Whether they’re the chocolate kind or the internet kind, cookies are great.
When I was at school a million years ago the most popular kid in the playground was the one who brought the packet of mini chocolate cookies for a break time snack. Don’t ask me why but it was always more satisfying to scrounge a cookie than a handful of Wotsits, Square crisps or Snaps.
Here in the internet age cookies have acquired a new meaning. They’re the little snippets of data a website sends to your browser so it can recognise you when you come back again. They’re essential to affiliate marketing. When a visitor clicks on your affiliate link they receive a cookie from the merchant’s website and then, if they buy something, the merchant uses the cookie data to know which affiliate they should be paying.
The best thing about cookies is that they don’t go away if the visitor doesn’t buy straight away. It stays in the browser and most merchants will pay out if the visitor comes back to buy something at a later date (generally up to 30 days). I’ve been discovering in the last couple of days just how good this can be. I’ve had several sales now where the actual transaction took place weeks after the visitor originally clicked my link. It means that the long barren period earlier in the month where I was making virtually nothing isn’t as bad as it seemed. It also shows that you shouldn’t write off an idea too soon. The customer might have bookmarked the offer to return to after payday.
There are a couple of complications after all nothing is ever simple. Firstly, merchants only pay out for the last affiliate to refer a customer. Kirsty explains it well in her post here so I won’t bother repeating it.
Secondly, some people don’t like the idea of being tracked on the internet so they’ll set their browser to reject cookies or to delete them when they log off.
Third, some merchants don’t set tracking cookies at all so you only get one chance at converting. Amazon, I believe, are notable for not setting cookies.
I like cookies and I’ll be paying closer attention in future to merchants’ cookie policies. It also backs up my idea that it’s better to concentrate on more niche products from smaller merchants as it’s more likely that the cookie-carrying visitor will return to the same site to complete their purchase.