How Marcode's Automatic Analysis Works

marcode automatically analyses hijacked ads every day and discount sites and browser extensions weekly to extract affiliate details, so you don't have to manually investigate each one this article explains what happens behind the scenes what is automatic analysis? automatic analysis is marcode's daily process of clicking on detected ads, following their redirect chains, or navigating their sites/browser extensions and extracting the affiliate parameters hidden within the goal identify exactly who is running the hijacked ads so you can take action against them with minimal manual input when does it run? frequency daily for all detected hijackers weekly for discount sites and browser extensions timing automatic analysis runs overnight (uk time) on ads detected in the previous 24 hours what happens during analysis? marcode's system performs the following steps automatically 1\ selects ads to analyse the system identifies hijacked ads that need analysis, prioritising ads from new hijackers (first time detections) ads from persistent hijackers (seen frequently) recent ads (last 24 48 hours) ads from discount sites in the last week all browser extensions in our database 2\ clicks the ad just like a real user, marcode clicks on the ad in the search results or triggers the browser extension on your site 3\ follows all redirects many hijackers use multiple redirects to hide their affiliate details marcode follows the entire chain for discount sites, marcode’s ai agent navigates the site and clicks on a discount until it reaches the brand site 4\ bypasses cloaking hijackers use cloaking techniques to show different content to monitoring tools marcode's system is built to bypass these techniques and see what real users see 5\ extracts affiliate parameters the system identifies and captures affiliate ids click references sub publisher ids utm parameters any other tracking parameters 6\ stores the results all findings are stored in your account and appear in the hijacking affiliates, coupon and discount affiliates or browser extensions tabs what if automatic analysis can't extract afilliate details? sometimes automatic analysis fails to extract affiliate details because no affiliate parameters present sometimes affiliate parameters aren’t used by the advertiser this can be when an ad isn't being run by an affiliate the voucher site or extension isn't actually on your affiliate programme three ads are being run for a different purpose, such as driving browser extensions or customer fraud the affiliate is warming up the account this is when they run blank ads to get the account approved before switching to adding affiliate details redirect chain is broken the landing page or redirect urls are offline, this often happens if someone has already been removed from the programme the ad is too old if the ad is very old, the analysis won’t work what happens then the system will retry the next day you can run a manual analysis on a different ad from the same hijacker if it consistently fails, the hijacker may have stopped or changed tactics when to use manual analysis when to use manual you need results immediately and an automated analysis hasn’t run you think the automatic analysis might not have detected the affiliate details want to analyse a very recent ad need to see a specific ad's redirect chain link to docid\ mnkpgevmiwiymppkuyg5v how to run manual analysis common questions "how do i know if an ad has been analysed?" in the hijacking advertisers or coupon and discount ads reports you will see analyses next to an advertiser name, if that is above 0 one has run "can i see exactly when analysis ran?" yes, click the microscope icon and view the "automated" tab to see timestamps for all analyses "what if i want to re analyse an ad?" run a manual analysis on the same ad this won't affect or replace the automatic analysis—both results are stored "does it analyse ads from all markets?" yes, automatic analysis covers all the markets you're monitoring "how long are analysis results stored?" permanently all analysis results remain in your account for reference what to do with the results once automatic analysis has extracted affiliate details check the afiliates tabs daily see new detections cross reference with your publisher list identify if they're your affiliate gather additional evidence export reports, take screenshots take action warn, ban, or escalate