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ABOUT AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
TIPS FOR AFFILIATES
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Tips for Affiliates |
How to Boost
Your 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. |
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