RSS Feeds - a new traffic leak!
I just discovered a new way sponsors can siphon off affiliate traffic and cut you out of your commissions. Englishlads is offering two RSS feeds on every page of his affiliate site tour.
Go ahead and subscribe to them and see for yourself just how damaging these feeds can be to your potential sales at Englishlads. I have to believe he’s not the only one doing this, so you definitely want to keep an eye out for it when reviewing other sponsors’ site tours.
These are not the only traffic leaks at Englishlads. In his top menu there is a newsletter option, and a links option that promotes his Englishlads.TV pay-per-view web site. Clicking on this advertisement opens a new window, and after the warning page you get a page with this prominent, in your face, “special offer” that links back to Englishlads.com.
In essence, this looks like a clever way to filter out your referring URL and capture 100% of the sale.
And while it probably doesn’t have a huge impact on your sales, he also offers a mail in check option for UK subscribers.
The bottom line here is Englishlads is doing everything, he can get away with, to avoid paying his affiliates for their traffic.
As far as my traffic is concerned, I have to give priority to the leak free Blake Mason. He has identical taste in British models, including some of the same ones found on Englishlads. His price points are comparable, and his CCBill payouts are identical.
It’s a no brainer really. Blake Mason has a comparable product and respects the fact he has agreed to buy my traffic. Sponsor programs need to recognize we affiliates do have a choice.
Hello
I own the website englishlads.com and have been made aware by several of my affiliates of your recent posting about my website.
Your posting is inaccurate, this is not my opinion, it is statement of fact, your assumptions were wrong.
You make a claim about me leaking traffic by siphoning it off to englishlads.tv
Firstly I have to ask, how do you think you could know the facts about this? CCBill automatically consolidate referrals to englishlads.com and englishlads.tv. They are able to do this because the referring URL goes through them selves, as do the sign up processes for each site. There is no leakage of traffic between the two sites. So let me make this real clear, if affiliate traffic comes to englishlads.com and a user ends up clicking through to englishlads.tv and buys some tokens the affiliate gets credited for the tokens purchased. This is explained in my affiliate pages on the site. By making wrong assumptions and guess work you have mislead people about my website. This is unacceptable and reporting of the worst kind.
You have also suggested that RSS feeds “leak traffic” – these feeds do not affect affiliate link tracking. Link tracking is done via cookies, and RSS feeds are just elaborate bookmarks which continue to preserve referral cookie values.
What also makes your posting interesting is the tone of your overall posting by intimating I am the villain while making some glowing recommendation of an alternative site.
How neutral are you?
I don’t mind opinion but you accused me of things that are not based on fact and were plain wrong, so I do not believe in this instance you have picked the right website to create discussion.
Nick Baker
Englishlads.com
Comment by nick baker — November 27, 2007 @ 8:50 pm
Nick,
I’ll be happy to post a correction regarding the link to Englishlads.tv. How can webmasters independently verify CCBill is tracking their referral ID?
As for the RSS feeds, I still contend they are a nasty traffic leak, because there is no way for an affiliate to verify how long the CCBill cookie is set for. How many days is your cookie set for? The use of feeds is a long-term sales strategy on your part. Once the cookie expires you still have that consumer, and ALL of your affiliates are cut out of making the sale.
What about the newsletter?
Comment by Dr Bill — November 27, 2007 @ 11:40 pm