Quick Answer: Affiliate shaving, or scrubbing, is when advertisers sneakily remove leads or sales from your payouts. On this page, we explain why advertisers do it & how you can avoid it.
At some point throughout your affiliate marketing career, affiliate shaving or scrubbing, as it is otherwise known, will be a phrase you encounter.
But what exactly is affiliate shaving or scrubbing?
And more importantly, how can you spot it & protect yourself from it?
If those are some of the things you’ve been wondering, you can rest assured that you’ve landed in the right place as on this page, we’ll be uncovering everything you need to know about affiliate shaving & explaining how it works in simple terms.
Oh, and don’t worry – it doesn’t involve a razor. You can still be successful at affiliate marketing even with a beard (& if you ever watch any of our hangouts, you’ll see that I’m certainly proof of that).
What Is Shaving In Affiliate Marketing?
Shaving, also known as scrubbing, is when advertisers remove leads or commissions from your affiliate payouts, resulting in your earning less money.
Sometimes they’ll make you aware that they’re scrubbing leads or shaving commissions as you’ll see them removed from your reports, whilst other times, they’ll do it sneakily & hope you don’t notice.
Sadly, it’s generally the latter… But the good news is that it’s typically only unscrupulous affiliate programs or networks that scrub from affiliates.
And these days, with more reviews available about networks & programs, it’s a lot rarer than it used to be.
But it does still happen, so we can’t discredit it & it is important that you understand it & how to avoid it.
So, now to the next question that’s likely on your mind…
Why Do Advertisers Scrub Leads & Shave Commissions?
There can be many reasons why advertisers scrub from affiliates, but generally, it’s because of greed & the desire to earn more money.
Many of the unscrupulous affiliate networks will hope that you don’t notice them scrubbing leads or commissions from your account.
But then you have other networks that scrub from affiliates who make them aware they’re doing it & generally, these networks will claim that they are scrubbing the leads for lack of quality.
For example, if you’re promoting a CPA (cost-per-action) offer that pays out $100 upfront on a $5/mo web-hosting plan, you may get payouts scrubbed if a lot of your traffic is cancelling their hosting plans after 2 or 3 months.
This is because the company will only be earning ~$15 per customer, yet is paying out $100 for each sale.
Whether this is wrong or right is difficult – but if the affiliate program is reputable, they would likely just switch you to a rev-share deal rather than scrub.
This way, you will earn less (because you get a percentage from the sales), but as least you will still earn.
And if you manage to get traffic that retains longer, you could potentially find yourself earning more from a rev-share deal in the long run anyway.
Overall though, you’re typically safer from scrubbing if you’re promoting rev-share deals because it’s a win-win for both you and the company.
Scrubbing or affiliate shaving typically affects CPA (cost-per-action) offers instead of rev-share.
But anyway, next question then…
How To Spot (And Avoid) Scrubbing In Affiliate Marketing
Spotting affiliate scrubbing can be difficult & the only real way to do it is to split-test your offers between different affiliate networks.
That way, if you notice a similar offer performing a lot better on one network than the other, you can suspect that your earnings may be being scrubbed.
There is no way to “prove” it, but at least you can replace the promotion with the one that is converting higher & rule out any chances.
The easiest thing to do, however, is to simply avoid it.
To avoid affiliate shaving, all you need to do is pick a reliable & trustworthy affiliate network & do your due diligence before you sign up.
If you stick with reputable & well-known networks, it will be very unlikely that you will find yourself in a situation where your earnings get scrubbed.
This is because it’s actually very difficult for companies to find affiliates & so good companies want to look after them & protect their brand.
They know fine well that if they start shaving, they’ll eventually get caught and exposed & then they’ll struggle to get any new affiliates signing up.
The Bottom Line
As an affiliate, you definitely want to steer clear of any networks that scrub or shave your commissions.
After all, if you’re promoting products or services in return for commissions, then those commissions should be rightfully yours for your hard work.
It’s acceptable for companies to give you low ROI warnings (in the event of your earnings being lower than their CPAs), but for them to just go ahead & scrub your earnings, well, that’s certainly not cool.
But as mentioned, scrubbing is generally rare & providing you stick with legitimate affiliate networks, you shouldn’t face any scrubbing or shaving as an affiliate marketer.
So anyway, that’s affiliate shaving explained! Hopefully, this article has been insightful & if you happen to have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.
