This questions goes both for Affiliates and Vendors. I have two situations for you. I would like to know if an affliate will get credit for sales in these cases, provided the cookies are not deleted and it meets all other routine tracking requirements : 1. I send a visitor to a site. He uses my link which is properly tracked. He is about to leave when suddenly a window opens which offers him a special discount link (by a virtual seller / bot whatever). The guy uses that link and buys the product. ? Would I, the affiliate, still be credited for this sale ? 2. I send a visitor to a site. He uses my link which is properly tracked. He is about to leave when suddenly a window opens which offers him a special free offer and asks this guy to subscribe to avail the offer. The guys gives his email and gets subscribed. Now, the vendor obviously keeps on sending him mails, some of which are sales links. Now let us suppose after 4 days , and 3rd email, that guy (who was originally sended by me to the the vendor's website) decide to use that link in the email (which obviously wont have my affiliate id ) and buy the prodcut. Would I, the affiliate, still be credited for this sale ? If you can reply from your personal experience as affialites and vendors (oviously vendors know the game, now only if they would like to disclose it! ) it would be great Thanks !
You WOULD get credit, so long as the vendor does not override your Aff link with one of their own in either of those cases. Be especially careful of vendors using the mailing list aproach, as you have no way of knowing if they will do this! Jim
Are you saying this from your personal experience (as an aff or vendor) ? I dont really think that the vendors put our respective affialite links in the subscribers mails (provided those subscribers have been send to us by them). In 2nd case, I dont think mailing softwares or services automatically do that (ie, separately identify all the visiotrs that have been send to the site by respective affiliates and automatically add their affilaite link in all the subscriber's emails ). I think that would be too much to expect , but honestly if it is not done, then that's not fair to affialites either ! And I can see most of the popular website applies this susbscription mailing technique, so I am not sure if we can just avoid them like that .. ??
As long as they do NOT overide your Aff link, it's fine. They do not need to put yours in for you to get credit, they just can't put their own in! For example, if Earth4Energy sent out follow ups, and the link to the sales page was www.earth4energy.com, you would still get credit. BUT, if the link in those emails was, say, http://earth4screwedyou.earth4.hop.clickbank.net - then you get screwed.
Hmm, I have read that almost all successful affialites here (especially in article marketing) use their own landing page, gets the visitors subscribed to them, and then they do the follow up mails and makes sales. I wonder why would they like to take all the trouble, if vendor is already doing it for them It means either the tracking is not done for case 2 or they obviously have no faith in vendors But then if vendor wants he can screw anyways, even direct links, isn't it ? So where do we draw a line ? I am asking this because I am trying to follow LP method, cause I have heard it works, but that would mean that I have to learn a few things and also spend some money, both of which can be avoided if I can get authentic info on above subject. Its simple - If vendors are doing everything honestly, then there is no need for affialites to do the extra LP work themselves, but the fact that I see most of affiaites doing Landing Page stuff, makes me wonder if the tracking is properly done in case 2. If a vendor can clarify this , then it would be great. He can atleast clarify if the tracking is (done in case 2). He can avoid replying the uncomfertable part if he wants
Many vendors have opt-in forms on their sales pages. It helps improve the conversions in some way. At least, that is the reason vendors give for having an opt-in form. You seem to have a little confusion here. When a person referred by you does not buy anything right away but subscribes to the opt-in list, it may go on like this: She signs up to the optin list. She gets emails with links to the sales page. (Some vendors do cheat affiliates by sending their own affiliate links) She clicks on the link & places an order. You get credited if the following conditions are satisfied: 1. The buyer still had your affiliate cookie on her computer. 2. The vendor did not send any affiliate link that she clicked. The sale is credited to the last affiliate that sent the visitor to a sales page. So if the visitor that you originally referred goes through another affiliate link before making a purchase, you will NOT get credited by CB for the sale. If the visitor goes just through the normal sales page link like www.efficientplanet.com, you do get the credit for the sale. Hope its clear now
The reason why affiliates get visitors subscribed to their lists is that it leads to better conversions and they can send more affiliate links to them in future. Bigger the list, bigger are the profits. If you have a list, you can sell many things to your subscribers in future. For example if you have a list that you originally made from your earth4energy page, you can send them related emails (of course with your affiliate links) about other DIY guides (like solar heater, magnetic shit & various other things) That is the reason affiliates take all that trouble.
Thanks both of you for explaning. @ jacky8 - If you may pls let me know if you are an affialite or a vendor. Second, are you saying think from your experience. Have you tested this yourself. If you are a vendor, then you should possibly be aware of how it works, thats why I prefer a vendor's answer here (or atleast someone who has expericned as a vendor or even tested it as an affilliate). I am saying all this because I know what all you said makes sense, but then we dont really know how things works at an operational/practical level. So, a personal experience would be better here. Thanks again for the input!
Well, what I have read here, is that people hardly buy at once. You have to pre sell them or something like that p). So its like an article --> to your landing page --> to sales pages with your aff link. Now if we leave the 2nd reason of building our own susbscriber's list, the follow up emails and all those things will already be done by the vendor (assuming vendor's site has opt-in form). So why would an affialite take the extra trouble (if not because of distrust). I think CB provides you certain details of the sales made, which also includes email ids of your customer, isn't it ? Anyways, for the time being I am only intrested in confirmation of the tracking in case 2, let some vendors be dishonest with them, but can anyone confirm that in normal circumstances, the affialite still gets the credit in case 2 ( for example, the customer which was orginally send by me, buys that product after 5 days, and in the 4th email that was send by the vendor's opt-in system - all I want is that if at software level this tracking is done automaticaly, and (almost) authetically?