Advice for merchants.. last-cookie vs locked-in-leads

I just bailed (and as a courtesy informed the affiliate manager that I bailed) on a launch by a VERY big name marketer for a course that looks terrific in a launch sequence that seems professional.

My problem: they encourage pre-launch buzz building, lead referrals etc but they use last-in-cookie.

That was a very important question for me. As soon as the affiliate manager confirmed it was last-cookie, I dropped out.

Possibly $10-$14k gross lost on their part (though I'm *SURE* the promotion will still be a mega multiple 7-figure success without me, lol).

Here's the important thing...

If you have a product where the cart is already open (ie: prospect can buy anytime) then YES last-cookie is the only fair system.

If, however, you want your affiliates to refer leads to you, to feed your sales funnel so that YOU can close their referrals to them (THAT is what a launch process entails)... then, no, using last cookie is illogical and unfair.

As the merchant, since it's primarily your job to close the sale that I referred once I sent you the lead, the lead should be "locked in" to the referrer.

There's a different launch happening (the biggest in IM history as far as everyone and their dog is concerned, prob a $30 mill launch, I'm predicting) that does use locked in leads. Smart thinking. Encourages the biggest players to feed as many leads as quickly as they can into the funnel.

Otherwise there is ZERO true incentive for an aff to promote early. They only would want to promote days immediately prior to the launch and on the day of (and someone like me would only promote such a system AFTER the launch).

Make sure you're factoring these things in when you put together your affiliate-fueled launch strategy.

I think one reason (however illogical it may be) that some product owners implement last cookie is to encourage a "mailing war". They want JVs to think, oh, everyone else is cookie-ing a bunch of people, I better one-up them by mailing. Oh, they mailed again, I better mail again too to "steal" some leads from them.

Of course, in this case, the product owner is really thinking about him or herself and not his or her JVs.

BTW... custom solutions and the kick ass Nanacast system ( http://www.27am.com/nana.htm ) are the only ones that offer locked in subscribers that I know of.

1SC doesn't. CB of course doesn't. Infusionsoft from what I know doesn't.

A pretty good compromise for this is "first cookie opt-in, last-cookie sales".

This system allows you to reward affiliates for leads (whoever refers the lead first gets the reward - that can be a per-lead fee or prizes from opt-in contests), as well as sales.

When you take away "last cookie" from the sale, you remove one of the biggest momentum plays for a launch: The benefit of the affiliates to offer bonuses.

Another aspect: Once the cart is open in a launch, you typically don't capture leads. Instead, every time a prospects enters the launch through an affiliate link, the cookie is reset in favor of that affiliate. Without that, there is no incentive for any affiliate to mail after the cart is open.

And: As soon as a niche is fairly established, there is huge overlap between the lists of the different affiliates. So it's not like if you don't mail to your list everybody who is on your list will never hear about the launch.

Because of that, there are two competitive angles for the affiliates in a launch: 1. who can send most leads FIRST, and 2. who can make most sales (whoever got that prospect to FINALLY buy - either through a bonus or just by sending that extra email that pushed them over the edge - deserves that credit)

And these competitive angles are matched by "first cookie opt-in" and "last cookie sale".

BTW: You CAN have total control over that - even with 1SC and Infusionsoft. In a recent six-figure internal launch in the real estate niche that I managed, we captured the affiliate code into the record for each lead. That enabled us to mail out AFFILIATE LINKS to the launch list with an early bird notification. So we reset the cookies in favor of who sent the lead first - just before the cart opened.

Hope this helps!

Hi Thomas, thanks for chimming in...

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"When you take away "last cookie" from the sale, you remove one of the biggest momentum plays for a launch: The benefit of the affiliates to offer bonuses."

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Not true. The bonuses can be offered anywhere in the process. Not just on the final day when the cart is open (as you well know). So it really doesn't remove any sort of benefit.

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"So we reset the cookies in favor of who sent the lead first - just before the cart opened."

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Well this then negates your earlier point about an affiliate having no incentive to mail again and "last minute bonuses"

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"BTW: You CAN have total control over that - even with 1SC and Infusionsoft. In a recent six-figure internal launch in the real estate niche that I managed, we captured the affiliate code into the record for each lead."

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Okay great tip, but that's a work-around. Meaning you had to re-mail the referring affiliate's link and rely on the fact that the lead clicks it.

The difference is between "am I feeding your sales funnel" or "am I selling your product".

If all I'm doing is sending leads your way so you can keep pushing teaser/pre-sell content to my lead then that lead should be locked-in. I sent you that lead. I gave you the ability to start quickly pre-selling them. I should receive the monetary compensation for that referral. Once my lead opted into your pre-launch funnel, I shouldn't have to keep mailing again and again.

Granted, the merchant wants that. No question it benefits the merchant. But it's inefficient for the affiliate.

There are stats un-talked about and realities many don't know of.

Cookie stuffing is all too common for example.

A 4th highest "lead referrer" who send 1300+ double opt-ins into a large 7-figure launch a few months ago made ZERO sales. 7-figure launch. 4th top lead referred earns $0 commissions?

Do the math on that one.

They were using "last cookie" and I know the team who was involved with the launch personally ... and they're aware cookie stuffing was going on left right and center.

It's also why I don't promote CB offers ever in the IM niche. At least 25% of referred sales are stolen commissions. Sure, it still works great for the merchant. In fact, talk to some merchants at a seminar with a few drinks in them and they'll tell you stories of which launch they've rotated-cookie drops in... meaning every 2nd visitor, they re-cookied as their own affiliate ID. This still showed that affiliates were making sales, but the merchant's own id was pulling out many of those sales.

With a locked-in lead system, (and I'm a cheerleader for Nanacast because I've spoken to Josh many times and I know their system does this in spades), the referred prospect that I freely sent a business ... which, we all can agree is the most expensive part of marketing/advertising... is now MY lead in THEIR funnel.

If/when a sale is generated, I should get the sale.

Merchants who ignore this fact will still have a lot of players promote for them (as some don't much care about the above)... but some merchants also turn a blind eye to shady practices.

A large launch that's cooking right now and will certainly be 8-figures uses locked-in leads. They're well aware of the above and know that locked-in leads really entices all of their top JVs to mail immediately, again and again and again to put as many of their own leads into the funnel as possible. This allows for maximum pre-selling and, therefore, maximum conversions when the cart opens.

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Originally Posted by Rob Toth

CB of course doesn't.

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This is possible with clickbank, and I guess with any system, but it depends on your ability to do it / your mailing software.

You have to have a hidden field to the signup - so you visibly ask for Name, Email as normal, and on subscription you code something to check if a CB cookie is present and if it is then it gets stored as a third field against their subscription - so Name, Email, CBCookie - and then make your mailing software direct these people through another clickbank link - essentially creating another hop for the affiliate every time the subscriber clicks on your newsletter links.

Forgive my untechnical explanation, but I know it is possible and has been done by a few others previously. We were considering offering it but one factor that held us back was as you suggest above; if you have an open system and people can buy any time then last cookie is probably the most fair.

Dan thanks.

I'm learning here about custom solutions and work-arounds. That's great!

I'm no expert on the technical loopholes so I welcome the input.

My arguement is simply that if it's a funnel being fed prior to cart opening then for most incentive and maximum fairness to the affiliate, leads should be locked-in. If the system is open, however, then certainly last-cookie is the only fair way to go.

Thanks for the discussion.

Hey Rob:

I don' think that there is anything inherently, morally wrong with either "last cookie" or "first cookie" launches. As long as the rules are set and kept affiliates can decide on the promotion strategy that works best for them for whatever rule is in place.

Whenever there are shady things going on that's of course bad, but it doesn't really have anything to do with first or last cookie.

Of course the publisher can steal sales in many different ways, and there is virtually no way to check up on that. (As a product launch manager I always check on the integrity of sales, and would of course call it out if something wasn't right.)

Cookie stuffing can be detectable by looking at hit vs opt-in stats and where traffic is coming from. So, again if the publisher wants to run a clean launch it can be done - affiliates could be banned from the launch for cookie stuffing just like for any other violation of the rules.

An interesting side effect of all this is the "opinion" about certain specific tracking systems in the affiliate/JV community. Recently, Infusionsoft has come in discredit for allegedly losing track of sales, and other systems have been touted as more reliable...

In my opinion reliable tracking depends a lot more on the people who run a launch or promotion than on any specific feature difference between any of the systems that meet "industry standards".

So again - integrity in running promotions as publishers, and participating as affiliate is the main point, and I think this is something worth emphasizing in this community.

Best,
Thomas