Affiliate marketing is one tough
business. Everyone online today is looking to make or save money in any way
they can.
In the good old days when internet marketing was in its infancy, most of the people
who clicked on your affiliate links used to purchase without a second
thought... but, now as times are getting tougher, and visitors getting more
cynical, you'll be amazed at the number who won't!
Just one flaw in a system and you will find dozens of unscrupulous people
waiting to exploit it. Same goes for affiliate commission tracker systems.
People who know how to manipulate the system will replace your affiliate ID
with theirs and "hijack" your commissions.
Most affiliate links are some form or the other of
http://www.thesite.com/?YOURID
Where your affiliate id is passed as a parameter. A thief has to simply change
the "YOURID" part to "HISID" to put your money in his
pocket.
In other cases, there are visitors to your site who simply can't stand the
thought of you "making money off them" so they bypass you by simply
chopping off the end of your affiliate link that contains your ID.
Instead of buying from http://www.thesite.com/?YOURID -- the bypasser will
simply "chop off" the affiliate ID at the end and simply buy from the
plain URL http://www.thesite.com/ --without your affiliate ID attached!
Bam! you just got cheated out of your rightful commission.
Studies have shown that this phenomenon causes about 30% lost sales.
By following some of these simple tips you will be able to, if not all, at
least confuse most hijackers and, in many cases, often disarm them completely.
You might notice i said most and not all. This is because if the hijacker is
well versed at html and javascipt he will be able to eventually get to your
affiliate link. However, most hijackers are just opportunists who will only act
if they see an easy buck and its this segment that we can beat
The simplest way to hide your affiliate links is using a javascript redirect
page.
This is where you hide your affiliate link in a page on your site using a
simple javascript that redirects people to your affiliate link.
This way your "naked" affiliate link is not exposed in your actual
email messages and ezine ads, but, once people get redirected to the true
affiliate link.
One possible drawback of this
method is that some affiliate programs, like clickbank for example, expose the
affiliate link along with your ID in the browser address bar.