Ad hijacking: Understanding the threat and learning from Adidas by Bluepear

Ad hijacking occurs when dishonest affiliates create ads almost identical to a brand’s official ads. 

They copy headlines, text, and display URLs so potential customers assume these ads are legitimate. 

In reality, these affiliates, often involved in affiliate hijacking and other affiliate program scams, send clicks through their own tracking links to earn commissions they haven’t really earned.

When this happens inside an affiliate program, it’s called affiliate ad hijacking. 

Many hijackers use an affiliate link cloaker to hide the final redirect, preventing brands or ad platforms from seeing the trick. If someone clicks on one of these fake ads, they land on the brand’s site with a hidden affiliate tag, causing the brand to pay a commission for a visitor who would have likely arrived directly or through a proper paid search ad.

How affiliate hijacking hurts your brand

If ad hijacking and other affiliate scams aren’t stopped, they can damage your business and reputation:

• Affiliate hijacking makes brands pay extra commissions on sales they would’ve made anyway. 
• By running ads on a brand’s keywords, hijackers compete with, or even outrank, the official ads, leading to higher cost-per-click (CPC).
• Affiliate ad hijacking also distorts performance data by boosting affiliate sales numbers and cutting into your direct or organic traffic. 

Over time, you might make bad decisions, like raising affiliate commissions, based on inflated sales reports. If the hijacker uses an affiliate link cloaker, it becomes even harder to figure out where these sales are coming from.

Spotting ad hijacking

Recognizing ad hijacking can be tricky since the fake ads often look exactly like yours. 

However, these signs might help:

• Imitation ads: Be cautious of ads that copy your official wording, style, or domain but don’t show up in your ad account. Sometimes the displayed URL is identical except for a small punctuation change or extra keyword.
• Sudden sales spikes: If a single affiliate sees a big jump in sales without any new promotion or change in commission, it could be affiliate ad hijacking.
• Redirect clues: An affiliate link cloaker may hide the path users take, but you might spot unusual tracking codes in your analytics or strange referral tags appearing at odd times or in certain locations.

Why manual checks often fail

Many brands do a quick check, typing their name into a search engine, to spot suspicious ads. But dishonest affiliates can be sneaky: they might only run these ads late at night or in small cities far from your headquarters.

They may also use cloaking, which sends brand monitors or bots to the real site, hiding any wrongdoing. This means you need continuous monitoring in multiple places, plus advanced detection methods, simple, random checks won’t catch everything.

The Adidas example: Over 100 incidents in 40 days

A clear example is Adidas. Over 40 days, Bluepear uncovered repeated ad hijacking and online ad fraud targeting Adidas’s branded search results. 

More than 100 cases of affiliate hijacking were found, with some ads appearing above the official ones. Bluepear also saw at least 245 variations of these ads, all designed to stay hidden.

This shows why brands can struggle to catch affiliate ad hijacking on their own. Scammers often place ads in overlooked regions or at off-peak times.

A quick check at the main office might not show any problems, while they’re actively abusing your brand name elsewhere. Some fraudsters see this deception as standard practice, creating new ad variations until they’re exposed.

How Bluepear helps

Bluepear takes several steps to fight ad hijacking:

• 24/7 global monitoring: It tracks different locations and time zones, so if an affiliate starts bidding on your keyword at 3 AM in a small city, Bluepear will see it.
• Detailed evidence: Every instance of affiliate hijacking gets recorded with clear proof.
• Affiliate identification: You can see exactly which affiliate is responsible.
• Ads and landing pages: The system stores both the ad and the final landing page, making it easy to show proof if there’s a dispute.
• Screenshots: You get actual images of the search engine results page, showing where the fake ad appeared.
• Easy violation reporting: Send a summary of the offense (with timestamps and URLs) straight to the affiliate through Bluepear.

In Adidas’s case, Bluepear identified over 100 infringing ads in just 40 days, proof that some affiliates consider trickery a “hijack industry standard.” Because Bluepear constantly checks search engines around the world, it sets a higher bar for compliance.

Some scammers even use multiple affiliate link cloakers or rotate domains to hide. Bluepear’s continuous scanning and data comparisons make it tough for them to stay hidden. 

It also simplifies your process – no more struggling with spreadsheets or piecing together incomplete ad reports.

Conclusion

Ad hijacking seriously threatens brands that value their online reputation and affiliate partnerships. 

Bluepear’s continuous global checks, advanced cloaking and click-fraud detection, and in-depth reporting features allowed Adidas to uncover more than 100 affiliate hijacking incidents in 40 days, highlighting how common these schemes can be.

By monitoring your branded keywords and using strong tools like Bluepear, you can protect valuable traffic, keep trust in your affiliate program, and guard against needless spending on fraudulent commissions.

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