Ask Shawn Collins: Affiliates That Stuff Cookies

Posted by shawn on November 26th, 2004 | 11 Comments

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I need to know what to look at to check that affiliates aren’t engaging in cookie stuffing and other problem behaviors. How is this done?

I’d like to preface this by saying that I am not an expert in sleuthing for cookie stuffing. I know some things about it, but one of the main ways that I keep up on the methods for stuffing cookies and some of the big perpetrators is by keeping an eye on the affiliate marketing message boards.

That said, there are many ways that affiliates effectively stuff cookies, and some are widely considered to be acceptable by affiliate programs, while others are strictly taboo.

A few years ago, I was speaking with a big casino program affiliate at an Affiliate Force conference, and he told me how he was making massive earnings with the affiliate programs by using IFRAMES.

Basically, he would join all of the big affiliate programs, and set up the IFRAME code to feature the affiliate links as 1×1 pixels. This way, when people hit his site, they would be cookied by all of the affiliate programs in the IFRAME without ever noticing a thing.

You can recognize this sort of behavior by looking at the source code of the affiliate’s site and searching for the word: IFRAME. Also, when you hit their page, look at the status area at the bottom of your browser – if you see tons of different URLs loading in, that could be a another sign of cookie stuffing.

Some affiliates also utilize a JavaScript to stuff cookies, but this is more difficult to recognize.

And then there are two of the more mainstream methods: pop-ups and pop-unders. While these are generally considered to be acceptable forms of marketing (aside from being annoying), they are stuffing cookies. The end user isn’t requesting to see the page of the company that is popping up or under, but they are getting a cookie anyway.

There are other methods, too. And the scammers are always innovating new ways to beat the system, so it’s essential to constantly learn about the new methods.

Take a look at Ben Edelman’s site, http://www.benedelman.org/, for more details on cookie stuffing and other tricky methods used by online marketers to generate affiliate commissions.

There is also an upcoming service called AffiliateFairPlay that “will provide Compliance Testing Results and will assess various mechanisms utilized by affiliates to invoke tracking mechanisms and the conditions utilized to invoke the tracking.”

Posted in Ask Shawn Collins

On June 23 @ 9:31 am Stuart Stirling said

Hi Shawn, cool blog. Cool post on cookie stuffing. I see how powerful it can be. Thanks, keep up the good work.
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On November 22 @ 4:27 am Simon Bolton said

Hi Shawn,

Great article, but where do you stand on this?

Is cookie stuffing right, as the affiliate is getting the commission for someone that came to their page?

Is it wrong to get someone to buy through your link without them really knowing?

What do you think affiliates should do?
Come clean and work harder, or slip in a bit of code and make money?

Just some thoughts

All The Best
Simon
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On November 22 @ 11:44 am Shawn Collins said

Hi Simon -

In my opinion, anybody who is forcing a click in this fashion is cheating.

Many years ago – probably 2002, I think – I actually game permission to my affiliates to use IFRAMES with their affiliate links.

That was because I wanted to compensate them for branding the company, and also I was seeing an increased degree competition.

But since then, I’ve been solidly against it as it has become widespread to do this sort of thing with all affiliate programs for some affiliates.

I would say that if you are unsure whether an affiliate program is OK with a certain practice, just ask them.
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On April 3 @ 3:06 am Vincent Lim said

Great explanation and easy to understand…

Thanks for sharing your experience.
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On July 6 @ 1:26 am alfa parf said

I had heard of cookie stuffing but wasn’t quite sure what it was. Seems like it would be easily discoverable so why risk reputation and accounts over it?
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On July 6 @ 9:57 am Shawn Collins said

Alfa -

Some people think short term.
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On July 20 @ 9:58 pm Jonathan Zittrain said

It depends on what you consider short term. I have been doing it for 7 years without any problems.
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On July 20 @ 11:25 pm Shawn Collins said

And you’re proud of that?
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On July 21 @ 2:27 pm Punk Girl said

I wanted to try it once but got scared away by all the people who’ve had their accounts suspended over it.
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On August 15 @ 3:17 pm gm said

Cookie stuffing has it’s place. Say for example you want to send a customer to a vendors page but no tracking link is available like on CJ. You can either provide the link and not get paid (no point in doing this), try to get the aff mgr to get you a custom link (if they ever respond to you) , not provide the link (taking away possible sales) or you can provide a link to a script that first cookies them with one of the other available tracking links, then redirect them to the exact page you want. Another possibility which I do not see as unethical, is say you have a form that performs some sort of function that is related to the product (savings calculator or what have you). I see nothing wrong with cookie stuffing the person AFTER they submit the form and get their result..
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On August 15 @ 3:27 pm Shawn Collins said

It’s immaterial whether you consider it unethical if an affiliate program forbids it.

You should contact the affiliate manager to ask if you’re not clear whether it’s permitted.
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