Well it was bound to happen - some of the internet's top super affiliates used a certain link cloaking tool as part of their promotion of the latest launch - The7FigureCode and may have lost out big time on their commissions.

Lost $?

Turns out they missed out on some juicy commissions.

Now those marketers are re-emailing their lists asking "please buy through my new link"...and I can't blame them.

What happened?

They are saying it's because they used a product called Power Link Generator. This is a tool which let's you create a redirect of an ugly looking affiliate link e.g. www.bignewproductlaunch.com/catalog/somewhere/productid=1234?affid=xcv76sdf  etc. to something easier to give out like e.g. www.myownsite.com/recommends/thenewproduct

There's a few of these "link cloaking" tools out on the market and 2 of the top ones are Power Link Generator and GoTryThis, by John Reel.

After researching the market last year I went out and bought PLG, but never got around to using it after I heard of another product that looked more interesting.

It now seems that it has some flaws when working in conjunction with PayDotCom, an affiliate management system.

I've ranted about PayDotCom in the past but since then it seems to have been upgraded and performs well.

Emails

Today I've seen actual emails from top marketers like this:

 Peter,

Mike Filsaime's 7 Figure Code launch was
massive, however here's the bad news...

This was basically what basically happened:

I was using Power Link Generator to create
my affiliate link, but however for those
that were using IE, Paydotcom didn't seem
to drop the cookie properly...

...which meant I didn't get credited for
the sale, and for those that purchased
couldn't get my bonus!

However, those that were using firefox
"should" have been fine.

So if you want to take advantage of my bonus,
here's the non-cloaked affiliate link: [snip]

and another

Hey Peter,

Ok bad news...

As you know Mike's launch has been huge...there
was a MASSIVE line up of my readers waiting to
grab my bonus package...

...

If you ordered through either of use we didn't
get credited for the sale which means we can't
deliver the bonus...

THATS BAD NEWS for both of us...

What happened?  I was using Mike Filsaime's
PowerLink Generator and using that combined
with his sale processing system (PayDotCom) it
didn't drop the cookie (which is the part of
the system that refers the sale back to the
affiliate)...

So what happens now?

[new link]

That's my new link...it uses a system that
drops the affiliate cookie 100% of the time
and will ensure I get credit for the sale and
ensure you get your bonus...

What if you already purchased?

You will likely qualify for someone's bonus,
you'll simply have to find out who's bonus
package that is.

 

What a mess, eh?

Is it PLG's fault? Some are saying it's something to do with IE and PayDotCom's P3P policy. Hard to know.

UPDATE: There is an update to PLG dated July 7 2007, so maybe that will fix it. The version file I got with today's update doesn't say anything about  dropped cookies.

Your Next Steps

If you're planning on using these tools, do your homework and check out AND TEST the ones you buy. Test them with a few different browsers and affiliate tracking systems.

I actually bought Power Link Generator before I realized that John Reel's GoTryThis had some cool features that PLG didn't have.

Like dynamic real time campaign result tracking, and a simple way to have "Sub links" from the main link so you can track different sources. It's worked for me every time. 

Also there's a support forum and updates included.

Check out GoTryThis today. 

PS - Get the lowdown on all this affiliate techno stuff BEFORE you get into this business as an affiliate OR a merchant -> Subscribe to my free newsletter now to get my honest opinions.

PS - No offence to the PLG team - if there's an update to this story or workaround/fix to PLG I'll update this post.

--- (Edited on 7/7/2007 10:50 pm [GMT-0500] by Peter) ---