I was reading the latest LinkShare newsletter, and was interested to see what the had to say about the effectiveness of their affiliate tracking on two new Web browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 8 and Google Chrome.
Both browsers have privacy protections, which are good for the consumer, but can be bad for affiliates.
Browser privacy settings can result in blocking affiliate cookies, which can be devastating if such functionality becomes commonplace.
Not that this is a new issue, as anti-spyware and anti-virus programs often delete affiliate cookies, and some users manually delete them.
Anyhow, in the case of LinkShare, their tracking does not rely on cookies. LinkShare offers two methods, LS Trans and Web Services.
With the LS Trans method, transaction information is sent via a secure and reliable patented batch process. With Web services, tracking transaction information is sent over a secure server-to-server transmission. In both methods there is direct communication between the Advertiser and LinkShare, and the web browser does not present an additional potential point of failure.
That’s reassuring, and hopefully other affiliate networks are testing with these browsers, too.