BCL Performance Marketing: Ethical Affiliate Marketing Australia: Line-of-fire affiliates

In this scenario, if affiliate marketing ceased to be practical, we would most likely continue the relationship but look for a different payment model.

However, if you take business relationships out of the affiliate model and reduce affiliate marketing to the technology - someone clicks on an affiliate link, it sets a cookie on their computer, they buy from your shop, you pay commission - it provides an opportunity for a different type of affiliate. I call them line-of-fire affiliates.

A line-of-fire affiliate's primary focus is getting that cookie on someone's computer so that they can claim a commission. It doesn't matter if they bring you new customers or additional sales in the process. In fact, it's much easier to let the merchant's other affiliates and other brand-building efforts do that work.

So, they look for potential customers who are already on their way to your shop (or sometimes already there) and do whatever it takes to get their affiliate cookie on that computer before the customer gets to your shopping cart. That is, they simply get in the line-of-fire between the customer and your shopping cart.

How do they do that? Adware is a well-known method but there are plenty of other methods. Pretend that you are an existing customer and type in your website name or URL in the search engine box and see what is there. Check out the paid and organic listings. You'll recognise line-of-fire affiliates when you see them.