OK, I have been lurking and reading and formulating this and I still don’t think I can get it out right but here goes:
Randy is right you can set it up that way….but why?
How come as affiliates whos job is to promote and send traffic to Site A has to be left to wonder what a click is and WHO is clicking.
I can use my stat counter to see where people are coming from to get to my site. Down to a map point if I wanted to see it. I used that information to determine who I might be able to promote. Like recently adding WPTOnline who doesn’t allow US bettors. I know how many of my visitors come from non US territories and deemed it worthwhile.
Referal URL would be a nice start on better statistics to find out specificly who is clicking from where. I have seen many posts on this forum and others asking for help or complaining about their stats. I have “x” amount of clicks and “x” amout of downloads but only “x” amount of players or some other combination of the above.
I would think that the affiliate programs would be interested if 50 people clicked through to there landing page and 0 downloaded! Wouldn’t you wonder why and what was turning them off when they got there?
I think the stats we receive from some programs leave a lot to be desired and I know can be better. It’s like they give you a picture of a building and tell you build it and then hold you responsible if something goes wrong.
Maybe I am totally off base here but for someone to say to you “Trust me, you had 100 clicks 10 downloads and made this much money” just begs for me to say “Prove It!”
I leave you with one example: UB is admittedly have trouble tracking Firefox browser. They are working on a fix. The question was raised about how many others might have that problem. As an affiliate we would NEVER know because there is no thorough tracking available to us. To me, knowing what browser is being used and url they clicked from would be nice.
I have only been an affiliate now for three years so this is just my 1 cent worth.