Jamdo Marketing Blog

Cookie stuffing is not cool.

Encouraging new affiliates to stuff cookies is even worse.

Unfortunately, a very good blogger who runs an exceptionally good blog has had a momentary lapse of reason and done just that.

Brandon Hopkins the of PayperClickIQ blog recently blogged about the art of stuffing cookies.

What is Cookie Stuffing?

A cookie is an electronic signature that is placed on a user’s computer when they click on an affiliate link so that the affiliate network can track them all the way through to the sale and give the affiliate the commission.

It is possible to place an affiliate cookie on a person’s computer without them clicking on the link, simply by preloading the affiliate link in an iframe.

That way, if they (by luck) happen to go to the merchant’s page at some point in the future and make a purchase, the cookie stuffer will get the commission.

What’s Wrong With That?

The problem is mainly that it is against the term of service of most (is not all) affiliate networks and programs.

It can also deprive other affiliates of their commission. If an affiliate does some preselling and generates a real click, then they deserve the commission. If you stuff a cookie after that, then you overwrite their cookie with your own, effectively taking that commission through no skill of your own.

It also provides no value to the Merchant. If you were a Merchant, would you be happy that you had to pay a commission to an affiliate, despite the fact that your customer had not been presold by that affiliate? You would be stealing from the Mecrhant. Merchant fears about cookie stuffers are very real and have hurt this industry.

Don’t forget, this is basically what a lot of Spyware companies do.

More Problems

One big problem I had with Brandon’s blog was that he implies that cookie stuffing is some big “super affiliate secret” and that all the big affiliates do it.

Rubbish!

As somebody who has done fraud work for an affiliate network, I can tell you that the big affiliates HATE cookie stuffers and the biggest affiliates were usually the ones who would alert the network to cookie stuffers so that the network would terminate their membership.

So let me be amply clear:

If you stuff cookies you will be caught and removed from most affiliate programs!

To me this is really not worth the risk. For anyone who is in this game for the long term, then it definitely isn’t worth the risk.

Further Resources:

Cookie Stuffing, iFrames and Popups
Cookie Stuffing
Affiliate Marketing Hell Week

Share This

Newsflash - the internet is borderless!

This little gem of wisdom seems to sail over the heads of many affiliate marketers and affiliate managers who insist that their affiliates be from a particular country.

To put it bluntly, that is moronic.

An affiliate in the UK is just as capable of driving Australian traffic to Australian websites as any Australian affiliate, for example.

I own sites that get predominantly Canadian traffic! Most of my sites have predominantly US traffic.

I therefore find it very frustrating to be excluded from program based on my geographical location.

I find it doubly frustrating that the folks at Azoogle don’t realise (or care) that some affiliates cannot see the landing pages of the offers they are promoting, because Azoogle will only show you the landing page via your own affiliate link. If the program is only paying out on US traffic (which is fair enough) then any affiliate in another country will be redirected to the site of another international offer.

How are you supposed to promote an affiliate program when you can’t even see the Merchant’s site? (CPA Empire fixed this problem about a month back).

Well, here’s a tip. Use a proxy IP.

Just go over to The Cloaker and type any URL (or affiliate link) into their tool and you will now be surfing via a US proxy. That means that when you go to a website, you will register as a US visitor on their stats and it also works to be able to see landing pages of US only affiliate programs in Azoogle (and any other antiquated affiliate system).

A whole new world of offers opens up!

Share This

Building an email list is one of the smartest things that any website owner can do.

A few weeks ago, I got in contact with an affiliate who owns a very large email list to ask her to promote one of the Merchant programs that I manage. Within 24 hours she had driven several thousand dollars in sales from a single product - all from a single email list.

I was impressed.

So impressed that it compelled me to take a closer look at one of the membership sites I belong to - one called “List and Traffic” which is run by a guy called Jimmy D. Brown.

As the name suggests, it is all about building an email list and subsequent website traffic and profitting from them both.

Now, I have been using the tips from this site for my own nefarious purposes for at least 6 months. To be blunt, Jimmy is a kickass copywriter and I regularly use tips from this site to generate my headlines for blogs and some of my Adwords campaigns. By using some of his headline tricks, I am generally able to significantly increase click through rates by around 50% on some of my Adwords campaigns (this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when he wrote the tips, but it works for me).

Other gems on List and Traffic are geared towards building an email list quickly and effectively with small reports, incentives, paid and free traffic - in fact he seems to have a detailed system for just about every online marketing strategy I have ever used and a bunch that I haven’t. Most of these systems come in the form of unique written reports (which is what I prefer), but he also has a lot of video tutorials which seems to be what newbies prefer. There’s also a bunch of podcasts which suits me nicely so I can listen when I am on the move.

Some of the material, you will know the general principals of from reading quality sites like Copyblogger or Pay Per Click IQ, or even Jamdo, but this guy has narrowed its focus to email lists and promotion only (that’s not to say you can’t use his tips for other stuff like I have).

I must say, I would prefer to see him update the content a little more (usually it’s two or three times per week) but there are plently of archives to read through (and act on). Standards wise, I would rank him among the best for quality of written material (his writing reminds me a little of Brian from Copyblogger). The forum is not as good as some other forums, but it does have the advantage that Jimmy posts on it so you can differentiate between the experts and the loud-mouths.

All up, if you want to kickstart your list, I would say this one is worth checking out.

Further Resources:

List and Traffic

Share This