John Chow’s Affiliate Marketing Trick - Ethical Or Unethical?
Who does not know John Chow? He is a famous blogger, personally I am not a big fan of him but I found a very interesting post, worth sharing with you.
Affiliate Marketing Trick - Cookie Stuffing a.k.a Invisible Cookies
I actually know about this trick in 2006 but just kept quiet about it. Now I really do not mind sharing, in fact I do not care if you rip off this idea.
- Covert Affiliate Links
- Affiliate Cloner
- Go Try This
These are the few tools that can help you do that but just by reading John’s blog post, you do not have to buy them. (I just saved you some money - even though I could have “shoved my affiliate links” here.)
Quietly stuffing affiliate tracking cookies in your visitors’ computer sounds a little unethical, does it? Well….. it depends on the way you do it.
This method does not work too well on webmaster-type audience or those who are real savy with using the internet because they clear their cookies everyday. (That’s the reason why I do not stuff cookies on this blog - the readers are real smart here.)
It you do stuff cookies, just stuff a few, maybe less than 5. Also stuff only the relevant cookies - do not stuff cookies for dating affiliate programs when you site is about cooking!
Tell The Truth!
Here’s an example: I know of someone who gives people the choice of 2 links to click on. After writing a review or some content, he will say, “click on link1 which I will get credited for a sale, click on link2 if you do not think I deserve the sale.”
Guess What?
He has already stuffed his affiliate cookie, so whichever link the visitor clicks on, he will still get the sale! Now that’s a lie which nobody really knows! He says that’s his way of knowing how much his visitors trust him. (Lame excuse!)
Invisible Affiliate Cookies - How I Do It Ethically
Once in awhile, you will find some great products with really terrible sales copy or they might have a really unprofessional & ugly looking website.
Here’s what you do, rewrite the sale copy, stuff your affiliate cookie then send them direct to the order page.
If you promote clickbank products, here’s how the order link looks like - http://1.publisherID.pay.clickbank.net (Note: Number can vary.)
An example of what I did when I promoted Amazon Hunter Pro, on my review page, I sent them direct to the order link rather than the sales page.
I just showed you both the ethical & unethical way of stuffing cookies, what do you think? 
Quick Update:
Just a quick update, forget about iFrames, you can use image tags, just use this code & add your affiliate link into it.
<img src=”http://www.affiliatelink.com/affiliateid” width=0 height=0>
This code is better than iFrames because there will not even be a small visible dot, neither will it load the audio of the page. Special thanks to Mark from Digerati Marketing & one of his readers, Mike, for this idea.
May You Prosper & Be In Health,
P.S. Here's how you can have money-making blogs, quickly & easily.....
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