January 29, 2008
Tough Question Tuesday - “Clear Your Cookies”
I know this is usually the type of thing that applies to the Internet Marketing to Internet Marketers Crowd, but since you are probably the recipient of these tactics now and then, I thought I’d ask a question brought up on a forum yesterday.
Here’s what the original poster wrote:
There’s a number of big launches going on. Big launches = big commissions.
This is not a hypothetical question - I’ve seen it done - see below. It’s not something I personally would do. But I’m interested in the opinions of this community.
Would you send an email to your list asking them to clear their cookies and sign up for a launch, so you (and not a former-cookied affiliate/JV) would get the commission?
Certainly people are savvy enough to do it (for bonus reasons, or preferred marketer, whatever), but …
Would you *ask* them to do it?
I posted my opinions on that thread and they’re summed as this:
I think it becomes unethical when the affiliate program is set up to be a first-in type of thing. In other words, Joe Marketer created an affiliate program and for whatever reason, he decided the rule is the first person to refer gets the sale. In that case, you are stealing sales.
Of course, most programs seem to operate on a last-referrer policy. And in those cases, it’s not actually necessary to tell anyone to clear anything. If they click your link before ordering, you’ll get credit. In campaigns where I was offering bonuses, I was very careful about insisting the people click my link to order, but I never saw the need to ask them to clear their cookies.
So, in my mind it’s either unethical OR unnecessary, depending on the situation.
And then someone said that it becomes problematic when bonuses are offered and people want to order through your link, but are already cookied elsewhere, so I wrote:
Yes, it does happen, so if you’re part of a launch you should ask/insist the person running the program has a last-in referral policy. Then nobody has to resort to used car salesman tactics.
What do you think? And don’t let my opinionated self sway your opinion. 
Obviously, there’s more than one way of looking at a situation.
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Hi Alice,
Wow that was a really long thread (in the warriorforum), I really don’t know what I would do. I don’t thnk that I would email my list and ASK them to clear their cookies. But I may lead them to my site/blog promoting any bonuses and make it clear that the bonuses are only available through my link. This would all depend on the referral policy as you already stated.
I agree with your sentiments, Liz. I have in the past made it very clear, if you want the bonuses, you have to use my link…no exceptions. That makes perfect sense to me.
Because that doesn’t always work in the first referrer system, I’d NEVER offer a bonus on that type of affiliate program. Asking to clear the cookies is just go against the affiliate program owner’s rules in that case.
But I think I already said that…LOL.
I wouldn’t ask my list to clear cookies. Aside from the affiliate program rules, think of it from a “do unto others” perspective. I wouldn’t want someone asking my leads to clear my cookies. Who knows how much time, effort, and money the cookied affiliate put into getting those them?
It seems like too much cutthroat competition to me, and that’s just not the “sweetie” thing to do, is it?
Any time you promote an affiliate product there’s a risk of losing commission. Some people just won’t order through an affiliate link at all for some reason, and they know how to avoid it. It’s one of the “costs” of promoting affiliate products.
Requiring the use of a link for bonus material is a totally different situation and wouldn’t bother me at all. But I won’t be clearing cookies or asking anyone else to.
For some time I was an active member of an international traffic program with several thousand members and we were signing up for
programs every week under our uplines. It was
a specified part of the written rules of the company to Clear Your Cookies Daily. If you
didn’t you might be signing up under the owner
of the company or some other members NOT in your
direct upline. It happened quite frequently and
the admin would straighten it out, IF and When it was noticed, but you might have lost some commissions in the interim. The companies backup was that it was in writing and also verbally
stressed by your uplines repeatedly as part of
the supervision process. I know this doesn’t directly parallel what’s going on here in this question, BUT it does impress me that if you put that policy in writing and remind your clint about it, that probably helps.