Cookie Stuffing is an illegal method of generating Affiliate sales. Affiliates who use cookie stuffing are hoping to get commissions on sales they did not make.

Marketplaces like ClickBank exist to help merchants promote products. The idea is that an affiliate marketer will promote a product, and in return for his expense, time and effort the merchant gives him a percent of the sale. ClickBank makes every effort to protect the effort of the affiliate marketer. ClickBank has a policy that if a consumer visits an affiliate marketers website and leaves, the affiliate will still get credit for the sale if the consumer comes back to purchase the product in 60 days. The affiliate will get credit if consumer makes the purchase up to 60 days after the initial contact. This protects the affiliate since many consumers do not make purchases on the first visit.

ClickBank has to track the consumer for 60 days to enforce this policy. It is done through a cookie. A cookie is a piece of information stored on the consumer's computer. The cookie is written to the consumers computer when the affiliate website is browsed, and the "hoplink" is clicked. The cookie remains on the consumer's computer for 60 days. Should the consumer return and purchase the product, the cookie is read and the original affiliate receives credit for the sale.

The presence of the cookie is what has lead to cookie stuffing. The premise is to write ClickBank cookies on a visitor's computer without the visitor's knowledge. Should that visitor happen to purchase a product in 60 days, the affiliate will get credit for a sale.

For example, imagine a blog comment or a forum post where an affiliate has managed to place an image tag that points to his hoplink. The affiliate wants these image tags to be on pages with high amounts of traffic. Every visitor who views that page will see a broken image tag. Behind the scenes, the ClickBank cookie with the affiliates code has just been written to the visitor's computer. Any high traffic website will do. The more people that view the page, the more cookies will be written. Should any of these visitors happen to purchase the product in 60 days the affiliate will get the credit for the sale.

The affiliate marketer simply has to spam as many websites as possible with his image tag (or javascript popup or iframe tag). The more people that end up with his cookie, the more sales he'll get credit for.

All affiliate programs are vulnerable to this type of fraud. ClickBank and other market places will ban affiliates for this practice. However, it may take some time before the fraud is noticed. In addition, cookie stuffers find better means of hiding their tracks.

Do you know how to measure the performance your Adwords ads? Two reports from Google Analytics that show detailed Adwords data.

Last time, you saw how Google Analytics is the best way to track the performance of your ad groups and keywords. Google authored both Adwords and Analytics and can quickly integrate the two together. You learned about auto-tagging and cost data

Now let's take a look at the Adwords data you get inside Analytics.

Adwords Campaign Report
The site usage tab shows the visits per campaign and the bounce rate. The bounce rate is useful for determining what keywords are worth expanding, and which are worth dropping. The Clicks report displays impressions, clicks, total costs, CTRs, CPC, and ROI. The ROI is extremely useful and is something you can't get inside Adwords alone. With this information you are not limited to measuring just CTR.

Keywords Position
The position report is extremely interesting because it tells you what ad position on the Google Search page is generating the most clicks. It's generally assumed that the top Adwords position will generate the most the clicks. You may find that this is not the case for your campaign. You may decide that you can lower your CPC if your ads perform well in lower positions.

Google Analytics is the best way to track the performance of your ad groups and keywords. Google authored both Adwords and Analytics and can quickly integrate the two together. Plus, if Adwords makes enhancements or changes, Analytics will change along with it. Third party or custom tracking tools will have a harder time keeping pace with Adwords.

You link to Analytics using your email address Adwords. If you setup your Analytics account under a different email address, simply add your Adwords email as an Analytics administrator.

You should enable the auto-tagging and cost data features when linking Analytics to Adwords.

Auto-Tagging
Auto-tagging allows Analytics to gather information from Adwords. Google will append querystring parameters to Adwords landing page urls. These parameters are just key value pairs that appear after a question mark in a url. The parameter added is the Google click id which is abbreviated gclid. Analytics will recognize this parameter and will use it to integrate Adwords data into your Analytics account. This all done for you when you enable auto-tagging. Auto-tagging should be enabled by default.

One very important side note about auto-tagging is that it generates a unique id for each click. When a consumer clicks your ad, Google process the click and redirects to your landing page. This is how Google records clicks. Some advertisers use third party tools to track Adwords clicks. These tools use the weblogs that record every hit on a page. But a problem arises when a visitor uses the back button on the browser. The weblog will record another hit on the landing page which translates into a click, but Adwords will not (since it didn't go through the Google servers). A similar problem occurs if a visitor uses the refresh button. Shuman Ghosemajumder at Google says this particular problem accounts for a 40% fictitious click count. Many of the Adwords fraud claims arise from this 40% inaccurate count.

When you use auto-tagging, the Google servers append the unique gclid to the url. This querystring parameter will appear in the weblogs. You could then safely count all the weblog hits for a gclid as one Adwords click. This would prevent the fictitious clicks. Should you use a third party Adword tracker now or in the future, please use the auto-tagging feature available in Adwords and Analytics integration.

Cost Data
Cost data allows you view Adwords budget information inside your Analytics account. You can enable it with these steps.

1) Log in to your Adwords account at https://adwords.google.com

2) Click on the Analytics tab.

3) Click on 'Edit Settings.

4) Click the 'Edit' link in the upper-right corner of the 'Main Website Profile Information' box.

5) Check the 'Apply Cost Data' checkbox.

6) Click on the 'Save Changes' button.

Next time we'll discuss two of the reports in Analytics you can use to get additional Adwords data.

A consumer will not buy a product. Consumers purchase solutions to problems they are having. They make a purchase in order to fill a need or a want. You can encourage a consumer to buy your products by making your sales copy trigger an emotional response. They are five major emotional appeals sales copy uses to persuade consumers.

The primary emotion is curiosity. You've probably seen many ads making outrageous claims. These ads attempt get attention by making consumers want to know if such statements are true. In general, the more shocking the claim, the more you can peak curiosity. The more curious you can make a consumer, the further they follow you down your sales funnel.

Internet marketing Adwords ads tend to work on curiosity. Have you seen the ads where the marketer claims to me making $90,000 a month? Have you been curious to find out if that's true or how he did it?

Another emotion is insecurity. Almost everyone has certain aspect about themselves that they are insecure about. In addition, certain demographics tend to share insecurities. For example, teenagers tend to be insecure about their popularity in school. Your sales copy can promise to address feelings of insecurity.

Good examples of insecurity in advertising are commercials for insurance for senior citizens. These commercials appeal to the health concerns of the elderly, and promise security with their policies.

Fear is the third emotion you can use. Consumers have many fears, death, financial debt, loss of someone close to them, aging and more. Your sales copy can appeal to these fears, and them promise alleviate them with your product.

Pharmaceutical commercials for high blood pressure or heart disease tend to rely on fear. These commercials use statistical figures to provoke fears of disease and death.

Vanity is the next emotion. People tend to want to improve themselves. Your sales copy can promise to make them look better, feel stronger or be healthier. Fitness equipment uses vanity in their advertising. How many home gym machines promise all three of the above?

Greed is another powerful emotional trigger. Almost everyone could use more money. Internet marketing ads make use of greed, promising more traffic, more sales and bigger returns.

Your goal as a copywriter is to use these emotional triggers and tie them to your product or service. Explain to a prospect how your product will benefit them. Persuade them that your product will make their life easier or safer. Promise to make them happier and healthier. Appeal to their wants and desires.

Dynamic keyword insertion is widely touted as the greatest thing to happen to Adwords in the last two years. The biggest benefit may be to your CTR. When a consumer sees the exact search term in your ad, it can be very compelling. CTRs will often rise when using dynamic keyword insertion.

However, dynamic keyword insertion is not for every situation. You must be careful not to over use or abuse it. The following problems can arise when using dynamic keyword insertion.

1) Dynamic Keyword Insertion doesn't increase the relevancy of your ad.

Adwords likes to see the keyword you are targeting in the headline or ad description. It will increase your quality score if the keyword is part of the ad. However, it doesn't consider dynamic keyword insertion to be the keyword. So you miss an opportunity to improve your quality score.

2) Dynamic Keyword Insertion can lead to poorly written ads.

You've seen ads that don't seem to make sense when you read them. You can be sure that such ads are using dynamic keyword insertion and that accounts for the poor sales copy. When you use a large keyword list, it's practically impossible to write a single ad that will make sense and be compelling.

3) Dynamic Keyword Insertion can't help your landing page.

You may have read that your landing page can benefit from dynamic keyword insertion. It can't. Your landing page is outside Adwords. Dynamic keyword insertion only occurs within Adwords. Want proof? Stick the token {KeyWord} on your landing page and view it a browser. The token will not be replaced.

4) Dynamic Keyword Insertion may make it difficult to track ad performance

Split testing your ads and sales copy is a proven method to improve your ads. However since you won't know exactly what you ad said at any given time, it makes if difficult to test changes to your sales copy.

You must be aware of the advantages and drawbacks before you use dynamic keyword insertion. You must then make an informed decision if it is right for your situation. You are generally better off without it if you customize your ads and landing pages.