Issues with Affilaite Window Cookies & Merchant Cookies

lumargin · 08-04-07

I'm currently promoting a finance merchant on Affiliate Window (which I would prefer not to reveal at the moment).

My issue at the moment is that I am getting a below average lead to quotation conversion rate of about 33% (i.e. conversion of pending to confirmed leads), with the average conversion rate for this program of about 70%.

I called up the merchants to investigate the issue. After they checked my account, they discovered that my a lot of the pending leads in their system had cookie overlaps with some of their other direct affiliates (i.e. affiliates that work with the merchants directly).

to further explain, the merchant's cookies used by their affiliates on their in-house affialiate program are showing up and overwriting some of my Affiliate Window cookies in their affiliate window login!?! So when I see some leads on my Affiliate Window login, most of them do not belong to me but to the merchant's other affiliate on their in-house affiliate program

.

They told me that they had leads that came from myself and other affiliates. But because these affiliates sent the clicks with their cookies earlier, the confirmed leads were to be awarded to them.

From what I understand about cookies (please correct me if I am wrong), if their affiliates send through visitors and deposit their cookies on visitors' PCs, the cookies stay there for a period of time(in this case 13 days). And within this period no other cookies from other affiliates can override the original till it expires.

So in my situation, if a visitor already has cookies from another affiliate within the cookie validity period, when they come through to the merchant site with my affiliate link they should not even get my cookies registered on their PCs.

What is now really strange is that the 2 cookies are registering and showing 2 affiliates as pending leads. So the moment the lead is confirmed, it is awarded to the merchant that deposited the cookies first.

My arguement is that the cookie should only register once and should not deceptively tell the 2nd merchant (in this case me) that they have a pending lead when they would never get the lead confirmed because it is not their cookies.

Why should a system allow 2 cookies to register?

Why would I consistently get cookie overlaps with their other affiliates and always be the last affiliate to register a cookie????

Rich · 08-04-07

You can store up to about 20 cookies per domain. That is whay the merchnat's inhouse program cookies and Awin cookies can 'overlap'. Also remember, you click thru Awin is (at least primarily) tracked by a cookie on and Awin domain whereas the merchant's direct program will be tracked by a cookie on their (or some other 3rd party) domain.

The bit to focus on is: - "because these affiliates sent the clicks with their cookies earlier, the confirmed leads were to be awarded to them."

It's standard practice that the last referral should get the sale not the earliest as you have said. I.e. If affiliate A sends a visitor that donesn't make an application and then affiliate B sends the same visitor who then does complete the application, it should be affiliate B that gets the lead.

It shouldn't matter whether the affiliates are on Awin or the direct program, the rules should be the same.

Obviously a merchant could decide to run things in a non standard way.

You should also think if there is any reason you're clashing with an affiliate on the direct program more than an average affiliate. i.e. why this clash of cookies is reducing your conversion rate more than the program average. Also re you sure you low convertions is just down to this? It could just be part of the reason.

adamski · 08-04-07

Hi Lumargin

As Rich correctly points out, the last referrer of the lead should be awarded the commission. In order to ensure the merchant is doing this correctly, I would appreciate if you could email me the name of the merchant and your affiliate ID so we can investigate further.

We can also assist the merchant in implementing a technical solution that would only show our tracking code when we are the last referrer thus eliminating declined leads of this nature entirely.

My contact details are below. Look forward to hearing from you.

Adam

_______________________

Adam Ross
Client Services Director
020 8269 4852
adam@affiliatewindow.com

lumargin · 08-04-07

Rich, many thanks for your explanation, I have emailed Adam with more information. This is indeed very strange and I hope to get to the bottom of this issue. I would keep everyone posted.

lumargin · 10-04-07

Still no word from AWIN as yet.

I actually called AWIN today and was promised that I would be contacted today, but I don't think that will be happening.

I also called the merchants and they further explained to me that some leads that I sent through AWIN have reference numbers of other their affiliates (not with AWIN) attributed to them. And worse still show up on their AWIN login.

So we have a situation of various leads filling out the same form twice (which I really find hard to believe). They are now giving the commissions to the other Affiliates.

They really need some technical help from AWIN to get to the bottom of this.

adamski · 10-04-07

Hi Lumargin

We had some technical issues today with our internal office servers which made it difficult to access internet and email. As such, I was unable to read your message or look into the situation any further.

Systems should be fully restored by tomorrow at which point I should be able to assist you.

Sincere apologies for the delay on this. It has been a frustrating day for us!

Adam

lumargin · 16-04-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamski

Hi Lumargin

We had some technical issues today with our internal office servers which made it difficult to access internet and email. As such, I was unable to read your message or look into the situation any further.

Systems should be fully restored by tomorrow at which point I should be able to assist you.

Sincere apologies for the delay on this. It has been a frustrating day for us!

Adam

Adam it's been a week now and still no word from AWIN. I called in on Friday and was told I would be contacted on Friday.

I need help, who is really going to help me out?

adamski · 16-04-07

Hi Lumargin

I emailed you today. Did you not receive it?

Adam

lumargin · 16-04-07

Okay I have just checked and responded

lumargin · 19-04-07

Adam, Many thanks for following up and clarifying that the last referrer should actually be rewarded commissions with the merchant. They are looking into the issue now and should get it resolved soon.