I don’t always earn money from products and services I blog about, but I am a member of a few affiliate programs, most notably the DIY Themes affiliate program, where I receive affiliate income on occasion for the subsequent sales of Thesis Theme. Sometimes however, cookies stop me from making affiliate income.
How Affiliate Income Is Earned
For example, if somebody buys a personal licence for Thesis Theme for $87 after reading one of my articles and clicking on my affiliate link for the product, I make $28.71 (less tax).
How Affiliate Income Is NOT Earned
However, if the person who buys Thesis Theme has already surfed the net and collected the affiliate link cookie from another Thesis Theme affiliate, then the affiliate commission will not be paid to me, but to the other affiliate instead.
A person has to clear their cookies before clicking on a link they know will take them to a purchase page to make sure the affiliate that they are buying from is rewarded.
If it is important to you that the person who did all the hard work explaining why the product is definitely worth purchasing gets the reward (that somebody is going to receive anyway) – make it a practice to clear your cookies before you make your purchase using a link from their site.
There is a practice known as cookie stuffing, and although I am no expert in the matter, from what I’ve read, a person can get a cookie into your browser when you visit their site and regardless of you never clicking on a link on their site, when you eventually do buy the product from a reputable site, the not-so-reputable affiliate will get the commission.
Cookies and their Purpose
Cookies are used by some affiliate programs to capture information necessary to calculate affiliate commissions and to pay affiliate commissions to the first affiliate the customer visited prior to purchasing the product.
Rebate Offers and Cookies
A lot of the rebate offers out there for Thesis Theme ask you to clear your cookies …
…and provide you with elaborate instructions on how to do so…
…and then ask for your personal information so they can match up your sale with their commission. (I wonder if they will add you to their email list and email you in the future with wonderful ‘offers’).
The owners of these sites then wait about 30 days to see if they did in fact get the commission. Only, after this time do they then use PayPal, for example, to send you the rebate of $10 or so.
Not so simple after all.
The Thesis Theme Forum is peppered with complaints from people who have purchased Thesis Theme from a rebate site and who never got their rebate.
- The site from which I took the above screenshots offers a rebate, uses the ‘coupon code’ tactic (read below to find out what this is), offers free skins (and later reveals the conditions as only FREE if…), and has a retraction on their site at the moment for alleged defamation against another site that they apparently accused of cookie stuffing.
My Opinion of Rebate Offers
In my opinion, people who lower themselves to use under-handed tactics on at least one occasion often stoop to do it again. If you want to pay your hard-earned money to these kinds of people, in my opinion you are placing your allegience in an ungrateful place.
- They make about $18 instead of the site that first introduced you to the theme.
- You save $10 but you take away the $28 from the blogger who was hoping to use their hard-earned commission to cover their hosting fees (for a site that helps you make an intelligent purchasing decision) or pay for their children’s school shoes.
If you are blogging in the true name of blogging - which is all about the blogging community - don’t support the minority of people who use these tactics.
Buy from a genuinely dedicated blogger and help make sure they get their little reward for all of the hard work they put in.
Often a site such as Thesis Theme HQ that has spent thousands of hours using, researching and writing about the Thesis Theme misses out on commissions that are instead paid to a site that has maybe just one or two articles on the theme but that offers a discount:
- if you remove your cookies; and
- follow their other instructions; or
- manipulates their site’s keywords to get listed on page 1 of Google for a coupon - when what they are actually offering is not a coupon at all but a rebate.
Coupon Code Tactic
When you search Google and type in ‘coupon’ and the ‘theme name’ you are after – you expect to find an actual coupon code – not a dodgy rebate offer dressed up as a coupon code.
- A coupon code gives you an instant discount, guaranteed from the organisation you are buying the product from – not contingent on a month or more elapsing with no guarntee that you will get something from the third-party.
Here is one such example which in my opinion is a ‘dodgy coupon code offer‘ – because it is in fact a less-than-community-minded tactic to get commissions ahead of other community-spirited hard-working affiliates with entire sites, not just a few pages, dedicated to reviewing and educating users about a theme:
- Personally, I prefer to make sure commissions go to those affiliate marketers who are putting a bit more effort into it…but it’s a matter of choice.
- If you are just after a chance to save yourself $10 or so, then Google the theme name and rebate and Bob’s your uncle.
- If you would like to help out those who take the time to facilitate sales, then clear your cookies and buy from them – even if they don’t ask you to clear your cookies.
- Also, not all affiliate programs rely on cookies for determining affiliate commissions.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I really can’t stand that stuff. This wouldn’t fly in most affiliate programs. I would love to see the couponers cut out, because really they offer no value to anyone but the customer who was probably going to buy the theme anyways.
It really doesn’t make sense for Theme Distributors to allow this to happen.
nick´s last blog ..Thesis Skin: A Bright Idea
Good news. Now that DIYThemes has moved to ShareaSale, they have also updated their terms and conditions, banning coupons, rebates and other financial benefits – only free add ons are allowed.
That will make the rebaters that don’t have anything of value other than the split of their profits from Google AdWords think twice.
upon reading the whole article im thinking that the writer is correct to what his opinion is,
thanks for posting this article.
Ca Homes For Sale´s last blog ..Los Angeles Ca Homes – Los Angeles Ca Foreclosures- Los Angeles Homes- Los Angeles Foreclosures