Affiliate marketing is one tough business. Everyone online today is looking to make or save money in any way they can. In
good old days when internet marketing was in its infancy, most of people who clicked on your affiliate links used to purchase without a second thought... but, now as times are getting tougher, and visitors getting more cynical, you'll be amazed at number who won't!
Just one flaw in a system and you will find dozens of unscrupulous people waiting to exploit it. Same goes for affiliate commission tracker systems. People who know how to manipulate system will replace your affiliate ID with theirs and "hijack" your commissions.
Most affiliate links are some form or other of http://www.thesite.com/?YOURID
Where your affiliate id is passed as a parameter. A thief has to simply change "YOURID" part to "HISID" to put your money in his pocket.
In other cases, there are visitors to your site who simply can't stand thought of you "making money off them" so they bypass you by simply chopping off end of your affiliate link that contains your ID.
Instead of buying from http://www.thesite.com/?YOURID , bypasser will simply "chop off" affiliate ID at end and simply buy from plain URL http://www.thesite.com/ --without your affiliate ID attached!
Bam! you just got cheated out of your rightful commission.
Studies have shown that this phenomenon causes about 30% lost sales.
By following some of these simple tips you will be able to, if not all, at least confuse most hijackers and, in many cases, often disarm them completely.
You might notice i said most and not all. This is because if hijacker is well versed at html and javascipt he will be able to eventually get to your affiliate link. However, most hijackers are just opportunists who will only act if they see an easy buck and its this segment that we can beat
