Are Merchants Eating Your Cookies?
11 Comments July 9, 2009 / Posted in Affiliate MarketingThis morning I had one of those phone calls that leave you astonished at just how potentially dubious some merchants are when it comes to treating their affiliates. For now the merchant will remain unnamed as I’m still seeking 100% confirmation from the merchant and other affiliates that I’ve understood the practice they are adopting is exactly how I’ll describe below.
I’m blogging about it now as, regardless, there’s grounds of an interesting discussion about who gets last referrer!
The problem came to light when a splash page (a special landing page for affiliates) was changed by the merchant for the umpteenth time. I like to know my visitors can reach the site that we’re telling them about, but with the latest splash page version they can’t. They have to click “register” then follow a link in a pop up box. It all seems a bit of a faff to me and so an email was sent in questioning the brains behind such logic.
It turns out that this set up is required because if a visitor clicks your link (therefore setting a 45 day cookie) and doesn’t register – the merchant can’t track the fact you set the cookie unless the user returns to the splash page.
What that seems to mean is if your visitor clicks your links (therefore setting a 45 day cookie) and doesn’t register, but then returns to the merchant site (e.g. via a non-affiliated link like browser type in or via a free search link) then your cookie becomes irrelevant as the merchant can’t track the fact that you were the last referrer.
In fact what happens is that if your player goes via a type in or free search link they actually end up on a different splash page, and if they click register the last referrer becomes the merchant not the affiliate. This makes the 45 day cookie totally and utterly redundant unless your player returns to the affiliate splash page.
Assuming I’ve grasped the right end of the stick is this acceptable?
If I send a user to a site, burn a cookie, and at some point they return to register and my cookie still holds first place then I’d expect that to be honoured. I wouldn’t expect that the merchant would create a boundary in the form of a splash page so that the cookie is, in my view, forcibly discarded.
I really hope I’ve misunderstood the practice, but early signs are it is what’s happening and may well explain why this merchant, as a big brand, isn’t as good as you’d perhaps expect.
Anyway, I’d love to hear your views.
Perhaps someone has heard about similar practices, is it normal practice or is there validity in the method described? Should affiliate cookies be superseded by type in or free search referral? Or is there a possibility that a major brand merchant is behaving in a dubious way?
Doesn’t that make the 45 day cookie completely pointless though? If the user has to come back to the affiliate splash page, which surely they would only do if they came through your link again (if they hadn’t registered in the first place).
If that’s the case there isn’t any point in it being a 45 day cookie. Its the same as a session cookie, and at the very least they are being misleading about the length of their cookies, something that a lot of affiliates use to decide whether to promote a merchant.
Or am I missing something? Trying to work out how stuff like this works does my head in sometimes, I sympathise.
Hmmm, difficult one. One the face of it from what you have said here I would say this was unethical, especially if it was not disclosed before joining the campaign. Not knowing who the client is I’m not sure what the percentage of people would be that didn’t register straightaway and then went straight to the clients site / via another means. If you think it would be significant then I would seriously question the ethics behind this. It has made me think about whether or not this happens on other clients as there are several clients in the industry that do have splash pages. It’s not something I have come across before but can see that this could happen – not necessarily purposely by the client but perhaps misguided?
@Naomi – I agree that it basically makes the 45 day cookie a session one
@Helen – I don’t think it’s ever been disclosed that they work like this. In fact how they work is a bit of a mystery all round. From what I’m told 30-40% don’t register straightaway but I’d guess it was higher as it’s a gaming merchant (people like to at least see the main site before registering imo).
I’ve often wondered about sites which get users to register and then they have to click through from an email I suspect some merchants make this kill our cookie. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this behaviour increases as the recession bites further.
Sounds to me like another case of a Merchant not knowing how to set things up correctly, send them to http://www.affiliatemarketingblog.co.uk/local-cookies-explained.html and that explains how to work with cookies and Deep Linking aka what you’re talking about. Chances are the Network they are with knows and has not got a clue how to set it up (they should read my free info) it won’t be the first or last or could be that merchants not bothered to seek help from the Network, again won’t be the first or last time that will ever happen.
It’s easy sorted if all parties want to play fair, if they don’t they need to tell the Affiliates up front that they either don’t want to sort the situation or they can’t technically manage it etc but as long as you know the score then your free to make your own mind up.
@Clarke – I’m not sure if the network is aware or are even involved. From my understanding it’s the merchant (or their head of affiliates?) putting in these things – and they don’t seem too keen to change it.
@Clarke thinking about it, this could be a classic case of local cookies being misused, you’re right. The splash page sets the local cookie, but crucially the normal registration process will overwrite it with a local cookie saying the person came direct? Seems plausible. Otherwise I’m struggling to see where the affiliate cookie gets lost- surely its been set by the network before the user hits the splash page?
@mogga I suspect what is more common is sites sending a ‘welcome’ e-mail once users have registered, and clicking any links in that overwrites cookies.
@Naomi – that all sounds plausible (is probably what Clarke said as well lol). The affiliate cookie isn’t being overwritten as such, but their system sees that the new player has come in from Google, decides “hey that one’s ours” and flags up the player as not coming from an affiliate link… even though the affiliate’s cookie is still live.
Thought it would be worth pointing out that the IAB’s Affiliate Council have been working on, and are about to launch, guidelines encouraging merchants to disclose more information to affiliates.
This will be a document outlining to merchants the things they should be revealing to affiliates, in order to allow affiliates a better understanding of the state of the playing field before signing up to a campaign. It will cover things such as what channels affiliate sales are deduplicated against, what products are paid out on and what types of affiliates you can expect to be competing against.
Hopefully this will increase merchant understanding and maybe lead to reductions in situations like this one.
It can be difficult to track individuals around sites, and the commercial site I work for went through a phase of trying to get people to register. This makes understanding and tracking unique customers much easier.
It seems odd that they say this is “required” though, this certainly helps in the case of “cookie rejecters” and those that clear them regularly but it isn’t required to track the normal cookie enable users that make up the majority.
The company I work for has always ended out paying both parties if there is some confusion over who owns the referral. I guess not everyone is so generous
I think I know which merchant you’re talking about.
If I’m correct, they may have meant “We cannot track commissions automatically” rather than “We cannot track commissions at all”. Each week since the latest landing page was built, I’ve received a large batch of commissions with none of my usual user data appended.
Hopefully I’m right so you won’t lose money and there isn’t yet another huge problem in our industry.