|
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.
So if
the viewer is eagle-eyed he will notice that hes been redirected
through and affiliate link.
A safer method to hide your affiliate links is using a zero-frame or
"invisible" frame that masks the affiliate link by making it appear
you are sending people to a page on your website. In reality, you
are actually sending them to your affiliate link.
This technique is also used by many domain redirection service
sites.
Unfortunately is the user views the source of the page. He know
whats that youve loaded an affiliate link.
The solution is to use javascript encryption to scramble up the page
code.
Even though there isn't a 100% perfect solution to this problem, if
you want to get paid more often through your affiliate links, make
sure it's not obvious you're referring people to an affiliate link.
If they can't see that its a
affiliate link, lower the possibility of you getting stiffed of your
commission.
If you are looking for a tool that lets you do all this plus earn
affiliate commissions even from those folk who dont click your
affiliate link then do check out
Covert Affiliate
About The Author
Satyajeet Hattangadi is the Owner of
Novasoft
Inc,
a software solutions provider, who specialize in affordable
customized software solutions.
This
article may be reprinted as long as this resource box is kept
intact
|
Syndicate our articles
 |
Back to Articles
|
