Chargeback
A chargeback is a forced payment reversal initiated by the cardholder or their bank disputing a charge. For a buyer, a chargeback usually means the conversion tied to that payment gets voided, and the commission already paid on it can be clawed back.
What causes chargebacks
The most common reasons are a user not recognizing the charge on their statement, being unhappy with the product, or feeling misled by an aggressive creative. A high chargeback rate signals problem traffic to both the payment processor and the ad platform, risking not just lost payout but an account or domain ban.
How chargebacks affect PWA arbitrage
Since a chargeback can land days or weeks after the original conversion, it matters to separate raw leads from confirmed ones — optimizing a campaign on data that later unwinds is pointless. APEX's postback and S2S setup passes verified conversions to the ad platform rather than any raw action inside the PWA, cutting the risk of an algorithm learning from payments that get reversed later.
FAQ
- Who eats the loss on a chargeback, the buyer or the network?
- Most often the network claws the already-paid commission back from the buyer's balance or deducts it from the next payout. Chargeback terms are always worth confirming before running an offer.
- How can you reduce a chargeback rate?
- The main lever is avoiding misleading claims in the creative and prelander so users know exactly what they're paying for. Sticking to vetted offers and networks with transparent billing policies helps too.
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