Fleshlight Affiliate Poll: Let's Tackle the Cookie Issue!
 

We are listening and we are making changes daily along with building a new program.

If you vote No to a locked Cookie, please explain your answer in as much depth as possible.

*Please think about this before you make your decision*

This is a tangible product, as well as a "new concept" in the sex toy industry, in other words, it isn't a dildo or a vibrator, you have to convince people to try this product.

Also, according to stats, prior to today, the average customer visits multiple times before purchasing. People are going elsewhere to research the product ie.. review sites, etc.

This decision was only made with Affiliates in mind. Statistically, the typical customer DOES visit several affiliates before purchasing.

We are trying to give credit to the Affiliate that starts this process.

My only regret is that I have but one sig to give for this thread.

too true..too true

www.wcpcash.com

Good question :)

:):thumbsup

yes it is fair. i've worked at other companies that did the same thing, but it was by cc not cookies. that customer was a customer that you got credit forever.

I would never promote anything that I am not going to get credit for just because they saw it somewhere else first.

Of course, my traffic is targeted, so not as much of it, but my surfer know why they are clicking. If I had massive TGP traffic I might feel differently about it.

Last cookie wins, period, end of story.

Same excuse may be said of any thing on the internet. If I see a piss poor gallery for some paysite I may end up closing the site or clicking the back button. Latter on I may see a review for that paysite and join up based on that review. Now why in the fuck should the piss poor gallery maker who cookied me get the credit?

Another issue.

Say TGP's trade traffic (duh), what is going to stop someone from setting up a nearly 100% trade and just cookie the fuck out of everyone that visits. Surely he did nothing at all but alas, he gets all the sales. Oh and to prevent suspicion he would naturally have some fleshlight galleries of his own in his site and so forth.

Nother case.

Im a surfer and I just wonder around the net for free porn. There are also a few blogs I read. Well one day I clicked some goofy looking banner that had some dude fucking what I thought was a flashlight. It was not more free porn so I kept surfing. Well a few weeks latter I read this fantastic personal experience on this guys blog who I really trust so I bought the fleshlight he was talking about. Why should stupid banner guy get credit?

Nother case.
Trojan that drops cookies on each reboot. Nuff said.

Nother case.
I buy traffic, does this mean I now have to ask the traffic seller if it is pre-cookied?

same here

If I run a large traffic site (or even a bunch of pay sites), all I need to do is frame, iframe or whatever, my affiliate code to fleshlight. I don't even have to try and sell the surfer.. I don't have to have any links.. I don't have to have any banners up or anything.. now those guys have my code LOCKED in their cookie.. so they go visit some other sites with actual fleshlight ads and some text that makes them really want one and they go and buy one... I get the revenue and the guy who actually promoted fleshlight gets fucked.

This isn't rocket science. It doesn't matter if the sufer leaves and comes back, it's not really any different than a pay site. CCBill also had this issue and it was changed to what was more acceptable to affiliates.. Last person to send the surfer gets the sale. It's assumed that it's his promotion that actaully got the guy to buy.

You STILL set the cookie for 30+ days though. So if a surfer clicks thru on an affiliates link and then goes back (after reading reviews but not clicking on another link), then that affilliate still gets the sale. You just don't lock it to the first affiliates code.

Last affiliate to send the surfer overwrites the current cookie and the cookie lasts for 30+ days.

I agree with that also :2 cents:

That's fine if he was a customer and so he "stays" your customer.. But these guys aren't customers yet.

some good information in here, good job guys

The final person to set the cookie should get the sale. That person is the one who convinced the buyer. You see, the site that the buyer visited before obviously didn't do a good enough job to convince the surfer. And you might say that he was just going to see what other 'review' sites have to say about it, but so be it. The one who convinces the buyer should be paid. Period.

Last one should get the sale...Otherwise ppl can simple iframe, spam, popunde FL etc...And all other sites that try to convince the surfer, won't get credit.

And if Fleshlight doesnt understand the above then i really wonder what the fucking shit they're doing here.

You see - a cookie should last at least 30 days. This means that if he later on visits fleshlight again (type-in for example) but without a different affiliate-id then the original cookie setter should get paid. But if he later on visits with a new affiliate id (he wasn't really convinced yet and went to another fleshlight info site) then the new cookie setter should be paid.

very solid arguments from both AfterShockMedia and Tempest imo :2 cents:

i voted no on the locked cookie specifically for the abuse factor that exists.

Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate like everyone else here.

If you iframe you're gonna get banned. Thats not marketing. Thats something else.

I also vote for the unlocked cookie. I know how to convert them but IMHO may have been getting only 1/3 the credited sales I'm due.

Like some have said, the last cookie set wins.. Personally, I think it's crap that the first person that sent the surfer gets credit for the sale even after 100 other webmasters sent that same surfer. If webmaster 1 didn't make the sale the first time, to bad. If webmaster 2 didn't make the sale the first time, to bad. so on and so forth.. The last webmaster to send that surfer should get credit for the sale. With a locked cookie that will kill sales for many webmasters. Maybe no completely, but it should will affect the number of sales in a big way and the ones that end up setting the cookies first will make way more than what they actually worked for.

Take this for example.

2 people work at some company doing the exact same job for the exact same $.

employee 1 gets told to do a ceratin job
employee 2 is asked to help

but, employee 2 starts working on this job 1st while employee 1 starts shortly after. They get the job done and the boss says "Ok, good job! Employee 2, you have earned $****. Employee 1, I'm sorry, you earned $0 since you did not start 1st"

So while the job was originally given to employee 1, employee 2 got all the credit.

However it's been, I like it that way :pimp

to be honest i dont care either way, im pretty confident it wouldnt make much difference in my sales whether it goes one way or another.

Great discussion. I'm glad it came up. If you guys don't mind. I'll use your comments to help me with an article I've just begun to work on (I am still only in the "thinking about the issue" stage) on the subject of cookies for PBB.

As we're seeing very clearly here in this thread, the cookie approach has some significant drawbacks. We are forced to remember and realize the cookie is far from an ideal solution to connecting buyer to referrer. It's what remained after the insuitability of IP's for the purpose was apparent enough, and we wanted to retain a connection (once created) after the end of the browser session. Another "problem" with cookies is that they are "software on your computer", and as such will always invite suspicion from some users and get increasingly DKed by increasingly conservative pesonal computer "securtity" type software.

The question whether to lock or not becomes rather academic (if not without timeliness) when you see that cookies are dead. I am more concerned with what's next, and how whatver that is will shape how we pimp ho's on the Net -- :)

2hp

Keep a 6 month cookie, but dont "lock it", because the last webmaster to refer the surfer should always get credit, not the first.

so if its in a members area it would be better, or they could track by cc and the first charge to go to whatever affiliate gets the sale


who knows

there are WAY too many cheaters in this world, last cookie wins should always be a standard policy

I just got an email from Ramos though and it looks like they now have a 30 day unlocked cookie

regardless, I am pretty confused by all these constant changes and drama

I'm fine either way.. I'll continue to send traffic no matter what is decided.

That must mean that fleshlight.com isn't doing a very good job at selling the customer. If it takes a review site or whatever to make the sale for you, then they should get the credit for it.

Dont be confused, in this case, change is a good thing and this company has needed them since day 1.

My biggest concerns are the affiliates and what is best for them.

:2 cents:

Good post .....:thumbsup

Using Cookies is really for Dynosaurs.

A: Cookies can be re-written far more easily.
B: Awarding the direct affiliate for the referral is simply just a better practice.
For example, would you rather know an affiliate that is good or just talking to a jack ass that cookied all the traffic that essentially stole someones hard work?

Because obviously some folks are better at making convincing pages and that certainly does not mean someone else should be rewarded for that effort.

Its all about Unique Click, Tracking Unique Session ID.

Consider this scenario...

Webmaster A has a shitty TGP with high skim and shitty traffic. He skims a sizeable portion of his traffic off to fleshlight and sets a cookie. Most of the surfers are accustomed to closing the window if they don't see the gallery, and clicking again. So the conversions are also horrible.

Webmaster B has worked harder at doing proper SEO, and has a small number of highly targeted hits. He takes the time to explain how the whole fleshlight device works in order to entice the surfer into a sale, so his conversions rock.

Is it fair that Webmaster A might have a better chance of grabbing the surfer first, even though Webmaster B is working harder and sending much higher quality traffic? No way.

In reality it might only be a tiny percentage of overlapping surfers, but the mere fact that fleshlight has this policy will not sit well with many webmasters. Either way it shouldn't make any difference to fleshlight's bottom line, so the next most important thing is to look after the affiliate.

good info

The poll is close so far

I wish more people would voice there opinion, the feedback is great and again we are fixing the problems that were here BEFORE i got in the position, as well as build an entirely new Aff program

:)

I think last touch should get the sale, but additional purchases down the road from the same customer (when he comes back as a typein) should be credited to the affiliate that sent the first sale as well. That is ultimately FAIR, and exactly how the Lightspeed4 system works for our affiliates.

I did not respond to the poll because it is poorly worded.

Hopefully that would be a given.

I dont know. Its a tossup. You have people that cookie-spam everyone and that sucks, yet on the other hand you send someone in and then they click thru from another site to order, kinda sucks. I dont really know which is the lesser of the two evils. So I picked the underdog. hehe

:( :( :(

Seems to be a lot of that happening.. like the guys that say they don't care either way but then vote for locking the cookie. Or AlienQ who bashes cookies all together and then votes to lock the cookie...