Affiliate Marketers, Are Your Merchant Partners Stealing Your Income?

 © 2007 Leslie Truex

In the Jan/Feb edition of Revenue, a magazine for affiliate marketers, there is a troubling article by affiliate guru Rosalind Gardner about merchants hijacking their affiliates' traffic and stealing the commissions. The article focuses on how Zango and merchants that work with it are clipping affiliates' income with pop-ups that have Zango's tracking code instead of the referring affiliate's. Zango appears to work with large businesses that already receive lots of traffic; however, that doesn’t mean smaller merchants can't hijack their affiliates' income. There are three other ways you could be losing commission to an unscrupulous merchant.

1. Failure to pay - I have had two merchants in nine years of affiliate marketing not pay for income I earned. I suspect that these companies didn't have the money they needed to pay me or maybe they were outright stealing. In the end it doesn't matter. We entered into a deal in which I'd get paid for sending them referrals, but they failed to hold up their part of the agreement. Incidentally, one of these companies was a consumer protection site. Imagine being ripped off by a consumer protection agency!

2. Failure to track affiliate ID's through the website - When your referrals click on your link, you have an affiliate ID that indicates you are the person who sent the referral. Most venders use tracking codes and cookies to help keep track of affiliate referral ID's. However, some sites lose the tracking code if the referral clicks on other links within the site. One company I was researching for a possible affiliate relationship had a network of sites. The sites were niche sites focused on specific target groups, but the product was the same throughout the network. The affiliate site was a generic page that had the niche sites listed. If a referral clicked on one of the niche sites, the tracking code was lost. So if a referral bought through the niche site, the affiliate wouldn't get paid, even though the referral was buying the same product he would have bought on the main page an affiliate sent him to. Needless to say, I didn't partner with this company.

3. Providing alternate payment options that don't track affiliate ID's. - My most recent adventure in affiliate rip-offs involved this type of situation. I joined an affiliate program that I expected to do well because other similar programs I belonged to have had good results. But sales were far and few between. I was thinking it had to do with a poorly designed site that didn’t convert sales very well. But when I was tipped off by another affiliate that the order button didn't track referrals, I took a closer look. What I found was that the affiliate was offering an alternative payment method that didn't track affiliate codes. Further this alternate payment method was the  predominate payment choice. The order button was a big "buy now" button and underneath it there was an option to click a text link that said "or buy here from Clickbank". Now I'm not sales genius, but I'm pretty certain people are more likely to choose the button over the text, particularly since the text link makes it appear they would have to buy the product somewhere else.

What can you do to protect yourself?

First, research sites carefully before signing up. Ideally, pick a company that runs its program through a reputable network like Commission Junction or Linkshare which require that monies that will be paid to affiliates to be escrowed into an account, so you can be sure you'll get paid.

Second, test your links. When you sign up, click your link and see where it goes. Also read through the page. Does the "buy now" button track your ID? If you visit other pages on the site and then click the "buy now" button, does it still track your ID?

Third, track your programs. Check your exit logs and see where people are going when they leave your site. Or use a click tracking code to monitor the number of times the link is clicked. View your sales and determine if the number of sales seems reasonable for the number of clicks. If things don't look right, visit the site to determine why. Is it a poorly written sales page that doesn't convert well or is your tracking code being lost somehow?

What can be done when merchants cheat?

My approach is always to be professional and diplomatic. I make them aware of the situation and how harmful it is to the affiliate/merchant relationship. Hopefully I get an apology and the problem gets fixed. Unfortunately my experience is that nothing happens. The merchants I talked about in the beginning who owe me money have never paid. The merchant who is clipping its affiliates of income with an alternative buy button hasn't change the link and hasn't responded to my last email.

My only recourse at this time (unless I want to file claim or hire collector) is to pull the programs from my sites. Some may see this action as petty on my part. If the programs are good, why not just keep them? I could do this. After all, I do have sites I refer to that don't have affiliate programs. However, I'm in business and so is the merchant. Why work with a merchant who doesn't honor its agreements when there are many other equally as good merchants who will?

More importantly, when a merchant clips its affiliates, its basically stealing, which puts into the question the character of the people who run the program. If a merchant will steal from me, it may also steal from the people I refer to it. So it's important to let merchants know that this behavior is not acceptable. And the best way I know how to make an impression is to stop sending it traffic and sales. If enough affiliates join in, merchants will have to make changes, or close up shop.