All affiliates are scared about one thing more than any other: proper affiliate marketing tracking. In fact, many an affiliate have probably woken up in a cold sweat at night from this issue alone.
Seriously, though, the prospect of working diligently and hard only to not be compensated for your sales is a huge issue you need to take seriously. That’s why you need to study the program of the companies you intend to promote. Yes, I know it’s painful, but read the fine print on their terms and conditions and how their affiliate program works.
If there’s even the slightest confusion, email or call them and ask to speak with the affiliate manager. If they are not responsive or blow off your questions, then move on. There are thousands of programs online to promote. The last kind you need is one that doesn’t value its affiliate force.
Understanding Tracking
So how do does affiliate marketing tracking usually work?
The vast majority of companies simply track by cookies.
A cookie is a little thing that is left on a visitor’s computer when he or she visits the merchant’s site via your affiliate link. Cookies can be set for certain durations. 30 days. 60 days. Or even much longer. If the customer does not purchase on that visit but comes back to buy within the allotted cookie time frame, you’ll get credit for the sale.
However, there’s many problems with cookies. First, they can be deleted easily. Second, since a lot of companies only have short cookie durations, they can easily expire. Also, some affiliate programs allow the last cookie to override the first.
Here’s an example: someone finds my website and visit the merchant’s site.
Now that person has a cookie on his computer. He keeps researching other sites and comes across another affiliate representing the same merchant. Now this another affiliate’s cookie has overridden mine and if the visitor decides to buy now, I lose the commissions.
On this last point, there is no right or wrong answer. Some affiliate programs think the first cookie should get the credit and not be overridden. And other programs feel the last person (cookie) should be given the credit for making the sale. I can understand a disagreement here.
It Goes Deeper Than That
Affiliate marketing tracking, however, should go much further than just cookies. I would never promote a program for long that just tracks on cookie alone. Well, I have before in the past. But I consider it to have been a mistake. Tracking should be much more sophisticated than cookies. It should be tracked by email addresses, physical addresses if they become a customer, phone calls into the company, and other methods.
Most companies, of course, do not go through these lengths to protect their affiliates. Which is why you have to be really aware of the issues. The vast majority of companies are hoping you remain ignorant of how important affiliate marketing tracking is for your long term success. They would like nothing more than the cookie to expire and they take 100% of the profits from a customer you were responsible from generating.
However, this is short term, scarcity thinking. What these companies don’t get is that if affiliates aren’t making money, they will soon leave. Affiliates are fickle.
So, in the end, the ethical companies that track well on behalf of the affiliates will win out over the long term because they will create a loyal affiliate force. They think abundance and not scarcity and treat their partners — us affiliates — well.
And that’s as it should be, wouldn’t you agree?
Dan Ho is the founder of http://www.AffiliateArticleWriter.com, a nearly turn-key training system that applies article marketing to carefully selected lifetime income programs to create significant passive income.
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