Affiliate marketing has been very good to me, and I think
it's a brilliant concept. The merchant doesn't have to pay
a penny until his affiliate makes a sale, and the affiliate
doesn't have to invest heavily in creating his own products.
However, many affiliates are getting ripped off, BIG TIME,
and don't even realize it.

Some shams are glaringly obvious.  One being a BIG link
right in the middle of a sales page inviting potential
customers to join the affiliate program. The affiliate spends
lots of  time and money driving potential customers to a site.
Then, the merchant interrupts the sales process and invites the
customer to NOT make a purchase... but instead to sign up as
an affiliate. Many prospects do signup, then buy through their
own affiliate links for an instant discount!

Clearly, a better system than the one just described is to
invite the customer to become an affiliate AFTER he makes a
purchase.  This could be done on the thank you page, or in
a follow-up autoresponder.

Some affiliate rip-offs are due to shoddy tracking systems.
I've lost LITERALLY tens of thousands of dollars in
commissions when the affiliate tracking systems "dropped
cookies" or failed to track orders properly. Most affiliates
who fall victim to this are never even aware of it happening.

Then there are the merchants who have RIDICULOUS timeframes
that they'll pay for a referral. They know that with bigger
ticket items, they often need to follow up for perhaps months,
so they only give credit for the order if the customer buys
during some shorter time period after that first visit.

There is also a lot of technology being brought into play
that allows affiliates to steal from each other. I've fallen
victim to that too.  I was once shocked to see an iframe
pulling another affiliates link into a section of one of
my webpages. Exactly HOW that got there I'll never know,
but I was driving traffic to my webpage and making sales
for someone else. 

There are literally dozens of ways that affiliates can
steal your customers right off your site, or at least
prevent you from getting credited with sales resulting from
your hard work. It's probably too dangerous, to cover those
methods here.  One of the most eye-opening books I've read
on dirty tricks that are played in the affiliate marketing
games is called, "AdWords Black Book."  It reveals stealthy
ways of generating an unfair advantage using Google AdWords
(TM), but it also shows what goes on in the bigger world...
beyond AdWords.

Adwords Black Book was only released in limited quantity
(only a total of 500 copies) but if it's still available
it's at:  https://paydotcom.com/r/5547/williec/201591/
If it's already off the market, you'll undoubted see
discussion on online forums about some of these dirty
tricks.

As an affiliate marketer, you just need to be aware that
you may be working very diligently to generate sales, and
then have them stolen right out from under your nose. This
can be done through software that you download and install
on your computer. This can be done through code embedded
in webpages that you visit.  This can be done through
browser settings or coding.

When you really look at all of the ways that your
affiliate commissions can be stolen from you, it may
shock you that you make ANY commissions on certain
products.  In-fact, it may explain why you DON'T make
commissions on certain products.

So what does this mean to you?  It means that, as an
affiliate, you need to be very diligent.  You need to
research and understand the ways that you can be
ripped off.  By understanding what's going on out there,
you are better prepared to take preventative measures.
This is the best way to ensure that you are properly
rewarded for your hard work. Without educating yourself,
you're just taking a real gamble when you spend money
advertising affiliate products.
 

Willie Crawford serves as a consultant, mentor, and
confidant to some of Internet marketing's top income
earners. You can tap into his 9 years of online
experience and million-dollar, success-creating advice
at http://BlueprintToInternetMarketingSuccess.com