Gray-hat offers — are offers that don't violate the law but are prohibited or restricted by advertising platform rules. They can't be promoted openly: the ads won't pass moderation, and the account may get banned. That's why affiliate marketers use methods to bypass moderation when running traffic to these offers.
In terms of «colors», gray-hat offers fall between white-hat offers, which can be advertised freely, and black-hat offers, which violate the law or deceive people.
Which offers are considered gray-hat
Gray-hat offers include, for example:
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nutra — dietary supplements and products for health, beauty and weight loss. Advertising platforms restrict much of this vertical because of its connection to medicine;
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gambling and betting — online casinos and sports betting;
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financial offers: trading, investments and loans;
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cryptocurrency offers;
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dating, especially adult dating (18+);
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sweepstakes — prize giveaways.
Whether an offer is considered gray-hat depends on the platform and GEO. Gambling advertising, for example, is permitted only for locally licensed casinos in some countries, while in others it's completely prohibited. That's why the same offer may pass moderation on one platform but not on another.
How traffic is driven to gray-hat offers
To keep ads running longer and avoid bans, affiliate marketers use:
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cloaking — moderators see a harmless White Page, while users are directed to the actual landing page;
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account farming and warm-up to increase the platform's trust in the accounts;
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proxies and antidetect browsers to prevent accounts from being linked together.
Accounts in gray-hat verticals are frequently banned, so expenses for consumables are included in the budget in advance.
Pros and cons
Pros:
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high payouts: profits can be several times higher than with white-hat offers;
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wide selection: gray-hat verticals have many advertisers and offers.
Cons:
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accounts are frequently banned;
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ongoing expenses for consumables, proxies and cloaking;
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platforms regularly tighten moderation, forcing affiliate marketers to rebuild working campaign setups.
Important: «gray-hat» doesn't mean «anything goes». The offer itself is legal, but promising results in advertising that the product cannot deliver is already deceiving users. Such traffic generation is closer to black-hat traffic arbitrage and can lead not only to bans by affiliate networks but also to legal problems.
