Advertiser Tracking - Losing Leads?

Hey Warriors

I know it's taboo to discuss personal campaigns so we can protect our bank accounts, but I've encountered a potentially nasty issue and need some input.

Scenario: 400 clicks, no conversions.

It's not the ads or the offer, it's what's happening on the landing page.

I'm currently promoting an offer that only converts if the visitor gets a sample of what's being purchased. It's just the nature of this particular niche.

Now, I am direct linking because I can't think of a single way to make any kind of landing page for this offer. There are simply way too many variables involved and while my web design knowledge is good, it's not THAT good.

The direct link page doesn't offer any samples for the visitor to try out, it simply expects the user to opt-in to a subscription without any sort of proof or credibility. Ain't gonna happen.

This is what's probably happening: The visitor arrives on the opt-in and sees no samples. In an effort to learn more about the offer, backs out and goes to the homepage (NOT the affiliate landing), tries the samples, makes the purchase at the advertiser homepage. The advertiser is essentially piggybacking off publisher-paid traffic and not having to pay out. Probably not intentional, at least hopefully not.

What should I do? I'm like 99% certain that's what is going on. I wrote an email to my AM asking him to verify how the advertiser does tracking cookies, and if in fact we get paid on leads that bounce from the affiliate page to the non-affiliate home page.

Now, let's say we don't get paid on bounces because of poor tracking, how do I keep the visitor locked into my area where they can try the samples and opt-in?

The EPC on this offer is pretty damn good, so somebody is doing something right. But, the effort to figure out what is working is costing me my ass.

Thanks guys,
Ken


P.S. I have prosper202 set up on all my campaigns. It's tracking everything correctly (at least it seems so), but still struggling with the call back URL syntax and network variables for lead information like cost, offer, name etc.