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roo
Jan '10

I have been using the e-junkie service for affiliate links to a book we have been selling. Very happy with how it all works and have set up another website selling 'intangibles'. I noticed whilst testing the second by making a dummy purchase with value set to 0 that a sale was attributed to an affiliate of the book as I must have had one of their cookies on my pc.



So, if a visitor to my 2nd site visits without using an affiliate link, does the cookie present from the previous visit to my 1st site mean that an affiliate will get commission, even tho they did not send the customer to my 2nd site?



Seems a little odd to me that they can get credited with commission from an independent visitor, having done nothing to send the customer there. Though also, beneficial as the sites are cross-linked, it means that the cookie set from visiting one site will also work on the other, so it shouldn't matter which site they visit first or if they use the website links to go to the other site.



I can possibly see 2 ways around this - the first would be to set up 2 e-junkie accounts which would clearly separate the products. The second might be a little unethical, if not immoral - use your own affiliate account to place an affiliate link to crossover between the 2 sites. Meaning that your cookie would override that of the affiliate who sent the traffic, pretty immoral really, and I doubt I'd join someone running an affiliate scheme like that, so won;t be choosing this option.



So, the big question for e-junkie - is this an intentional part of the system, as would have not expected same cookie to work on a different website, especially when setting up a totally different product with different % commission. And is there an 'opt-out' for this cookie behaviour?



The question for the 'community' is, How would you do it, and why?

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E-junkie_GuruWebmaster & Support Guru
Jan '10

Buyers who click any Hop Link for your E-junkie account's affiliate program will be redirected to your landing page URL while our system sets a cookie in the buyer's browser that expires in 6 months. Any affiliate-eligible products the buyer purchases from you during the lifetime of that cookie, regardless of which site or page they purchase from, will earn the referring affiliate a commission according to your specified share percentage. We set the cookie for your E-junkie account ID, referencing the affiliate's ID, without any reference to a site/domain/URL, so it doesn't matter which site the buyer purchases from. This is intentional by design and cannot be altered.



The only ways around this would be to have a separate E-junkie accounts for affiliate programs that you want to be unrelated, or you could disable all your Hop Links and only issue Direct Links for specific products, which the affiliate would post to their site for buyers to order directly from the affiliate's page, without being directed to your site first -- in that case, the buyer is still buying from you and paying you directly, but they'd be using a purchase button on the affiliate's site instead of yours.

roo
Jan '10

Thanks for that, makes it a little clearer now, though another question has occured!



If (on one site) I've got a page other than a product page I want people to use as a landing page, (free intro offer page) can I somehow set this as a seperate landing page? Then I can get my affiliates to also direct traffic at this page and they can be assured their cookie is being 'planted' and will be credited if people proceed from this page to make a purchase.



Can you advise on how this would be done?

E-junkie_GuruWebmaster & Support Guru
Jan '10

The landing page URL you specify for your Hop Links doesn't matter for affiliate tracking/commission purposes; its only purpose is to determine where the buyer arrives after clicking the Hop Link. The tracking cookie is set as in inherent function of simply clicking the Hop Link, regardless of where the buyer ends up landing afterwards.

roo
Jan '10

Thanks, perhaps I should of been clearer with my question -



I would like to be able to have a second 'hop' link for the same program on the same website, though there would be no product for sale. This 2nd page is a sign up page for a 'freebie', and I'd like affiliates to be pushing this page as well as the product page so that they would benefit if the visitor later returned directly to the main product page to make a purchase.





Can this be done easily? or would I need to set up a 'free' product, and use the hoplink for this to ensure the above happens?

E-junkie_GuruWebmaster & Support Guru
Jan '10

Do you mean that you want to offer affiliates a choice of Hop Links, one that leads to the main product page and another that leads to a freebie page, so the affiliate can choose which link (or both) they want to use? Even if you offer only one, Common Hop Link that leads to a page completely unrelated to the main product, the affiliate would still earn a commission if the buyer returns to purchase from the main product page later.



If you still want to offer a selection of different Hop Links, just for the sake of offering different landing pages, you can simply go into Seller Admin > Affiliate Program Settings and set up your Common Hop Link with one landing page URL (this could be your freebie sign-up page), then go into Admin > Product-specific Affiliate Programs, select the existing product and click Edit Affiliate Settings, then you can enable "Affiliate links will link to a page on your site" (this is the product-specific Hop Link) and enter the URL of that product's sales page.

roo
Jan '10

Thanks, will give that a go!



Currently, I have created a 'free' item, and the hoplink for this item goes to the 'freebie' page, there's no actual product to purchase, the freebie just being a video clip. So I do I need to include the buy & cart buttons on this page? Currently have pasted the normal code, though have deleted the image part of the code so as not to confuse buyers. Am just a litle confused if I actually need to put any ejunkie code on this page or wether the hoplink will do this?

E-junkie_GuruWebmaster & Support Guru
Jan '10

It really doesn't matter what's on your landing page. You could even direct your Hop Links to, say, www.google.com if you wanted, and that wouldn't affect your affiliates' referral tracking or commission earnings at all.



However, since affiliates are using Hop Links to send buyers your way, you probably want to provide some way on the landing page for them to find things they can actually buy. You don't want affiliates sending them to a dead-end with "cash in hand" but nothing to buy and no way to buy it.



Clicking a Hop Link sets a cookie in the buyer's browser. This is completely independent of any page(s) the buyer may visit or links they may click after the Hop Link. That cookie will expire in 6 months. When a buyer purchases anything from you, our cart checks to see if there's a cookie set in the buyer's browser for any affiliates of your program. If such a cookie is found, and the buyer is purchasing any product(s) which have affiliate sharing, then the referring affiliate which set that cookie would earn a commission.