Your analogy of the car salesman in my opinion and the opinion of the majority of affiliates I’ve spoken to doesn’t quite relate to how affiliate programs work.
From my stand-point I can’t please all affiliates.
The feedback I get from the majority of our affiliates is they expect a cookie to be placed on the user’s computer because in their belief they have done all the hard work and originally got the player to our site.
And if the user does not download the software at that point in time and revisits our homepage at a later date, like the next day or a week later, the affiliate will still get credit for the original lead when they do initiate a download because your affiliate cookie was set.
Rob472 – “I think those cookies should be the other way around. “
– Well if we did do this; remember you would lose out on all the players in the scenario I described above. All players you sent to our landing page that did not download the software in that browser session would be lost to the next affiliate whose linking code they click through. Or they may only remember to type in the casino or poker room name and join via the front-door – again you would not get credit for that player as no cookie was set.
I think you will find that the fact we do set a cookie is more beneficial for you rather than a working against you. If we were to find an affiliate that was using cookie-cutting techniques they would be in violation of our terms and would be banned and prevented from promoting our particular brands. Personally I have never been associated with affiliates practicing such techniques in my 2 years of being an affiliate manager.
allfreechips – “it gets crappy when some sites inject cookies unknown to the visitors though..”
I think you will find the majority of sites (mainstream or gambling related) set cookies without the users knowledge for multiple reasons; I can’t see how this can be seen as “crappy”.