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They are stealing from you… and you won’t even know it. Who? The so-called Respectable Marketers and even some of the “Guru’s” that lure you into becoming their affiliate. YEP, it is a fact.

Want to know how they are doing it?

One of the most common ways is giving a free download (eBook, Newsletter, etc.) via an opt-in form on the sales page. These usually are “pop-ins” that load almost immediately when someone visits YOUR link. Not all product owners do this but I see enough of these theft tactics going on that I HAD to tell you about them.  You do the work and spend Your Time and Money (advertising, blogging, article writing, etc.) to drive potential customers to THEIR site thinking that YOU will get the commission… and you will IF they order directly from that page right then. But if they don’t, and opt-in for the free thing very often the confirmation email for the free thing or the Redirect to the download that they get DOES NOT HAVE YOUR AFFILIATE LINK in it. It will, with a ClickBank product, show at the bottom of the order page “affiliate = none”, and if it is a PayPal link you will see someone else’s PayPal email.

So how do you protect yourself from this tactic? Before you do a single promotion as an affiliate of any product, get your affiliate link, go to it, if there is a free item opt-in to get it, then check and see if when someone orders from the links in the free download or the email that delivers it that YOU are still listed as the affiliate at the bottom, if it is a ClickBank product, or it is YOUR PP email if it is PayPal. I’ll bet you will find that 30% or more are not. If it isn’t your link -don’t promote or recommend that product. I would even go as far as to not promote ANY of that persons products.

There is another tactic, used by the “Guru’s”, that is even sneakier. They do a major promotion, sign up hundreds, maybe even thousands of affiliates, pay out commissions like they are supposed to for 3 or 4 months THEN modify the sales page to automatically redirect to a sales page or order link the DOES NOT HAVE AFFILIATE LINKS in it. You, as an affiliate checked everything out in the beginning and therefore have no reason to suspect anything… especially after you received some commissions from that link. One of the things that tips you off to that technique is your commissions suddenly drop.

As I said, not all product owners use these tactics but enough of them do that it behooves YOU to  keep a constant watch in respects to your affiliate promotions.

Layard