You can see a full description of how it works at
http://www.paidonresults.com/pdfs/local-cookies.pdf
It's a good idea, in theory. In practice, there are some pitfalls which need to be watched.
- It relies on everyone knowing how it works. Merchants and networks must ensure that affiliates know if they need to add an extra parameter to deeplinks they create.
- Merchant's technical staff and affiliate managers must ensure that they set it up correctly.
- Settings on all sets of tracking must be the same eg cookie life, first or last referrer etc.
- This tracking should be used for this purpose only. Using the same tracking for other promotional activities eg newsletters will undermine the accuracy.
This method also fails to pick up rogue affiliate behaviour. If one network harbours adware or other line-of-fire affiliates, the cookies of genuinely referring networks won't be displayed.
I think it is a good idea to use the extra tracking, but continue to display all networks tracking pixels. If multiple networks track, the merchants own tracking can be used as extra information to decide where the referral really came from. The time differences between the clicks can provide vital clues of rogue behaviour.
That way affiliates can see the cancellations and make their own judgements about the likelihood of its accuracy, check that their own linking is correct, or challenge the merchant if there is an unusual pattern. Merchants too can assess the relative behaviour of affiliates on different networks. Providing full information provides additional checks and accountability.
I had one merchant who used this system to manage the cancellations between their internal program and several networks. They didn't tell affiliates. Then their staff decided to use the same parameter to track sales from their internal newsletter. The error rate was huge and they nearly lost some good affiliates when they tried to cancel 25% of transaction based on faulty data. However, providing the information in a way it could be questioned put them in a much better position to rebuild trust than they would have been if they'd used conditional tracking and only the one pixel had been displayed.
We are happy to work with merchants to add additional tracking. All you need to do is tell us how the links must be structured.
