Affiliate Marketers (and Merchants) Beware of Parasites!

Recently it has come to my attention that affiliate marketers not only have to compete with each other, but also with affiliate networks that directly compete with them though loyalty affiliates, software affiliates, incentive affiliates, and toolbar affiliates. In almost all such cases, they should be called parasites!



They are parasites because they get paid commissions for doing absolutely nothing. The idea behind affiliate marketing is that a marketer promotes a product or service and gets paid a commission for their time and effort involved. Merchants get more name recognition and sales leads sent to their websites.

Parasites don't do any of that. They don't promote the merchant at all, but they get paid a commission on every sale made when the visitor making a purchase has the parasite's web browser toolbar installed. The toolbar overwrites the affiliate tracking cookie (for referral use) and gets credited for the sale.



What about that hard working affiliate who actually sent the visitor to the merchant site? He gets nothing at all even though he might have spent plenty of time working on adding the content that got the visitor interested in making a purchase.

Ok, perhaps you're a merchant and you don't care if the affiliate gets credited or not. You lose money too! If an affiliate tracking cookie isn't set when the visitor arrives, but they have a parasite's toolbar installed, the parasite sets a tracking cookie with their affiliate id and get a commission.  No, they didn't earn it at all. There wasn't any benefit for your company at all, but you lost money.

It hurts the affiliate marketer as well as the merchant. The unbelievable thing is that several affiliate marketing networks allow and even encourage parasites!  Some parasites have even gotten awards and are called "super affiliates" for their high "sales".

Merchants might be wondering why this is a big deal if the big affiliate networks allow it. It is a big deal because most affiliate marketers work very hard and very long days. Every commission counts.  Affiliates will put less time and effort in promoting a merchant on a pro-parasite affiliate network than on a merchant on an anti-parasite, pro-affiliate affiliate network.

If you are a merchant you need to actively go through your list of affiliates and remove parasites. They are often the "super affiliates" at the top of your list that you are losing thousands of dollars a month on.

If you are an affiliate marketer, give preference to affiliate programs on the shareasale.com affiliate network. They remove parasites as they find them because they care about affiliates and merchants.

Merchants looking to start new programs should start them on either of these great networks. It will save some hassle. Yes, a merchant will still need to look for parasites since they try to sneak in, but it will be much less work and the affiliate program will be much more successful over the long term.