How to Cloak Your Referrer From the CPA Networks

The Horror:before going live.
I was driving traffic to an offer for over a month andThis is for primary ads only and you would have to
started to ramp it up. After hitting over $1,600 dollarsmodify it to be used with other CPA networks. It pulls
with an EPC (estimated cost per click) of like $1.75, Ithe subid's and other variables from the URL and
get this email from what looked like the vice presidentpasses it on. I also keep these 2 scripts on 2 different
of the CPA network congratulating me.IP address' to stop anyone reverse looking up all my
They then gave me a new affiliate manager whodomains.
insisted to talk on the phone with me "right away". FirstDo not let this freak you out. For someone new you
thing I was asked was what websites I wasprobably do not even need to do this. This is just an
advertising on? I told them I cannot tell them that.advanced technique that I now use.
Then, the very next day, I noticed my traffic wasThe Stuff:
getting less and less with this placement that wasIt works like this:
working - remember this was working for well over aYour placement URL -->>> yourserver1.com
month. So I started to bid more and more each dayindex.php -->>> yourserver2.com/index.php
but it did not help. I eventually had to find other-->> CPA network
placements for this offer to make the cost pay off.You would need to own server1 and server2 to do
Each new placement I found that started working wasthis.
eventually choked out after several days. This wouldHere are the steps.
happen again and again. Like someone was seeingStep 1) Create this php file on For example you can
what was working and going in and simply biddingcall it this.http:// yourserver1.com/link/primads1.php
more than me to push me out.The file would look like this. It grabs stuff from the URL
I was using the free tracking202 tracking softwareyou pass to it and pushes it on to $keyword =
(with cloaking on), when I was driving traffic to this$_GET['subid']; $offer = $_GET['offer']; $e =
offer.$_GET['e']; ?>
After doing some research I found that cloaking doesStep 2) Create this PHP file on This could be
not always hide your referrer - it still can slip through.calledhttp:// /link/primads2.php
Thus, even if you use cloaking software for someThis takes the stuff from the URL that was given to it
reason the CPA networks can still see your refer. I dofrom server1 and then passes it onto the CPA
not know the technical side of why this is - maybenetwork. The CPA network now only see's traffic
cloaking was developed with keywords in mind - notcoming from $keyword = $_GET['subid']; $offer =
sure.$_GET['offer']; $e = $_GET['e']; ?>
And remember, you can never hide what your doingStep 3) Put this link in your AdWords placement (for
from Google as they can always see what youreach placement), and remember to make the subID
bidding on. OK, maybe I am overly paranoid, but theunique for "each placement" so you can track it.
sequence of events was very odd.After the offer= in the URL put your affiliate link.http://
I am still fairly convinced someone was stealing fromyourserver1.com/link
me on one offer I was getting to work, although I haveprimads1.php?subid=gp-205&offer= { affiliate link }
no proof of this.NOTE: the affiliate offer does NOT have the "http"
Here are some scripts I put together to cloak mypart in it. Here is an example of how it would look.http://
referrer from the CPA networks./link
With new browsers like chrome you need to useom/t.asp?id=3453&e=34567
what is called a "double meta refresh" or DMR toStep 4) Go to your subid tracking on the affialte
totally hide the referrer from the CPA networksnetwork and you will see subid gp-205 conversions in
slipping through.this example. Now go back to AdWords and see
Please keep in mind I am not a PHP programmer inwhat that number (205) is matched to for that
any sense and I cannot support these at all so Use thisplacement.
at your own risk and remember to test everythingEnjoy!