May 17, 2024
Fraud Protection
Laurel Wendt

How Can You Beat the Fraudsters? Here’s the Answer.

LinkTrust offers a robust suite of fraud prevention tools designed to protect businesses from affiliate marketing fraud. These tools, available as built-in and enterprise-level features, provide security through IP and user agent blacklists, campaign filters, and affiliate fraud scores. The platform also integrates with partners like IPQualityScore, Anura, and True Audience, enhancing fraud detection capabilities with real-time traffic filtering, device fingerprinting, and proxy detection. Additionally, LinkTrust enables businesses to vet new affiliates carefully, monitor suspicious activity, and implement security settings to prevent unauthorized access. By leveraging these tools, businesses can ensure the integrity of their marketing efforts and safeguard against fraudulent activities.

How Can You Beat the Fraudsters? Here’s the Answer.

What Tools Should You Be Using in Your Fight Against Fraud?

LinkTrust offers many Fraud Prevention tools across its platform, available as built-in features as well as Enterprise level features. Our foundational fraud fighting arsenal is quite powerful and comes simply by being a LinkTrust customer; read on for a summary. After that, we explain how our integration with IPQualityScore boosts your Fraud Prevention abilities with real-time filtering of bad traffic, fraud scores, and intelligent algorithms that adapt based on the quality of traffic and behavorial patterns of the audience. We’re also adding native integrations into the platform with Anura and True Audience. Each of these strategic partners has its own approach to fraud mitigation and we help our customers find what fits their needs best.

Tools in Your Account Settings

In the settings section of your account, you’ll find options to manage various aspects of your online presence. Under “Domains/IPs,” you can regulate access and permissions for specific domains or IP addresses, ensuring security and control over your digital assets. Additionally, the “IP Blacklist & Whitelist” feature empowers you to block or allow access based on IP addresses, enhancing security by preventing unauthorized access or permitting trusted connections. Similarly, the “User Agent Blacklist & Graylist” functionality enables you to manage user agents accessing your resources, refining your control over interactions with your online platform. These settings provide valuable tools for customizing and safeguarding your online environment according to your preferences and security requirements.

Campaign Tracking Options

Within the realm of campaign tracking options, you’ll discover versatile tools to tailor and monitor your marketing endeavors effectively. One such tool is the ability to control postback methods, offering flexibility in how data is transmitted and received, ensuring seamless integration with your tracking systems. Moreover, you can enhance security measures by restricting postbacks solely to whitelisted IPs, safeguarding against unauthorized access and preserving the integrity of your tracking data. Additionally, the capability to limit external transaction modifications to whitelisted IPs and password protection further fortifies your campaign infrastructure, fortifying your control over critical processes and mitigating potential risks. These features empower you to optimize your campaign tracking efforts while upholding robust security standards, fostering confidence in your marketing endeavors.

Campaign Filters

Campaign filters offer a comprehensive suite of tools to refine and optimize your marketing strategies. With duplicate click settings, you can streamline data accuracy by eliminating redundant clicks, ensuring that each interaction is uniquely tracked. Filters can also be configured to act when no referrer is present or when an IP is identified as a duplicate, enhancing data reliability and preventing manipulation. Unauthorized country redirects enable targeted localization, redirecting traffic to relevant destinations while ensuring compliance with regional restrictions. Furthermore, transaction approval criteria, such as IP matching for clicks and conversions, detection of public proxies, and confirmation page validation, uphold the integrity of your campaign data by flagging discrepancies and unauthorized activities. Additionally, enforcing restrictions on transactions with duplicate merchant reference IDs and promo code compliance bolster accountability and prevent misuse, promoting transparency and trust in your marketing endeavors.

Affiliate Application Filter

The Affiliate Application Filter, accessible through the Account menu by selecting ‘Application Filters,’ equips you with a powerful tool to streamline the affiliate onboarding process. By enabling this feature, you gain the ability to sift through new affiliate applications efficiently, scanning for specific keywords that may indicate alignment with your program’s criteria. Should a filtered keyword be detected within an application, the system automatically denies it, saving you time and effort. However, rest assured that denied applications remain accessible for further review and potential approval if necessary. Simply navigate to Affiliates > Signups > Denied to manage and reassess these applications as needed, ensuring thoroughness and flexibility in your affiliate recruitment process.

Affiliate Fraud Score

The Affiliate Fraud Score serves as a pivotal metric accessible across various sections of your affiliate management platform, including the Pending Apps page, Denied Apps page, affiliate search results, and within individual affiliate profiles. Calculated upon the submission of an affiliate application, this score provides valuable insights into potential fraud risks associated with the applicant. It comprises three fundamental components, each represented by a numerical value, such as 13-2-8 (Duplicate-Suspended-Denied). The “Duplicate” segment indicates the count of duplicate accounts detected within your affiliate database, accompanied by details of the duplicated fields. Similarly, the “Suspended” component reveals instances where the affiliate matches a suspended account from other LinkTrust clients, denoted as ‘Network 1’, ‘Network 2’, etc., without disclosing client identities. Lastly, the “Denied” aspect highlights occurrences where the affiliate’s application aligns with those previously denied by other LinkTrust clients, providing insights into potential patterns of misconduct. These insights empower you to make informed decisions regarding affiliate partnerships, bolstering the integrity and security of your affiliate program.

Affiliate Approval Process

During the affiliate final application approval process, meticulous scrutiny is essential to identify any red flags or suspicious elements. For instance, discrepancies like an affiliate claiming to have heard about your program through a channel you don’t utilize, such as radio advertising, should raise concerns. The most effective strategy to thwart affiliate fraud is to personally connect with each applicant via phone call, allowing for thorough screening and verification. Engaging in direct communication enables you to validate the legitimacy of applicants and assess their suitability for partnership. While this approach may not eliminate all instances of fraud, it serves as a robust deterrent, significantly reducing the likelihood of fraudulent affiliates gaining entry into your system.

Affiliate Security Settings

To bolster affiliate account security, navigate to the top-right corner and hover over your name, then select ‘Affiliate Center.’ Within the center, configure settings under ‘Affiliate Security Settings’ to fortify password integrity, restrict changes to affiliate information, and limit sign-ins to specified countries. You can also opt to display a CAPTCHA on the LinkTrust hosted application page for added security. Click ‘Update’ to save changes. For user account security, access ‘Users’ after hovering over your name, where you can restrict logins to specific IP addresses and fine-tune user permissions to match their responsibilities. Monitoring user activities is facilitated through the ‘Logs’ section, providing insights into sign-in locations and data exports. Additionally, under ‘Integrators,’ explore options listed under ‘Email Compliance’ and ‘Fraud Prevention Tools’ for further reinforcement through third-party solutions. These comprehensive measures work in tandem to safeguard against user account fraud and ensure the integrity of your affiliate management system.

How do LinkTrust-IPQS Enterprise Fraud Tools help you prevent fraud?

LinkTrust’s native integration with IPQS enables you to instantly use your current LinkTrust account with the advanced anti-fraud features of IPQS. Through this integration, IPQS fraud filtering tools auto-generate a fraud score and promptly sift out bad traffic in real-time. This process employs intelligent algorithms that adapt based on the quality of each affiliate’s traffic and the behavioral patterns of the audience. Affiliates posing higher risks can be subject to stricter filtration, whereas those with predominantly clean traffic can have more lenient filtration. LinkTrust clients who use IPQS gain direct access to this feature within the LinkTrust platform. This integration streamlines the setup process, particularly helpful when managing high traffic.

Proxy/VPN Detection

Utilizing a multifaceted approach to fraud prevention, our system employs a Fraud Score mechanism to meticulously analyze data, distinguishing between invalid and risky entries. Proxy and VPN detection capabilities serve as a robust defense against high-risk traffic, scrutinizing the source and quality of each lead submission to identify potential threats.

Device Fingerprinting

Additionally, device fingerprinting technology enables tracking of users who switch devices, identifying bad actors seeking to disguise their spamming methods. This set of tools enhances accountability and security across platforms.

Leaked Data Identification

Moreover, proactive measures are taken to mitigate risks associated with leaked data, preemptively safeguarding against fraudulent activities stemming from compromised identity credentials. By integrating these advanced features, we bolster the integrity of our system and fortify defenses against evolving threats in the digital landscape.

In Conclusion

LinkTrust offers a comprehensive suite of fraud tools tailored to meet diverse business requirements, encompassing both built-in functionalities and enterprise-level solutions. Whether you’re a small-scale operation or a large enterprise, our platform caters to your specific needs, providing flexible options to combat fraudulent activities effectively. Each of our strategic partners has a unique approach to fraud mitigation, which provides a range of tools at your disposal. Let LinkTrust help you implement Fraud Prevention to align with the scale and scope of your business, ensuring heightened security and integrity within your operations.

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