If you don't know this, you might lose your commissions!
Author: Frank Bauer

Are you aware that using certain tools to protect your affiliate
commissions might in fact cause you to lose them?

Let me explain you how than can be and what you can do to
protect yourself from commission loss...

The other day a good marketing friend of mine, let's call her
Eva, send me an email, telling me about a service that she
believed me to be interested in... and in fact, I was.

She wrote: "If you want to take a look, the link is:
 http://www.herdomain.com/mon"

When I followed her URL, I noticed on that page, that her
affiliate ID was missing on the main page, as well as on the
order form page.

Since I wanted her to get credit for this, I emailed Eva:

"Your link will not earn you commissions as your affiliate ID
 doesn't show at http://www.companiesdomain.com.

 I recommend to use a forwarding link instead of placing the
 site into a frame."

She answered me that it worked fine when she followed the link
herself. How was that possible you ask? Very simple.

When she originally got the affiliate link, she must have used
the link one time directly and this way saved the cookie on her
computer.

So I replied to Eva:

"I checked it again... if I visit their site through
 http://www.herdomain.com/mon, your ID is not shown anywhere.

 But if I visit it through
 http://www.companiesdomain.com/index.php?affiliateID=0210040924
 I can see your ID everywhere.

 In general... cookie based systems often have a problem if
 you place the site into a HTML frame on another domain."

This time Eva replied to me:

"Well that's got me stumped...
 I used Covert Affiliate to generate that URL and I just cleared
 my cookies and tried it and I do not see my affiliate codes on
 the main page..."

I actually noticed that problem of promoting through a frame
already quiet a while ago. Also e.g. when I use Mike's
MyViralWebsite system or any other system that displays your
affiliate URL inside a HTML frame... it's the same problem.

The tricky part about it... some programs work if called through
a frame (meaning: your affiliate ID will be used) and others
don't.

My rule of thumb is: If I don't see my affiliate ID on the
other page, I will not use a HTML frame.

But for the reason I described before, make sure that you
delete you cookies before you give it a try!

This is also the reason why I always use my own Add2it Go-To
Pro tracking links whenever I promote another program.

The Add2it Go-To Pro links look e.g. like this:

http://www.add2it.com/go/to.pl?l=ViralURL

To make that shorter and easier, I created and uploaded another
tiny script called see.pl. Now I can use an even shorter link:

http://add2it.com/see.pl?ViralURL

The last part, the "ViralURL", is what changes depending on
what program I want to promote.

The advantage... not only do you get stats on how many people
click that link every month, it also simply forwards to the URL
you want to promote, prevents this way the "frame" problem while
still hiding the ugly long affiliate link and this way it REALLY
protects your commission.

---

Frank Bauer is the founder of Add2it.com - Marketing
Software Scripts & Services for your Web Business at
www.Add2it.com and since 1996 the publisher of the
More4you Blogletter at: www.More4you.ws
To see how he can help you, visit: www.FrankBauer.name

Resources:

Link statistics, forwarding and split-testing script:
Add2it Go-To Pro - http://GoTo-Pro.com/pro

Reprint rights to this article are granted, as long as
it is not modified and the resources plus this
signature remain unchanged.

'Whatever the mind can conceive and believe... it can achieve.'
Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich

To your success,


Frank Bauer

Owner of More4you.ws

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