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Affiliate Commissions
BOOSTING AFFILIATE COMMISSIONS BY 30%
by Satyajeet Hattangadi
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 "THEIRID"
to put your money in their 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 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 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 he's been
redirected through an 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 if the user views the source of the page. He know
whats that you've 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 at http://www.novasoft-inc.net/covert-affiliate
About the Author
Satyajeet Hattangadi is the Owner of Novasoft Inc (http://www.novasoft-inc.net),
a software solutions provider, who specialize in affordable
customized software solutions.
This article may be reprinted as long as the text and resource
box are kept intact, and the links remain live and spiderable. |
