It is true that Affiliate Cloner is probably the
only tool that currently works with Clickbank,
and it should work if you want to cloak your
hoplinks or if a merchant has several products
and you want to link to a specific page. There
are some things you should be aware of though.
Last I tested it Affiliate Cloner requires ActiveX to work. ActiveX is how most
drive-by downloads get on our computer, so more and more people are
disabling ActiveX because of this. However, the majority of people are probably
not even aware of what ActiveX is, so this is probably not a real big problem
right now, although it could result in a few lost sales. But the use of the software
may cause you to keep more of your sales than what the loss through
ActiveX would amount to.
There are a few other concerns with this product that people should be aware of.
It also allows you to link directly to the order form, bypassing the sales page. I
currently do this, but I have been informed by Clickbank that we need to have
permission from the merchant before we do this. I have pointed this out in many
forums, I just don't want to have something that is working great for me be taken
away because of a few people that might abuse it, by misrepresenting the product, etc.
I just think the merchant should be aware of any sales methods his affiliates
are using to sell his product, especially when
they are bypassing the merchants sales page and
using their own ad copy.
Another thing is the invisible popups. This is something that could cause a lot of
problems for affiliates. Some networks do not allow this, and according to Clickbanks
rules (below), I don't think they do either. The invisible popups cause a cookie to be
created without the visitor doing anything. This auto setting of cookies is being highly
debated on another forum I visit. A person has created some software for his own use,
which goes through search engine results looking for sites that are auto setting cookies
with the same programs he promotes, and then he is reporting these sites to the
merchants and trying to get them banned from the program. I myself believe that
auto setting cookies is not right, and many merchants are starting to terminate
affiliates that do this. The forum thread is here, you might have to register to get access:
http://abw.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=5 ... 7766058855
Clickbank rules:
**********
http://clickbank.com/cblog/
To be legal, hoplinks must be targeted to the top level of a new or existing window. This rule is now enforced. For backward compatibility, hoplinks targeted to subframes or iframes are now automatically retargeted to the top level of that window, with full referral credit awarded. However, hoplinks targeted to invisible objects (like images) now give you no referral credit and in some cases will also prevent referral credit for other hoplinks on that page. If you have illegal hoplinks on your site please remove or modify them now so we don't have to contact you.
**********
http://www.clickbank.com/hoplinks/hoplinkFAQ.html
Will I get referral credit if I hide hoplinks by making them open into a frame, iframe, layer, applet, image, or other sub-window object?
No. These are illegal hoplinks. For security reasons, and to ensure proper tracking of your referrals, all hoplinks must be targeted to the top level of a new or existing window.
***********
Affiliate Cloner is probably the best thing out there if you want to cloak your regular hoplink, or if a merchant has several
products and you want to link to certain sales pages. I just think affilates should be aware of the other things that could
cause some problems.