If you don't know this, you might loose your commissions!
Copyright 2004 Frank Bauer

Are you aware that using certain tools to protect your
affiliate commissions might in fact cause you to loose them?

Let me explain you how than can be and what you can do to
protect yourself from commission loss...

The other day a good marketing friend of mine, let's call
her Eva, send me an email, telling me about a service that
she believed me to be interested in... and in fact, I was.

She wrote:  "If you want to take a look, the link is...
http://www.her-domain.com/mon"

When I followed her URL, I noticed on that page, that her
affiliate ID was missing on the main page, as well as on
the order form page.

Since I wanted her to get credit for this, I emailed Eva:

"Your link will not earn you commissions as your affiliate
ID doesn't show at http://www.their-domain.com/.

I recommend to use a forwarding link instead of placing
the site into a frame."

She answered me that it worked fine when she followed the
link herself.  How was that possible you ask?  Very simple.

When she originally got the affiliate link, she must have
used the link one time directly and this way saved the
cookie on her computer.

So I replied to Eva:

"I checked it again... if I visit their site through
http://www.her-domain.com/mon, your ID is not shown
anywhere.

But if I visit it through
http://www.their-domain.com/index.php?affiliateID=249040817
I can see your ID everywhere.

In general... cookie based systems often have a problem if
you place the site into a HTML frame on another domain."

This time Eva replied to me:

"Well that's got me stumped... I used Covert Affiliate to
generate that URL and I just cleared my cookies and tried
it and I do not see my affiliate codes on the main page..."

I actually noticed that problem of promoting through a
frame already quiet a while ago.  Also e.g. when I use
Mike's MyViralWebsite system or any other system that
displays your affiliate URL inside a HTML frame... it's the
same problem.

The tricky part about it... some programs work if called
through a frame (meaning:  your affiliate ID will be used)
and others don't.

My rule of thumb is:  If I don't see my affiliate ID on the
other page, I will not use a HTML frame.

But for the reason I described before, make sure that you
delete you cookies before you give it a try!

This is also the reason why I always use my own Add2it
Go-To Pro tracking links whenever I promote another program.

The Add2it Go-To Pro links look e.g. like this:

http://www.my-domain.com/go/to.pl?l=ListDotCom

To make that shorter and easier, I created and uploaded
another tiny script called see.pl.  Now I can use an even
shorter link:

http://my-domain.com/see.pl?ListDotCom

The last part, the "ListDotCom", is what changes depending
on what program I want to promote.
 
The advantage... not only do you get stats on how many
people click that link every month, it also simply forwards
to the URL you want to promote, prevents this way the
"frame" problem while still hiding the ugly long affiliate
link and this way it REALLY protects your commission.


About the Author:

Frank Bauer is the owner of Add2it.com - Scripts & Services
for your Web Business at http://www.add2it.com and the
publisher of the More4you Newsletter at:
http://www.more4you.ws
To see how he can help you, visit:
http://www.frankbauer.name