A form of affiliate fraud in which an affiliate publisher makes purchases through their own affiliate links to earn commission on their own transactions, rather than genuinely driving new customer purchases. Self-referral converts the commission program into a discount mechanism — the fraudster effectively receives a rebate equal to the commission rate on their own purchases. Self-referral patterns: direct self-referral: publisher clicks their own affiliate link and completes a purchase, earning 10-20% commission on their own order; organized self-referral rings: publisher recruits accomplices who make purchases through the publisher's links in exchange for a share of the commission; account sharing: publisher shares affiliate links with friends and family with an agreement to split the resulting commissions. Why self-referral is harmful: brands pay commission on purchases that would have occurred anyway (the publisher or their network were already planning to buy); self-referral has zero incrementality — it generates no new customers and no incremental revenue; at scale, self-referral can consume significant commission budget on non-incremental purchases. Detection: new customer rate near 0% (self-referrers buy under their own accounts); IP address correlation between purchases and publisher account logins; shipping address clustering (multiple orders to same address); purchase timing pattern (large purchases immediately before commission payment dates). Prevention: new customer restriction in commission tracking (pay only on first-time buyer conversions); explicit prohibition in publisher agreement; IP and shipping address monitoring through network fraud tools. Consequence: self-referral is a material breach of standard publisher agreements; confirmed self-referral warrants commission reversal and program termination.
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