I’ve heard this question many times. But each time — with a different ending. Let’s go through the most common ones.

“…if there’s CloudFlare?”#

Yes, a fair question, but only for less experienced affiliates. BUT!

CloudFlare and Google became official partners quite some time ago (proof). So technically — there is no guarantee that Google doesn’t have access to the REAL IPs of servers hidden behind CloudFlare. On top of that, based on feedback from media buyers across different verticals, running traffic on domains behind CloudFlare in recent years has been an almost guaranteed ban. Whether it’s because of a “dirty” backend (we don’t change the tracker server every day, right?) or the very fact of using CloudFlare — unclear. But it’s a fact.

Facebook states in its patents that it TAKES INTO ACCOUNT the server’s IP address. And it would be very naive to hope that with all their anti-fraud systems, Facebook doesn’t have access to the real IPs of servers behind CloudFlare. I don’t hold such hopes.

Yes, CloudFlare lets you ignore some abuse complaints, but a recent example showed that a slightly more serious abuse report than a complaint from a nobody gets perfectly forwarded to your hosting provider (in my case — Hetzner). And that’s a direct path to server blocking.

“…if I can set up a proxy on Nginx myself using your own guide?”#

Yes, you can, but don’t forget to renew certificates. Forget about high availability, or figure out how to synchronize certificates. And pile an API on top of all that. And yes, you can do it, but is the game worth the candle?

“…if I can…?”#

Very happy for you that you can. But not everyone can. And some people need clearly defined business processes, with a clear structure and pricing. And all homemade solutions, unfortunately, don’t always withstand production workloads. The idea for PrivateFlare was born when organizing a top affiliate team of ~150 media buyers at peak. So all the business processes built into PrivateFlare are algorithms tested under truly demanding conditions.

“…if I can just have multiple servers?”#

The most naive one for dessert. Yes, you can drag your tracker from server to server every day — may your gods help you. But the question is: when will you actually run traffic?

You can read more in post 1 and post 2 on my blog.