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How do you avoid shaving? We’ve seen stories where people share their bad experiences with advertisers manipulating stats or cutting numbers. We always recommend our partners to:
- Run test leads
- Enable postbacks, so you can track where your leads come from
- Use your own tracking tools
- Keep all communication with the affiliate program - ideally in apps where messages can’t be deleted
❗️And most importantly - work only with trusted partners.
Have you ever faced shaving? How do you handle it?
I have come to terms with the idea that I can't be 100% sure I am not being shaved or scammed in one way or another, so I just take certain measures to minimize it or catch it early. First of all, I don't work with sketchy affiliate programs that waste my time from day one, and I keep regular contact with the programs I work with; how long it takes an AM to respond and how they do it says a lot. I also keep an eye on my stats for any weird patterns and use a stats tracker with a feature that helps spot shaving.
Thanks for sharing! Totally agree that staying in close contact with the program and having good tracking can save a lot of effort.
There's no certain way of protecting yourself from shaving. All you can do is have a good relationship with your affiliate managers and deliver as best as you can with the traffic you bring then. It's just as important to stay in touch with them and discuss what more can be done regarding those affiliations.
My piece of advice for you:
- ask for pre-payment, especially if you are dealing with a completely new brand/operator (no track record)
- rule of a limited trust, especially against those deals which looks too good at first sight
- always check complaint section across all major aff gambling forums
- always ask for agreement, duly signed
- always check T&C, especially small prints
My business partner and Co-Founder just wrote a newsletter post on the topic, and I'll link to the newsletters below; however, here is a summary of what affiliates can do to help minimize shaving.
- Changelog - product we made with StatsDrone
- Data analysis
For the Changelog, the idea is to compare changes in data, so if you have players who appeared in a report one day but later disappear, you can spot them. Same for players being moved from one campaign to another.
We actually won iGB Affiliate award for Innovator of the Year, a couple weeks ago which was based on our Changelog product, and we are quite proud of this.
On data analysis in the newsletter, John wrote how you can visualize your data to look at trends for every brand, month after month, broken down by day. If you spot a program that is consistently having winning players, then you could either send less traffic to them or ask them why this seems to happen too often.
Here are the links to the newsleters:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-click-id-level-tracking-only-way-igaming-john-wright-tin4e/
https://affiliatebi.beehiiv.com/p/why-click-id-level-tracking-is-the-only-way-for-igaming-affiliates-7aba
Give up and work at McDonalds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ksenya
How do I avoid shaving ?
I ask for prepayment.
Problem solved.
Pretty sure they have some dress code and also some rules about shaving. I nearly do not shave; normally I do shave when I cut my hear... I did not try McDonalds yet. They look good compared to affiliate business. But shaving there will be mandatory (unless you declare yourself as a woman).Quote:
Originally Posted by tufty
Always compare: declared % of NGR and effective % of NGR (do a mysterious player/depositor test).
Small difference or no difference: give the program a try.
Significant gap betwen these two values means: SCAM, that is avoid at any cost.
Yes, we’ve faced this. In our case, detailed lead logging and matching with postbacks helped. We also never work without proper tracking – especially with new partners. And yes, communication only via transparent channels where the message history can be saved.
Great tips here, thanks! Especially on using postbacks and doing mystery deposit tests. It’s all about reducing blind spots and tracking everything you can. Trust is good, but data is better.
Well we have done a lot of work in this space to detect shaving.
- Identify brands where winning players consistently appear in the last 7 days of the month
- Players being moved from campaign of higher commission to lower and in some cases even 0%
- New players that shortly disappear after being registered
- Historical players removed
https://haveyoubeenshaved.com/
it's usually obvious after some time.. clicks, ftd's retention etc. now with AI you cna pick up patterns pretty quick and optmise your brands based on what works. In the end a brand that shaves ends up with no affiates as good affs wont stick around for low $$
Make a deposit and see if it shows,,, I did this recently and well, it did not show,,
no, that doesnt solve it in almost at all. you only avoid the scenario of not being paid in the end, but you are shaved as the next guy.Quote:
Originally Posted by patdog
I’ve seen people deal with it mostly by double checking everything on their side first, like tracking, postbacks, and comparing stats across different tools before raising it.
If there’s still a gap after that, I’d say the only real option is to document everything and push the affiliate manager with clear numbers, otherwise it just turns into a back and forth with no resolution.
Care to tell us who did that?
10 Ways Affiliates Can Reduce the Risk of Shaving
Based on my experience, these simple checks can help reduce risk before sending serious traffic.
1. Work with recognised programmes (GPWA, APCW, Affiliate Guard Dog, AffPapa, etc.).
2. Search GPWA and other affiliate forums for complaints before joining.
3. Check blacklists and payment history for both the programme and operator.
4. Understand the tracking setup (cookie length, attribution model, overwrites and reporting).
5. Avoid programmes with Negative Carryover where possible.
6. Avoid Activity/Inactivity Clauses that can reduce or remove your earnings.
7. Use independent tracking tools such as StatsDrone to monitor performance and spot unusual trends.
8. Start with a small traffic test before scaling.
9. Track everything using Sub IDs, postbacks and your own analytics.
10. Keep all agreements and important conversations in writing.
Excellent tips, thanks for sharing. Shaving is a real issue, with significant amounts of money that can be recovered with appropriate, solid proof.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuckyBuddhaAffiliates