Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Cookies and Wine: Long-Term Benefits of Good Content

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Most of the time when I write about cookies and affiliate marketing, I mean the digital cookies that result in our tracking. Not this time. This is a story about how actual cookies resulted in Facebook likes, Pinterest traffic, backlinks, and more… but not until almost a full year after a post was published. More importantly, it’s about the long-term benefits you can get out of good content.

If you want to read all about the technical aspects behind how our site was able to keep up with the traffic and the programming behind it all, check out Eric’s post: Be Ready for Viral Sharing. This is essential if you do not want your site to crash or to spend a fortune in hosting!

It Started with the Cookies

Todd Farmer, Eric Nagel, and I have a system for our Wine Club blog. We publish X number of “money posts” (highly monetized) and X number of “filler” posts. We call them “filler” for short, but they are really the content that makes up the site beyond just writing about our merchants. They can be evergreen posts related to our merchant (like How to Choose a Wine Club), Pinterest-worthy posts (like Red Wine Chocolate Cupcakes), or timely posts (like Fondue Day).

The Pairing Wine with Girl Scout Cookies post was meant to be both timely and Pinterest-worthy. Eric created an image that would clearly show both the Girl Scout cookies and the wine.

On February 7, 2013, we published it, Pinned it, posted it on Facebook and Twitter, etc. All our normal methods of sharing. In the first week, it had 319 pageviews. A couple of repins. A couple of likes. Nothing spectacular. In the time since then, it has gotten a little traffic here and there. But nothing like what happened starting January 11, 2014. [Read more…]

I Was a Cookie Stuffer (and Didn’t Even Know It)

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Affiliate Marketing Cookie Stuffing

This morning I got an email from ShareASale with the subject line “Sunshine Rewards: Urgent Compliance Issue.” That’s the kind of subject line that makes you stop in your tracks and drop everything else that you are doing.

With my heart racing, I immediately opened the email and read it as fast as I could. Skimming through I found the words “compliance team,” “forcing clicks through an image tag,” and “against the Terms of Agreement on ShareASale.” Holy crap! What have I done?? I’m a rule follower. I’ve been outspoken in our industry against cookie stuffing, cheaters, and even people who walk the line. Did I all of a sudden become one of them? I literally felt sick to my stomach. Like I had been called to the principal’s office for cheating. Only much worse.

Guilty As Charged

Thankfully Brian wasn’t vague. I’ve gotten the dreaded Google emails before that basically say “You broke the rules. We’re shutting you down.” Not only do you know you are in trouble but you can’t even figure out what you did to get there or how to fix it. In this case, I was directed to the page with the offending image. I knew which merchant was the problem. I didn’t know exactly what I had done to screw things up, but I also knew in my brain (and my heart) that no one in my company would have done it intentionally. [Read more…]

It’s All About the Cookies Combines Great Tips and Good Cause

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I have been waiting for my copy of It’s All About the Cookies to get here and when it did I got so excited that I grabbed the video camera and made a quick video review. (You know I’m telling the truth because my hair is in a ponytail and my office is a mess). I don’t care because the video isn’t about me, it’s about this awesome cookbook. What makes it so awesome?

First and foremost, the proceeds from the book go to Affiliate Marketers Give Back, which raises money for breast cancer research, treatment, and awareness. If you haven’t been touched in some way by breast cancer, you must not live on this planet.

[Read more…]

Do You Know What You Promote?

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I’ve been watching Tweets come in this afternoon from a lot of mom bloggers and savings/deal bloggers promoting the download of various toolbars. When I check out their blogs, I notice that a lot of them have affiliate links on their sites.

I’m concerned that many affiliates do not even understand that the toolbars that they are promoting are essentially ensuring that they will no longer make any money off of the links in their blogs. Do you know which toolbars are responsible for overwriting affiliate cookies? Even if the toolbar seems like a great idea (i.e. you get cash back shopping or donations to charity), it doesn’t mean that the toolbar is not stealing from you.

One of my affiliate managers actually blogged about one particular plugin this morning (see Geno Prussakov’s post entitled Toolbars, pop-ups and parasites in Affiliate Marketing). However, there are hundreds more out there that no one is even talking about. Actually, people ARE talking about them…they are PROMOTING them!

If you are an affiliate who wants to make any kind of money off of your site or blog, it’s imperative that you check out more closely what you are promoting. You need to understand the affiliate marketing industry and what lies behind those toolbars and plugins. Otherwise, you are not only losing money yourself, but you are helping people take money out of the rest of our pockets as well.