FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

GENERAL

What role does MaxBounty.com play in online advertising?

Affiliates seek to generate advertising revenue from their websites and mailings lists but often lack in time or size to deal directly with multiple large sponsors. On the flipside, advertisers want traffic to generate sales and leads for their websites without the commitment of dealing with hundreds of individual affiliates. MaxBounty.com acts as a single point of contact for advertisers and affiliates, acting as a trusted source for both sides. affiliates benefit from having access to hundreds of advertising campaigns and receiving a single aggregated "always on time" commission payment from MaxBounty. Advertisers benefit by having their CPA campaigns made available to thousands of affiliates without having to recruit or maintain a single one.

What is CPA Marketing?

CPA stands for Cost Per Action. Unlike other marketing models where an advertiser pays for every surfer seeing their ad (CPM) or clicking on their ad (CPC), an advertiser under the CPA model pays only when a specific action is taken on their website. The advertiser defines this action in advance and only pays when that action is taken. The advertiser action can be as simple as filling out a form on their website or as complex as a multi-page sign-up ending with a purchase through credit card. Generally speaking, the more involved the action, the higher an affiliate would expect to be paid for generating it.

AFFILIATE APPLICATIONS

How do I become an affiliate?

First step is to sign up here and validate the confirmation email we send. An affiliate manager will review your website for appropriate content. The second step is phone contact with an affiliate manager so we can understand how you intend to advertise our sponsors.

Is phone verification required to become an affiliate?

Yes. If we cannot reach you by phone to have a simple discussion about your methods of advertising, you will not be approved into the network.

What's the fastest way to be approved?

You can get approved to MaxBounty on the same day you sign up with three easy steps. Sign up here. Confirm the email we send you. Call the affiliate manager listed on the confirmation page during normal business hours instead of waiting for them to contact you.

Does MaxBounty accept international affiliates?

We accept affiliates from all countries.

Will I be approved if I don't have a website?

Maybe. How will you advertise our sponsors? Call the affiliate manager assigned to your application and have that discussion.

When are affiliates paid?

Affiliates are initially paid on a monthly net 15 basis. For example, affiliates generating revenue in January will receive their payments on February 15th. Once an affiliate has received their first payment from us, they are automatically placed on a weekly payment schedule if they are receiving their payments electronically. We require a minimum balance of $100 before we issue a payment. If you don't reach this level, your earnings will roll over to the subsequent pay period until you reach the minimum $100.

What about weekly payments?

Affiliates who have earned at least one payment from us and who are paid electronically are automatically moved to weekly payments.

How are affiliates paid?

We pay affiliates by Check, Intercash, eCheck, ACH, and Wire. The options available are dependent on an affiliate's home country. Our system tracks all earnings in US Dollars, however most international affiliates paid by check have the benefit of receiving their payment in their national currency and drafted from a local bank. For example, Canadian affiliates have their earning converted to Canadian dollars and paid via check drafted from a Canadian bank. It is the same with Australians in Aussie dollars, Brits in Pounds and a host of other counties and currencies. We do this so international affiliates don't suffer the fees and delays often implemented by their banks when depositing American checks. The list of countries we support is too large to include here so please contact your affiliate manager if you have any questions about how you'll be paid.

What is incentive traffic and is it allowed?

Incentive traffic is when an affiliate offers a surfer a reward of some kind (virtual or real) to sign up to an advertiser through their affiliate link. A potential affiliate must understand that while MaxBounty does allow some forms of incentive traffic, affiliates using incentive traffic will be limited to advertising only the few ad campaigns which accept it. Most campaigns do not accept incentive traffic. We're very selective on the kinds of incentive traffic we accept and very strict on incentive affiliate adherence to only advertising the campaigns which allow it. Generally speaking, potential affiliates who purchase or license common GPT (Get Paid To) incentive scripts, will not be accepted into the network due the higher level of problematic leads they seem to generate.

Does MaxBounty accept content unlock traffic?

Yes, we generally accept this kind of traffic but only on campaigns which accept incentive traffic. You are required to own or have rights to distribute the content which is being unlocked. It should be not be pornographic in nature and is subject to the same terms and conditions an affiliate's website is subject to.

ACTIVE AFFILIATES

What's EPC?

EPC stands for Earnings Per Click and is displayed on all network campaigns. It's a computed average income affiliates are earnings on a given campaign calculated on a per-click basis. This number isn't a guarantee of how much an affiliate will earn by advertising a campaign but is simply a tool for affiliates to gauge their potential interest in advertising a campaign and measuring their conversion compared to the average across the network.

Does MaxBounty have an affiliate referral program?

Yes. Affiliates can refer other affiliates and receive a 5% bounty on their earnings for the first 12 months of their activity with the network. The potential referred affiliate must be new to MaxBounty and not be another advertising network.

What can I do if I lost my password?

Visit this page to reclaim a lost password.

I want to run a campaign which says 'incentive', but I don't have an incentive website. Can I still advertise it?

A campaign indicating it accepts incentives will also accept non-incentive traffic, so you would be fine to advertise it. We're simply trying to display which campaigns are OK for incentive affiliates to advertise. If there are two version of a campaign, a non-incentive affiliate would be best to advertise the version which doesn't specify incentive traffic allowed. Generally speaking, campaigns which accept incentive traffic pay less. Contact your affiliate manager if you are unsure.

Are leads/sales tracked in real time or delayed?

In most cases, leads and sales are tracked in real time, but there can be up to a 5 minute delay for our server to refresh affiliate statistics. There are some advertising campaigns where a sale/lead is only declared days after the surfer signed up. In such circumstances, this will be disclosed in the ad campaign description.

Can I sign up to campaigns myself or get my friends to sign up?

No, it's against the terms and conditions which govern an affiliate account for an affiliate to generate his own leads or get his friends to sign up for him.

Why is it I'm not seeing any leads/sale generated on a campaign when I know leads/sales must have been generated?

There are a number of reasons why this could happen. These include, but are not limited to surfers visiting a campaign page through another affiliate link, surfers entering invalid data, surfers not fully completing the signup, surfer data not matching campaign demographic requirements, and surfers having cookies disabled on their computer. Generally speaking, most cases of untracked test or friend-generated leads are explained by an affiliate simply unfamiliar with all the details an advertiser requires to validate a lead as real.

Can I use Google/Facebook/Youtube/etc as a traffic source?

Affiliates can purchase approved ad placements from third party traffic sources. Each campaign on MaxBounty has specific rules as to whether a given traffic source is allowed or not. For example, it's not uncommon for some advertisers to request they not receive social network traffic, to which affiliates must comply. Affiliates are responsible for the nature and quality of the advertising they bring into the network from third parties. Affiliates must ensure they are following the terms of service and advertising guidelines of the websites from where they are acquiring traffic.

Why do my paid clicks stats from Adwords/MSN/Facebook/etc not match the number of clicks showing in MaxBounty?

Click tracking between two sources never match 100%. Some of the clicks an affiliate purchases from a third party might get IP filtered because they are from a country the campaign doesn't accept. Even if you're buying specific country-targeted traffic to send to a campaign accepting traffic from that same country, rarely does the logic behind two IP filters match 100%. It could also be that the surfer abandons the browser before a click is tracked on both sides. A small discrepancy in click stats is expected and normal.

What's the difference between scrubbing and shaving?

Scrubbing is when an advertiser doesn't pay for invalid or duplicate leads. For example, while an affiliate might have generated 100 raw sign ups to a campaign, 10 were already in the advertiser's database and 10 more contained bad data. So out of those 100 sign ups, 80 were valid leads and 20 were scrubbed. Shaving is when an advertiser doesn't pay for leads which would otherwise be valid but is attempting to increase their profit on a campaign. MaxBounty does not accept advertiser lead shaving.

Does MaxBounty shave or scrub leads?

No, we do not. MaxBounty is completely dependent on an advertiser identifying when a lead/sale is valid.

AFFILIATE TERMINATION AND PROBLEMS

I'm not using my affiliate account. Can I sell or transfer it?

No, you may not. It is grounds for account termination or worse. The only people interested in acquiring dormant affiliate accounts do so with the intent of defrauding advertisers. If an affiliate sells their account, they're likely assisting someone in committing a crime and are subject to potential litigation. MaxBounty fully supports advertisers and law enforcement agencies in their attempts to prosecute for fraud. If you don't want your affiliate account anymore, simply tell your affiliate manager and we'll close it for you.

Can I do a joint venture (JV) where I allow someone else access to my account for a share of the profits they generate?

No, this is directly against MaxBounty's affiliate terms and conditions. Just like selling your affiliate account, the bulk of those interested in joint ventures do so with intent of defrauding advertisers. An affiliate is solely responsible for the leads generated on a campaign. Should the second party in the joint venture generate fraudulent leads/sales, it's the affiliate who risks account termination and litigation, not the second party.

My affiliate account was terminated but I want to plead my case. What should I do?

In most cases, by the time you've received the termination email, it's too late. Our compliance department monitors traffic/leads constantly and action is swift when a problem is found. Affiliates are generally told when a minor problem is found and given the opportunity to make corrections. Major problems usually result in immediate account termination. If you want to plead your case, send a reply to the compliance email you received. Your best bet is to admit wrongdoing, accept the reversal of your leads/sales and ask permission to try again. In the rare circumstance that an affiliate is wrongly terminated from the network, they should reply to the compliance email and politely describe the problem and why they feel they are innocent.

My account was terminated but only a portion of my leads were fraudulently generated. Will I get paid?

Partial fraud doesn't equate to partial payment. No payment will be issued to a terminated account.

ADVERTISER

Who will run my ad, where will the traffic come from?

That's a little difficult to predict as MaxBounty has 20,000 affiliates in the network and they selectively choose the ads they want to run themselves. A successful ad campaign might see traffic from hundreds of affiliates across multiple traffic types such as banner placements, email marketing, search engines, social media and others. An advertiser can however specify in advance whether they want to exclude certain types of traffic, like search engine or social network traffic.

Do I get contact with the affiliates running my ads?

There is no direct contact between affiliates and advertisers. All contact goes through the network. Affiliates come to MaxBounty specifically for the benefit of having a single contact point for multiple sponsorship opportunities.

How does tracking work?

MaxBounty uses cookies and pixels to track actions. We provide the advertiser with a tracking pixel to place on the page where they declare an action as valid and should be paid for. This pixel, combined with the cookie generated when the surfer clicks the campaign link, generates a lead in our system. MaxBounty also uses server-to-server tracking, for instances when pixel tracking is not feasible. We provide the advertiser with a URL to call on our server when they declare an action is valid. This server call credits the correct affiliate and correct campaign for the action generated.

How much volume can you do on my campaign?

We don't predict traffic volumes on potential campaigns. There are simply too many unknown factors to give a proper estimate. Much depends on the conversion of the campaign, the target countries and demographics, the decided upon CPA rate versus competitive campaigns and the final mix of affiliates who decide to pick up any given campaign. Some campaigns can see hundreds of thousands of leads while others struggle to get hundreds per month.

What can we do to ensure we get quality leads?

MaxBounty puts potential affiliates through a quality assurance and fraud check before we allow them into the network. This helps reduce the occurrence of fraud and bad leads. Advertisers must also work at monitoring data and reporting problems. We pass all advertisers the IDs of the affiliates generating traffic for their campaign. Advertisers should use this ID with their internal quality checks to analyze the profitability of the traffic they are receiving on an individual affiliate level.

How do I find out if MaxBounty will take me on as an advertiser?

Send us some details about the campaign you'd like to bring to MaxBounty through the contact us page. Please include as much information as possible about your campaign including sample landing pages, CPA rates, target countries and budgetary caps. We receive many requests so please do not omit this information.