subject: A Simple Way How To Stop Affiliate Link Hijacking [print this page] In this article I will discuss a simple way how to stop affiliate link hijacking.
Have you ever thought that you should be getting more sales from your advertising and promotional efforts? Putting long hours in with things like posting online ads, safe lists, traffic exchanges, tweeting, etc... But when you check your sales stats at ClickBank you still only have a few sales or worse yet, none. Maybe your affiliate links are getting hijacked?
Recently I was peeking through the statistics from one of my affiliate marketing Campaigns and noticed that I was suddenly converting at under 5%. Taking into consideration I was using a system that had been tested again and again to convert above 40% - I was really puzzled. Of course I double checked all of the stats and assumed it would pick up in a few days. But a week passed and my sales stayed at under 5% conversion.
I just couldn't figure out why it was converting so poorly. I decided to ask one of my online associates who was a well established internet seller and he just laughed at me and said, "you're not using something to cloak your links, are you?"
Unfortunately I hadn't been, in fact I had no concept how to cloak my links or why I ought to. After asking him a little more on the subject I figured out why you must constantly cloak your affiliate links - individuals and programs will substitute your affiliate link to their own and pilfer your commissions! There is a type of spyware that does precisely that, each time a user visits a ClickBank product (as well as other affiliate programs), it replaces the referrer ID with the spyware creator's.
That means I was pretty much handing over all of my commissions to this thief. The most terrible part of it all was that I had lost a few days of sales already, I wish I had known about cloaking links sooner. There are a bunch of ways to cloak links, but some break the cookies while others mess up the redirect. (Cookies are files that websites store on your computer so they know who is visiting. Many affiliate programs use them them to track sales referrals.)
If you are not sure of your affiliate sales being legitimate and correct, it may be that someone is stealing your commissions. This is especially true if you've recently noticed a falling off in sales, or if your campaigns are performing well under your expectations. It isn't particularly tough to find a guidebook about link cloaking, but most don't take affiliate marketing into consideration and might mess up the cookies so you STILL don't get commissions.
Other than link cloaking there isn't a perfect way to stop others from hijacking your affiliate links. Luckily you can apply a cloak on your links in minutes, you just need to find a high-quality cloak. The problem without a doubt isn't a lack of existing programs - it's a lack of programs that in fact reality work and get you the sale.
You can split test your campaign a thousand times and set up brilliant sales funnels, but it won't make a difference if you not using a respectable link cloaking program or service.
