If you’ve been paying attention lately, you had to hear a lot about affiliate marketing. In essence, affiliate marketing is all about websites promoting other companies’ products or services in exchange for a commission. But there’s much more to affiliate sites than this. In fact, the technology behind these sites is quite intriguing and if you want to learn more about it, make sure you read on.
IP address:
Anyone who’s ever browsed the web heard the term “IP address.” Your IP address is one of the easiest ways to identify you online. However, with more and more mobile devices being used, more people are using the same IP address which means this means of online identification isn’t foolproof. That being said, IP addresses aren’t being used in affiliate marketing as a way for allocating commissions. However, affiliate sites use IP addresses to identify any fraudulent activity on their website. This is an important thing to have in mind as cybercrime is going to create more than $1.5 trillion in profits just in 2018.
Cookies:
Affiliate programs use cookies to track visitors who click on their affiliate links. In case you’re wondering what’s stored in cookies – it’s a multitude of information including a visitor’s IP address, time of visit and affiliate ID. Using affiliate’s ID, affiliate programs can track how many new customers an affiliate site helped them get and calculate their overall return on investment. The lifespan of a cookie depends on the affiliate program but for example, with Amazon, it has a lifespan of 24 hours. This means that a visitor doesn’t have to make a purchase as soon as they click on the affiliate link. If they do so in the next 24 hours, the affiliate site gets its commission.
Flash:
Another problem with cookies is that they could easily end up getting blocked. In order to avoid this, many affiliate sites use flash-based tracking to get their visitors’ information. The thing with flash-based tracking is that it’s much harder to block or delete than standard cookies. This is exactly why many affiliate sites prefer using this type of tracking over traditional cookies. However, it’s important to note that browsers not equipped to display Flash could cause problems when it comes to linking the customer to affiliate.
HTTPS:
Way back in 2014, Google started advising all websites to make a switch to HTTPS. This is the case because, with a standard HTTP connection, a third party can get their hands on confidential information. And there’s no need to say how important confidentiality is when it comes to affiliate marketing. This is why affiliate sites need to include an HTTPS connection into their arsenal. By keeping all the info confidential, they establish better relationships both with affiliate programs and online users who clicked on their affiliate links.
Residual tracking:
Another important thing to discuss is residual tracking. Some web users find out about a product or service through an affiliate site and keep buying it in the future. This is why affiliate programs tend to associate a customer with an affiliate ID. Therefore, when a customer “Z” comes back to buy the same product as before, affiliate program’s system relates them to affiliate “Y” and the affiliate can collect their reward or commission. While many different affiliate sites use this technology, it’s most often used in the online gaming community.
Affiliate marketing is still growing and we can expect to see new technologies being made to help affiliate sites operate. Not only this but with more and more people online, it’s also safe to say we’ll see plenty of new affiliate sites being launched. So, if you’ve been thinking about giving affiliate marketing a go, now may be just the right time to create your own affiliate site. Of course, if you decide to do this, it’s recommended that you first do more research on the subject.
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