Originally posted by Squirt
At the end of the day traffic is gold and every subscription we give a site has value. For someone to arbitrarily divert your traffic, or not count your subscriptions, is fraud isn't it?

Is there a list somewhere of programs known to shave? If it's a common practice, and accepted, then do these people state in their TOS that they shave or divert traffic?
Yes, it is fraud ... and no, nobody is going to say 'we pay $30 per signup / shaved 20%'. Shaving was started initially to do what Lee said - smokes & mirrors - we pay $X more than that other sponsor so send us your traffic.

Shaving can otherwise be called 'making a profit margin for the sponsor' ... we created this mess where sponsors had to pay more and more per signup to get the traffic, as time went on surfers stopped paying for subscriptions and sponsors started throwing bigger parties and giving away prizes on top of paying for traffic etc. All of a sudden those 50% profit margins became 5% and 'shaving' became an almost standard part of business.

However, just because a program has a good payout doesn't mean they are shaving you ... just look at their business model and see if you can figure out how they are paying the amount they pay.

Take into account things like cross sells (not for long!), retention, cost of content for that niche, subscription cost, do you get credit for exits, does the company do a high volume of sales etc ...

If it doesn't make sense ... ask your sponsor. Most will explain their model to you - especially if they have nothing to hide ;-)