Commission lost if they optin to the Merchant?

[LegionNate]

Hey guys, I'll try to be brief and concise. I wanted to promote a Clickbank product and noticed the merchant page promoted their email opt-in heavily, which is understandable. I signed up after going through my own hop link and then got the first email from the merchant. When I clicked on a link (after erasing cookies just to be sure) from the first email I received from the merchant it said: AFFILIATE=NONE.

I wrote an email to the merchant asking if he did not give credit to people that I sent to his page that signed up to his optin list, to which he responded:

"It's no longer necessary to do that. Clickbank does it automatically now. If you referred someone to the site, your clickbank ID is tied to their IP address and is stored in their cookies in their web browser. If they visit the site days later and purchase, the purchase is tied to your affiliate ID.

This is all done automatically by clickbank now it' just hidden so you don't necessarily see it happen.

We have tons of affiliates that this is already working for, and have told us they see sales even days after their campaigns have ended because of the tracking employed by clickbank."

*I am not calling this guy a liar... I just really have no idea. Again, this is in reference to my traffic signing up for the merchant's optin list, and purchasing through one of those emails later on.

Anyone know the real answer?

[Adeel_Chowdhry]

Well if you deleted the cookie, you wouldn't get credited.

As long as the user has a cookie on their machine, the vendor can send out general links (ie. www.domain.com) and when the user purchases you as an affiliate will get credit.

[Mukul Verma]

Legion Nate, I did the same thing and tried to manually test it and did not get it ethier. If they are using a proper tracking system then it should track it without a issue.

[rondo]

Try it again but don't delete the cookie this time.

[Michael James]

Make sure you have your cookies turned on!

[LegionNate]

Guys, I'm sorry, I goofed. I meant to say that I deleted my cookies at the VERY start of this process, so it went like this:

Delete cookies
Go to my website and click on my hoplink
Taken to merchant's page
sign up for opt-in
go to my email and read the 1st email from him
Click on a link in that email
Got to last page and: AFFILIATE=NONE


...In retrospect adding the fact that I erased my cookies was probably dumb Any new thoughts in light of that? The cookie does work of course when I just click to buy the item... just not through his email sequence.

*And also what I was really wondering, has anyone heard all that stuff he was rattling on about CB now 'using ip addresses' instead and all that, in regards to emails?

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by LegionNate

Guys, I'm sorry, I goofed. I meant to say that I deleted my cookies at the VERY start of this process, so it went like this:

Delete cookies
Go to my website and click on my hoplink
Taken to merchant's page
sign up for opt-in
go to my email and read the 1st email from him
Click on a link in that email
Got to last page and: AFFILIATE=NONE


...In retrospect adding the fact that I erased my cookies was probably dumb Any new thoughts in light of that? The cookie does work of course when I just click to buy the item... just not through his email sequence.

*And also what I was really wondering, has anyone heard all that stuff he was rattling on about CB now 'using ip addresses' instead and all that, in regards to emails?

Good thing you tested it, every single affiliate should be doing so.

Some merchant's use an affiliate link of their own within their e-mail sequences, which takes the credit away from the affiliate.

If they use the http:// merchantID.merchantID.hop.clickbank.net/ it will cause the cookie to get cancelled out, and affiliate=none as a result.

If they just link to the w ww.productdomain.com then the affiliate will still get the sale.

Some people would say "Well then, if they have an opt-in I won't promote them" which is a HUGE mistake.

My products have a 5%-8% conversion (across 3 different niches) THANKS to the opt-ins. Simply because I get to push the sale in hundreds of ways via e-mail.

So if affiliates skip on products with opt-ins altogether, they are just leaving money on the table.

Don't be lazy, test opt-in forms and make sure merchant's are not trying to take full credit for the sale.

In my experience, legit opt-in lead funnels have the best conversions. And I'm talking as an affiliate and as a merchant.

[Floyd Fisher]

Originally Posted by LegionNate

Guys, I'm sorry, I goofed. I meant to say that I deleted my cookies at the VERY start of this process, so it went like this:

Delete cookies
Go to my website and click on my hoplink
Taken to merchant's page
sign up for opt-in
go to my email and read the 1st email from him
Click on a link in that email
Got to last page and: AFFILIATE=NONE


...In retrospect adding the fact that I erased my cookies was probably dumb Any new thoughts in light of that? The cookie does work of course when I just click to buy the item... just not through his email sequence.

*And also what I was really wondering, has anyone heard all that stuff he was rattling on about CB now 'using ip addresses' instead and all that, in regards to emails?

The only thing I can figure is you've got antispyware running on your machine. Most of them delete tracking cookies like clickbank uses.

[Jason Moffatt]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Some merchant's use an affiliate link of their own within their e-mail sequences, which takes the credit away from the affiliate.

Anyone who does this is straight up retarded and robbing their own pocketbook in the long run.

[garyv]

This is obviously something different. Because if the merchant had used an affiliate link of their own, then there would be an affiliate id there, it wouldn't say=None. They either used their merchant id as the affiliate - that erases the cookie - not sure if that can be done. Or your own computer has software installed that erases clickbank cookies. eg- some kind of anti-adware software.

[garyv]

Originally Posted by Jason Moffatt

Anyone who does this is straight up retarded and robbing their own pocketbook in the long run.

I agree, affiliate money is free money. You're just shooting yourself in the foot w/ these kind of tactics.

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Jason Moffatt

Anyone who does this is straight up retarded and robbing their own pocketbook in the long run.

I agree Jason.

But in my product split tests I have discovered over 10 different merchants doing so.

Maybe they think they can fool their affiliates or something, because the offers do convert on sales page, but not if they opt-in.

Originally Posted by garyv

This is obviously something different. Because if the merchant had used an affiliate link of their own, then there would be an affiliate id there, it wouldn't say=None. They either used their merchant id as the affiliate - that erases the cookie - not sure if that can be done. Or your own computer has software installed that erases clickbank cookies. eg- some kind of anti-adware software.

I already said there's a way to delete the cookie or at least cancel it out. Use merchantid.merchantid.hop.clickbank.net - that will result in affiliate=none.

Go figure, then people go blame it on Clickbank when it's probably the merchant's own doing.

[Robyn8243]

It seems that affiliates absolutely need to test the follow up process of every merchant
before they consider whether or not to promote using the merchant sales page.

There does not seem to be any general rules, especially on Clickbank.

I think it is not realistic to look at Clickbank as anything other than association of
totally independent merchants.

A few go out of their way to protect their affiliates even giving credit for multiple products when you only promote one;

Some do totally sleezy things like after their initial approval by Clickbank, changing their payment buttons to go straight to their own paypal accounts;

There is a whole host of merchants in the middle. Follow up varies greatly among vendors.

Let the affiliate beware!

Robyn