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.

Which networks do I enjoy working with the most as an affiliatemarketer?

I have had the pleasure of learning affiliate marketing through trial and error over the last 12 months and that includes several affiliate networks.

Of all of them, I highly recommend two through personal experience. Both gave excellent customer service and both have good tools for using datafeeds, text links, or banners.

• ShareASale

ShareASale is general purpose, but is economical for merchants and have a great system for reporting and viewing stats. It isn't hard to get datafeeds by ftp either. You just need to insert your affiliate id when you use the feed. I do like how SAS's datafeed has more fields.

Shareasale is one of the best Affiliate marketing Networks

About Shareasale, a great Affiliate Marketing Network

One way to make money online with a home business is by being an affiliate marketer. Affiliate marketing is NOT a get-rich-quick activity. It takes a lot of work and time just like any other job, but it does have its advantages of simplicity. In this post, I want to let you know about the Affiliate Marketing Network Shareasale.

An Affiliate Marketing Network is a company that provides a common interface between affiliate marketers and merchants which offer affiliate marketing programs. They provide integrated sales tracking and payment for a fee to the merchant. The merchant saves time by outsourcing some of its tasks while the marketer gets merged payments and one site features.

What is Shareasale?

Shareasale is a great Affiliate marketing network with many affiliate marketing programs.

Reporting &Tracking

It offers real time click and sales tracking through its varied reports. I personally have checked my product and merchant links and they have updated immediately. I use two reports almost exclusively. Today's stats and activity summary.

Today's stats only shows a list of merchant's programs that have been clicked through on the same day. It resets at 11pm Central Time. This is useful for testing new links for tracking and to see which pages people are clicking through.

Activity Summary gives you a month to date and total figures by merchant so you can check overall performance. Since it lists all of the merchants that I have signed up for, it is a good place to make sure everything is running smoothly. If I don't see any clicks then I check to make sure that I've put up links and that they're working. I can also click 'get links' to find products, banners, and data feeds to use on my website(s).

Another useful report is past revenue which shows you your earnings by month.

Link Creation

Link Creation is simple with shareasale, but it is up to each affiliate manager to make those links available so the number of links available do vary.

Most merchants offer text links, banner ad links, and product links. Some merchants offer data feeds which is a type of database that can be integrated into a website using special software. Very few merchants will offer widgets.

If you like to use plain old HTML on your webpages, you can use the "Make a Page" feature. "Make a Page" makes HTML coded pages that you can upload on your website using your criteria.

Program Management

You can easily join different merchant affiliate programs through searches, categories, and advanced search. The categories aren't perfect but they are good enough to find what you need in a minute. Before you join you can check information such as the company URL, Percent of commission, Earnings, and tracking cookie duration. Many programs will automatically approve you so that you can start promoting right away. Others will requre a review by the affiliate manager.

If you ever get denied from an affiliate program that you believe will be a good match, send an e-mail to the affiliate manager and let them know how you are planning to promote them and most likely they will approve you. This is common when you have more than one website and the manager only looks at the first site which more than likely isn't related.

Payment options

Sign up is free for affiliates. When someone buys a product through a link, graphic, text or otherwise, on your website, a commission is earned and the amount is reported at the top of your Shareasale administration page as well as in the reports. Once your account reaches $50 or a higher amount that you manually set, you get paid.

Currently Shareasale offers direct deposit for United States accounts (and possible some other countries), check via FexEx for a $20-$55 fee (a good reason to see a higher minimum payment!), or check sent by US mail/postal service which is slow but doesn't incur a charge. Getting checks internationally even if only to Mexico can take weeks.

Conclusion

Except for the lack of PayPal or Mexican bank deposit, I'm happy with the Shareasale program. They seem to be more responsive than the other networks and their click tracking seems to work better meaning fewer lost sales. If I were starting over today I would have gone first to Shareasale and then to the other networks.

Go Ahead and sign up today, you won't regret it. Join shareasale.com, Earn Cash!

Affiliate Marketing Networks

Affiliate marketing via Affiliate Marketing networks

While many companies offer affiliate programs directly from their websites, It is also important to consider the time it takes for you to manage programs' advertising and promotions and that you consider the reporting and payment options.

Here are the largest Affiliate marketing networks that I have signed up for. I will later post about my experiences using them.

• ShareASale


• Linkshare


• Commission Junction


• Performics


• Clickbank

Why should you sign up with an affiliate marketing network?

Well, there are many companies which don't offer in-house affiliate marketing programs, so you'll have to sign up with their associated network to be able to promote their products. If you like to promote products from many companies, you might prefer getting one or two paychecks instead of many. If you live outside of the US like me, you'll appreciate having to worry about fewer checks. If an affiliate program allows payment via PayPal or direct deposit to a Mexican account it is even better.

Why shouldn't you join an affiliate marketing network?

With the exception of ShareASale. I haven't yet done any tests, but I have seen examples of affiliate clicks being stolen. Typically this click piracy comes via web browser plugins which 'offer' discounts or promotions to typical internet users. They call these 'loyalty' programs, but behind the scenes they change the tracking cookie from that of the person who is promoting the product to that of the web browser plugin. They make the commission even though they did absolutely nothing at all while the person who worked hard or even paid to promote a product gets nothing. Although their websites say they go against piracy, I have seen examples of piracy that steal clicks. The only way the commission can be stolen is by replacing the tracking code in the cookie with ANOTHER TRACKING CODE. Therefore all they would have to do is cancel the affiliate account(s) being used with loyaltyware/Parasiteware. Parasite software is bad even if a customer arrives directly to a website without a referral. The parasite web browser plugin inserts its own cookie and makes a commission, again without providing any benefit. The company pays a commission that it wouldn't have had to pay. It is possible for an in-house affiliate marketing program could also be affected by parasites, but it is much less likely.