I just stumbled upon I Hate First Cookie Affiliate Programs by Gobala Krishnan.
The post reveals his disdain for AWeber’s affiliate program because the first affiliate to grab the cookie earns the commission.
In other words, if someone decides to sign up with AWeber because of a review you’ve written, and that person clicked on another affiliate link prior to clicking yours, the other affiliate would get the commission because they were the first to refer the customer to the site.
SiteSell’s affiliate program does the exact opposite. The last affiliate to refer the person over to the site gets the commission. They believe it’s more important to award the affiliate who “closes the deal.”
However, if you want to prevent your cookie from being overwritten, you can promote some of their “no-overwrite” products like the free book, Make Your Content PREsell and others.
It’s important to understand how different affiliate programs handle cookies, but at the end of the day, some of it’s out of your control.
For example, what about the people who delete browser cookies regularly, or those who have disabled cookies? You can’t control what people do on their own computers.
The thought of losing a sale because of another affiliate or deleted cookie can be frustrating and discouraging. But to be honest, I’ve never really worried much about how cookies are awarded or how long before they expire, get deleted, etc.
And for the record, I’m not just saying this because I earn a good income with affiliate marketing. I felt this way when earnings were low.
I think everything sort of balances out in the end. Yes, you may lose commissions because someone “tossed your cookies.” (Sorry, couldn’t resist using that phrase again. 😉 ) But how many times have you been on the receiving end where you’ve overwritten someone else’s?
Of course I have no data on how much I’ve actually gained/lost because of deleted or overwritten cookies, and maybe I’d change my opinions if I knew the real numbers. So I digress. 😉
Do you worry about not getting credit because of deleted browser cookies? Do you take a company’s “cookie policy” into consideration before joining an affiliate program?
Which affiliate model do you like best? SiteSell’s (last cookie) or AWeber’s (first cookie)?
Cookie policy is def something to look into.
Some other site just don’t toss cookies “LMAO”, they hi jack them. I know of software on a user’s computer that literally pings Amazon , and other big sites every 24 hour to cache their cookies. I know of site owner who use invisible 1px iframes to affiliate links to cache them also.
I use redirected links, that track clicks to affiliate offers. You can also get your Affiliate manager insert a thank you pixel so you can track even further.
When ever possible i get a white label solution where everything looks as if it’s coming from me on my domain example =”product.mysite.com”, that way i don’t have to worry about cookies. Even if it’s just a store.mysite.com that list affiliate products, i try to brand it.
The issue of cookies is getting even bigger. we live in a multi computer world where the average office worker could use as many as 3 different device in a single day to consume web content “Iphone, Work Computer, Home Computer”, and your cookies don’t travel between devices.
Make people come back to your site and cookies wont be such a deal anymore 🙂
Thanks a lot for your information on cookies.
I have one question on affiliate cookies. Say if a Cookie is set for 30 days. Visitor-1(Say Husband) visits my website through an affiliate program and he did not make a purchase, but the cookie is placed on the computer. After 10 days visitor-2(Say Wife) visits my website though Google Adwords using the same computer and makes a purchase. Since the cookie is present on the computer, will the sale be awarded to affiliate program or not???
Thanks,
Rahul
I guess if it really mattered to most people, then a lot of affiliates would never use places like Amazon. They have a 24 hour cookie. Despite this, a lot of people are still affiliates for them.
I guess a good way to work around the cookie issue is to make sure that you are signed up with several different affiliate programs. Have a good variety and lots of eggs out there. This helps me not to worry so much about the cookie issue.
I don’t really give a damn how the affiliates count their cookies, or whether all my references were “respected” or anything like that. Why? Because in the end of the day it’s totally irrelevant for my ROI.
What matters is Cost (time of writing post with link, impact of including link to my reputation, etc) vs. how much money I get.
Chasing pennies won’t make you rich (even if there’s a lot of them.)
I agree on SiteSells because it is important to who closes the deal. For another example, what if the site your visitor visited before your site and it was full of affiliate links linked to some “guy” in China or Japan trying to make as much money as possible. On the other hand, you’ve took the time and written a great review on the product you use and love and that “guy” steals the credit for your review.
Just look at it that way. People steal sales, but it’s money at the end of the day. We all live on it.
a great discussion and an important point to consider when deciding which programs to promote. personally feel first cookies are a “fair-er” way to treat affiliates. every exposure subsequently is simply reinforcement, and if it wasn’t for the first one would likely not drive the point home…
Hi Lisa, I spend almost an hour everyday on your blog because I learn alot from your posts. This article is great and although my blog doesn’t get much traffic, I hope that one day it would and only then would I be able to join an affiliate program. Thanks :]
I’m partial to affiliate programs that use more than just cookie tracking, but there are not that many 🙁
I’ve never really thought too much about it.
I guess the best man/woman wins 🙂
i think the first person should get the commission if the visitor has never visited the website before. then its more likely that affiliate referred the user initially. but there is no way to tell. its interesting how the argument can work both ways
but i do have to agree the current way evens out in the long run, but Certain affiliate programs like email marketing it makes sense for the first person to get the referral and not the last.
Lisa, do we have any idea how long the cookie is saved? For instance I wanted to buy a premium theme (by the way, not Thesis) that I read about in a post on my friend’s blog, but it wasn’t until a month later that I actually purchased the theme after an even more convincing post on another friend’s blog. I’m not sure who got the credit, but it would be nice if they both got a piece of the action.
Hey Ileane
It depends on the affiliate program. For example, some have it set so it lasts 120 days and then it expires. I would check with the company to see how they operate.
I don’t generally make a decision based off of a company’s cookie policy. If I like a particular product or service and I believe it’s quality, then I’ll promote it, anyway. But I definitely like SiteSell’s policy of rewarding the affiliate who closed the deal – but no, it’s not a deal breaker. 🙂
Good information to know! I didn’t really understand the cookies and all that stuff too well until you explained it here. Thanks Lisa!
i’m not sure why people get up in arms about this. what are the odds the same person goes thru affiliate links to the same site from 2 different sites with thousands of sites out in the same genre? waste of energy.
It happens more often than you think. I’ve referred several of my friends to Site Build It! only to find out later someone else earned the commission. This is because they were clicking around on other SBI! sites just to see other ideas and sample sites and they clicked their affiliate link to go back to SBI! which gave the last affiliate the commission instead of me.
Most people aren’t clear on how the cookie system works so they had no idea they had to go back to my site last to make sure I’d earn the commission. So in some cases this may be rare but depending on the situation, it can happen more often than most people think.
I still believe it all evens out in the end.
No, I don’t take the cookie policy into consideration. The reasons are: you have no control over their policies, you probably still want to be an affiliate for them and making money online is really about “numbers.”
Like the old saying, “Never put all your eggs in one basket.”
I definitely like SBI way.
In the article you were commenting on, there are like 10 aweber links. Enough for everyone to click and save that blog’s cookie.
I guess they would not mind the system then 😉
Is this what they call reverse marketing?
I have never thought about affiliate cookies too much. I can’t control how the cookies are managed, either from a visitor or affiliate perspective. I also have no idea how much I gained or lost, but as you said, it probably balances out in the end.
I’m still building traffic, not worrying about ads yet. But I’m remembering all this and will get back to it regularly. Thanks, Lisa.
Hmm I’m not sure which method I think is most fair, I’m leaning towards the last affiliate since he might as well be the one who “closed the deal”, as you say. But on the other hand, the first affiliate who got the person interested in the first place, might also feel that he should have a piece of the pie.
It’s tricky – I don’t really have a clear answer to your question right now, but I’ll follow the comments here and maybe I’ll make up my mind 🙂