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Allan Gardyne
Don't Put Your Trust In Cookies
One thing that annoys many webmasters is the thought that they
may attract a life-long customer for a company but be paid
commission on only ONE sale. After visiting Amazon.com or
eToys.com the first time, the customer will simply remember the
name and go directly there.
Todd Sumrall of Emerald Coast Credit Card &Check Service -
http://www.ez-creditcard.com - says he has complained to
eToys: "You guys need to use cookies to solve this problem."
Michaela of eToys, which pays businesses a 25% commission and
personal sites 12.5%, replied:
"Our affiliates do receive credit for repeat visits if these
repeat visits were originated from their site. Affiliates should
therefore encourage their visitors to visit their site
repeatedly and use their links to go to eToys. Please visit our
Helpful Hints page located at
http://etoys.com/html/affiliate6.shtml and learn how to improve
performance of your links. We do not plan to credit our
affiliates for visits originated from bookmarks or typing in the
URL."
Todd suggests readers will start demanding that Etoys pay
commissions on repeat sales with the use of cookies, "no matter
how the customer shows up".
Will there be a trend in 1999 towards more companies paying for
repeat visits? I sought an answer from Jaffer Ali, who keeps his
finger on the pulse.
In August last year Jaffer announced proudly that PulseTV.com
was tracking sales from dual sources - the referring URL as well
as a cookie. "As long as the cookie remains 'active' the
affiliate will receive 20% on subsequent visits by consumers
even on additional sales generated from our e-mails."
However, I checked the PulseTV.com site this week, and it
doesn't mention this dual tracking. Why not?
"The reason that there is no mention on the site is because the
system, as presently constituted, is not THE solution, Jaffer
said. "Cookies do not work well. People delete them and if they
have them turned off, the system cannot track them. Cookies
often expire.
"We have asked our provider to do a database match. This is The
ONLY way to do it properly," Jaffer said. "They are considering
it. I do not think the industry will go to this as a standard
because most companies do not have the margin to do this. As
long as discounting is the way that most sales are made to the
consumer, this eats into product margin.
"I see affiliate programs' initial 'bounty' increasing industry
wide, but residual income will not be a trend for videos, audio,
or books. Other product categories with larger margins may adopt
residual revenue programs."
John Ferber of TeknoSurf AdWave agrees that cookies alone
aren't very reliable in tracking affiliate sales, but says that
when they are combined with IP address tracking and time/date
stamping will create about 90 percent reliability in tracking.
It looks as though 1999 will be a fascinating year as more and
more businesses launch associate programs and compete strongly
for the attention of webmasters. The generous ones will catch my
attention - and yours, too, no doubt.
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