ClickBank Affiliate Woes: When Tracking Breaks Down – Affiliate Programs
ClickBank Affiliate Woes: When Tracking Breaks Down
Tim Coulter
Hardly a day goes by without a forum posting in which ClickBank is challenged about the reliability and integrity of its affiliate referral tracking mechanism - the hoplink system. It cannot be denied that ClickBanks technical infrastructures do not always inspire the greatest level of confidence. But this article sets out to demonstrate that a range of factors play a part in the integrity of affiliate tracking and any one of these can be the cause of those much-reviled commission losses.
Given the reliance of affiliate programs on cookie technology, it is important to understand the problems that may arise from this technology and what can be done to alleviate them.
The browser cookie is an essential ingredient in accurately and consistently allocating commission to the correct referring affiliate. If no referral cookie is present on a prospects computer when she makes a purchase, no affiliate will collect the commission. With ClickBanks hoplink system though not necessarily with other affiliate systems, this requirement holds true even if the prospect purchases immediately upon referral.
There are four reasons for missing cookies:
Deletion: Cookies can be deleted through a variety of computer maintenance operations. Some of these are explicit e.g. instructing the browser to clear all its temporary files and some are automatic e.g. software utilities that perform routine, scheduled computer housekeeping.
Expiration: Each affiliate program implements its own policy determining the time period referral cookies will remain valid. Once a cookie reaches its expiration date, it ceases to have any effect on the allocation of affiliate commission. ClickBanks affiliate tracking cookies are valid for 60 days.
Overflow: To comply with the recommendations of the Netscape Cookie Specification, a web browser needs to support the storage of at least 300 cookies. Beyond this level, the browser is free to delete cookies in order to reclaim disk space, on a first-in-first-out basis. In theory, this means that referral cookies may be prematurely deleted if a large influx of new cookies causes the limit to be exceeded. In practice, this issue is no cause for concern, as disk space is now abundant and most modern browsers do not implement such limits.
Rejection: If the prospects browser is configured to reject cookies, or uses filtering criteria that reject cookies from the affiliate programs domain, a referral cookie will never be created for that user.
Little can be done by affiliates to directly protect against cookie deletion or expiration. Therefore, affiliates should be aware of the issue when selecting products, giving preference to products most likely to generate a prompt purchase. Any product that requires an extensive period of reflection prior to purchase represents an increased risk of commission losses to the affiliate.
Cookie rejection is also a serious issue for affiliates. The current versions of all major browsers are installed with cookies enabled, so it takes a conscious effort on the part of the user to disable support for cookies. However, inaccurate media coverage of cookies has increased the number of web consumers who do systematically reject them.
Fortunately, following a series of recent change to the ClickBank hoplink system, a referral will now only take place if the client computer accepts the ClickBank tracking cookie. This is great comfort to ClickBank affiliates, who can no longer be deprived of their commission because of cookie rejection. Merchants, in contrast, may not be so happy that willing prospects are being turned away because of an errant configuration in their computer.
ClickBank faces a difficult balancing act in attempting to implement systems that are fair to both the merchant and the affiliate. And whilst the companys technology may not always be perfect, it is reassuring to note that not every forum scare story is founded on fact.
About The Author
Copyright © Tim Coulter. All rights reserved.
Tim Coulter is a consultant and software developer who helps netpreneurs to harness marketing technologies.
He is also the author of "ClickBank - The Definitive Guide" The Ultimate ClickBank Tutorial & Reference Manual.
http://www.clickbankrevealed.com/
Discover Which Sales Triggers Are Most Effective When Mixed With SEO! – Marketing
Discover Which Sales Triggers Are Most Effective When Mixed With SEO!
John Alexander
We all know the importance of gaining top visibility to a specific target audience on the major search engines. After all, you really need qualified traffic or those who are actually searching for goods and services that you are offering. While most of the time, we teach folks about the importance of doing good keyword research and/or behavioral research to ensure they are attracting an "ideal" target audience, there is another more natural aspect that Id like to just touch on here.
Writing for search engine robots is not enough:
Many search engine optimizers are empowered through training, with the ability to write for search engine robots and have crafted their skills to score exceptionally well for top relevancy. It surely is essential but there is another element that we need to reflect on besides just writing for search engine robots as important as that is. I am referring to the importance of compelling your visitor to respond right now once they have landed on the Web page as a result of finding you in the top results. Just what is the exact reason that your target audience will make a buying decision Why will they decide to buy or not to buy What do they need to read within your copy that will get them to act right now
There are only so many reasons why your visitors buy:
When I first started my business, I use to love to ask questions like....Can you explain why I should buy from you Invariably the client can often point out a number of important reasons why you might buy from him instead of the guy down the street. What you want to do is try asking a series of questions to help profile the clients target audience. After all, this is the most important group to try and understand....the "target audience". At our live SEO Mastery Workshop, we teach people powerful ways that they can research their target audiences behavior. But lets start by arming you with a few basic questions that should help you think about your writing style and communications.
Online or offline, most human beings have certain mindsets which can trigger buying. The challenge however, is we often behave a certain way without ever giving an ounce of thought to the REAL REASON why we buy. If we understand the real reason that that visitors respond, we can suddenly write much more effectively for the human brain as well as the search engine robots.
Lets start by listing a 5 simple reasons that will trigger buying decisions:
People will buy to save money
People will also buy to make money
People will buy something if it saves them time
People will buy a product or service if it makes life easier
People will buy something if it improves their safety
Okay, now in each of these 5 examples, ask yourself the following questions:
If people will buy to save money -
then ask yourself...
if your product or service saves them any money This is a trigger
If people buy to make money
then ask yourself...
does your product or service offer your audience any opportunities to earn
If people buy to save time
then ask yourself...
....how might this apply to what you offer
If people buyto make life easier
then ask yourself...
are you able to name some improved conveniences
If people buy to improve safety,
then ask yourself...
does your product improve security or make people feel safer
You can see how having an understanding WHY people buy, can actually change the way you present your content. These types of questions will often help you with writing much more compelling copy because you are writing with a focus that includes a reason to respond now.
But wait!...
Are these the only reasons why people buy Absolutely not! Start by creating a list of your own "triggers" or things that caused you to "make up your mind" to buy.
The more you explore your target audiences mindset, the more fascinating this can become. Of course we have not even touched on a fraction of the many "triggers" that are at work in peoples minds when they are reading Web pages.
If you want some more buying triggers to consider, Ill give you a few more
People will buy to for specific brands usually it has to do with prestige
People will buy to educate themselves
People will buy to improve their health
People will buy to settle their fears
People will buy to have some fun
People will buy to satisfy their curiosity
People will buy to streamline their processes
People will buy to prove they are right about some issue
People will buy to improve their image or appearance
People will buy to improve their quality of life
People will buy to uniquely set themselves apart from the crowd
What other reasons can you think of that will compel your target audience to buy now
Best regards,
John Alexander
About The Author
John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he
What To Look For When Choosing Affiliate Programs – Affiliate Programs
What To Look For When Choosing Affiliate Programs
Jonathan Kraft
So youve decided you want to become an Internet Marketer, huh Will you sell someone elses products or sell your own
If you choose to sell someone elses products, how will you know what to look for After all, this is a new venture for you.
Or maybe its not. Maybe you have been trying out some affiliate programs which have not brought you any money, or, worse, have not paid you for the affiliate traffic you have sent them.
If you are the new person, or the person who is floundering in Internet Marketing, this article will offer you some simple tips for choosing an affiliate program.
This article doesnt cover getting traffic to your site, which is another huge piece of the puzzle, and will be covered in a later article, but lets just start with choosing affiliate programs.
#1. You should find affiliate programs that:
a are relatively easy to set up code is either created for you or easy to create
b will pay you well. This depends on your definition of what being paid well means, but generally, for most beginners, and some novices, if you can see yourself being able to make more than $250/month, the program is at least worth looking at
c give you products which people actually use. There are lots of products in the market which will sell, but do you really want to be selling pet rocks If you do, please dont take offense. Most legitimate affiliate advice sites wont feature affiliate programs that are exclusively selling something like 8-Track players and tapes. While there are probably collectors out there who would love an 8-track player and cassettes, the fact is that the market is done with 8-tracks. The point is, there should be a genuine need for, or interest in, what you are selling/reselling.
So you find a program which meets the above criteria. Now what Do a Google search on the company. Find out what people are saying about them. You may have to dig a bit, but the combined experience of the professionals and not-so-professionals who develop and contribute to the Internet on a regular basis is, collectively, the best source of advice you will find on making money, or affiliate programs, anywhere.
If you want advice on some great affiliate programs, you can visit sites which have already reviewed the information about companies and present it to you in a straightforward way. If you are ready to find some great affiliate programs, then you will be able to find categories of affiliate programs on these sites, which will generally represent the type of products you would like to sell.
Search engines love content, and so do your site visitors. Content is one of the most important aspects of getting people to your web site, and helping them to see the value in what youre selling. You should strive to choose programs with products which are related to your web site.
In other words, if you have a site which features information about the Toyota Camry, youre going to be pretty hard pressed to be able to get your page content matched up so that you could sell, say... baby rattles.
Find affiliate programs which relate to what you already do, and then promote those products.
Finally, see if you can find someone to actually talk to ok, email would be okay who has received regular checks or payments from marketing products. We think that this is, perhaps, the most important part of any affiliate program, because the main reason you promote their products is to receive a check for your efforts.
So there you have it, some simple tips for choosing great affiliate programs! Hope this helps you to reach your income goals, and also helps you to develop a long-term plan for on and off-line financial and personal success.
About The Author
Jonathan Kraft has been an online marketer for many years. He is a massage therapist, web designer, legal services broker, has been a high school teacher, and is an all around nice guy. He works with a team of people on www.affiliateadvice.us, where you can check out some great affiliate programs that meet all the above criteria.