anything to activate Google Mobile monitoring. A portion of all the searches we conduct on Google are automatically conducted on Google Mobile. However, you can also choose to target the search engine specifically, simply select “Google Mobile” from the search engine list on your policy settings page. Google Mobile may be a relatively new way for hijackers to fly under the radar of merchants and managers, but BrandVerity maintains its commitment to staying on the cutting edge of affiliate tactics and supplying our clients with the tools needed to combat this kind of poaching.

Topics: affiliate marketing, Events

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