 | AffiliateMask - The Codeless Affiliate System |
| | | AffiliateMask represents the next major technological step in the booming business of online affiliate marketing.
Amazon.com helped pioneer the current online affiliate marketing model and its growing popularity has launched online retail sales into the multi-billions of dollars annually. As more people grow accustomed to purchasing products via the Internet, the increase in online sales continues to grow ($100 billion in 2003, up 38% over 2002 according to a January 23, 2004 Forrester Research brief).
AffiliateMask is an ISAPI plug-in developed by ISAPILabs in conjunction with MerchantZoo.com that has made the typical affiliate ID tracking code obsolete. AffiliateMask simplifies affiliate programs because it allows online affiliate marketers greater flexibility in deep linking to the merchant site shopping cart without affiliate identification codes and it allow merchants to track all clicks and sales accurately.
The key to almost all affiliate programs is the affiliate identification tracking code that each affiliate receives upon signing up for whichever program. From this code, the merchant can track the referrals from each affiliate and pay the commissions each month for all confirmed sales.
Customer convenience and retailer credibility are the main problems with this type of affiliate code system. If the affiliate link results to the home page of the merchant site (rather than the shopping cart), the customer has to start over to find the product. The bottom line; this might cause a customer to not buy the product.
This would be like going to one store to buy an item, only to be sent to a different store across the street to pay for that item. Chances are the customer will leave the item by the door and go somewhere else to buy it minus all the hassle.
When a customer wants to buy a product and is ready to spend, a smart merchant (or affiliate) takes the money and completes the sale as quickly and efficiently as possible. Merchants and affiliates don't want to make it difficult for clients to pay for items they already decided on to purchase.
From the customer's perspective, particularly those who aren't familiar with online affiliate programs, credibility plays an enormous role in the purchase process. A site that has an integrated shopping cart might suggest a higher degree of credibility, which might also influence the comfort and security level the customer has at the time of the purchase. If a customer clicks the "order" button on one site, but is then sent to a completely different site, that might raise a red flag that halts the buying process.
Another disadvantage of this type of link is that competitors and even some major search engines can easily recognize an affiliate ID code. This is especially bad for search engine rankings because the search engine algorithms can filter affiliate sites out of their results pages. Search engines are attempting to "clean up" their search results pages by eliminating perceived SPAM sites from their listings in an effort to provide more relevant results to searchers.
The easiest way for the engines to recognize (and now penalize) a site as an affiliate site is through the affiliate identification code. Human editors and search engine spiders alike can easily recognize affiliate ID codes and potentially penalize sites that have them by either downgrading or banning the sites altogether.
Read more about how webmasters are noticing their affiliate sites being penalized at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/1845-2-10.htm.
AffiliateMask helps eliminate these problems. For starters, a merchant site using AffiliateMask allows affiliates to deep link into any page on that site, including shopping cart pages with the product already added when the customer clicks over from the affiliate site. Not only does this mean fewer clicks to buy the product, but it adds a level of credibility to the affiliate site which helps increase the sale conversion rate.
AffiliateMask also allows affiliates to link to merchant sites without being detected by human editors or search engine spiders that might perceive the affiliate site as SPAM due to the affiliate identification code(s). Without these codes, search engines won't filter such sites from their search results, giving a significant advantage to any affiliate or merchant using AffiliateMask.
AffiliateMask also allows the merchant to still track each referred click from each affiliate, as well as each sale transaction in order to pay the affiliate commissions.
The wildcard feature of AffiliateMask allows affiliates to add a domain to an affiliate program as opposed to a single page. Basically it allows affiliates to link from any page on their site to any page on the merchant's site. AffiliateMask does all the tracking automatically.
Instead of having "http://www." at the beginning of the domain name, affiliates can simply add an asterisk on either side of the domain name to enable linking from any page. For example, if an affiliate has a website called www.mywebsite.com which has several pages (www.mywebsite.com/page1.html, www.mywebsite.com/page2.html, etc.), the affiliate simply registers the site as "*mywebsite.com*" with the AffiliateMask enabled affiliate program. This enables links from any page under that domain to receive credit on clicks and sales referrals, regardless of which page of the site it resulted from under that domain.
Because there is no affiliate identification code required for an affiliate program using AffiliateMask, the affiliate links appear as regular links going from the affiliate's site to the merchant's site. Search engine spiders won't recognize these links and penalize the site for being an affiliate site. Even if a sale does not occur immediately, the affiliate URL can be stored in the user's cookies for a time specified by the merchant.
AffiliateMask helps merchants provide a cutting-edge affiliate program that is not only more flexible in terms of linking than regular affiliate programs, but it is easier for affiliates to use as well. Merchants and affiliates benefit from the AffiliateMask software because neither loses rankings in the search engines due to easily recognizable affiliate codes that might lead to penalties in the search results pages. Affiliates won't lose their search engine rankings and merchants won't lose business because of it.
AffiliateMask is an easy-to-use ISAPI plug-in that allows for superior functionality over regular affiliate programs. From the affiliate and the merchant perspectives, AffiliateMask provides the potential for higher conversion rates due to linking flexibility and is a valuable a tool that makes the entire online affiliate marketing process easier by design.
- Each landing page has a separate link with attached Affiliate ID which has to be cut and pasted onto the affiliate's site.
- Many programs only offer linking to the home page, which can significantly decrease sale conversion rates.
- Competing affiliates can easily recognize affiliate IDs.
- Search engines can easily recognize and filtered out sites with Affiliate IDs.
- No affiliate ID required. Affiliates sign up for a program, add a referring URL, and link to any page on the merchant's site.
- Link directly to any page of the merchant's site (including the shopping cart with products already added) and receive credit for clicks and sales.
- Wildcard Feature allows an affiliate to link from any page on his/her site to any page on the merchant's site and still receive credit.
- Without an affiliate ID, search engine spiders will not recognize a site as being an affiliate site, and therefore the site will not be penalized in search rankings.
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