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How to Deal With Repeat Clicks (Aff Marketing)

Posted by Matthew Berman On December - 3 - 2008

Problem:

I recently ran into a problem while running an affiliate marketing campaign. The problem was that since I was changing my ad copy so often, the same people would click my ads multiple times and land on the same landing page and would leave (because they had already been to it and left). This caused the amount of clicks from my landing page to the offer page to decline gradually because return visitors thought they were going to a new site when they actually weren’t (since my ad they clicked on was different).

A similar problem was people who did click through to the offer page and were back a second time. In this case they converted and won’t convert again, or did not convert because they didn’t like the offer. Either way I had to think of something else to do with these repeat visits.

Solution:

I thought about it and came up with a solution. I created a little cookie dropping script that tested two things: 1. did they already come to my landing page? 2. did they click through to the offer page? Here is the code:


<?php
if ( isset($_COOKIE['clicked'])) {

header(”Location: http://www.anothersimilaroffer.com”);
exit;
}

if ( isset($_COOKIE['landed']) && ($_COOKIE['landed'] <= time()-60*5) ) {
header("Location: http://www.adifferentlandingpage.com/");
exit;
}

$month = time()+60*60*24*30;
$value = time();
setcookie("landed",$value, $month);
?>

Put this code at the top of your landing page.

In addition, you will also have to set another cookie (shown below) called “clicked” when they click your outbound link to the offer page:


<?php
$month = time()+60*60*24*30;
$value = time();
setcookie("clicked",$value, $month);
?>

Basically, how it works is when a new user visits, it will set the “landed” cookie. If they leave after that nothing else happens. If they click the outbound link to the offer page, a cookie called “clicked” will be set.

When a repeat visitor comes back it will check to see if they went to the offer page first. If they did you can redirect them to another similar offer instead. If the repeat visitor landed but did not click through (left your site), you can redirect them to another landing page for the same offer, which may give a conversion. NOTE: it gives a user 5 minutes after leaving your site before the redirect will occur.

This will at least give you some control over people who click your ads multiple times and either don’t like your landing page or don’t like the offer you are selling.

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8 Comments »

Comment by brian Subscribed to comments via email
2008-12-04 01:30:47

hey there

This is my first time on your blog. This code may be useful to adsense about to stop repeated clicks?
Do u know some software or code to prevent repeated clicks for adsense account? I’m so worry about it, I’m avoiding to add adsense for this reason. My topic has many competitors and surely someone will do many clicks repeatedly on my adsense.

Comment by Matthew Berman
2008-12-04 10:42:59

im a little confused…do you mean you’re trying to stop clicks to your adwords account? either way this script can’t really help you. let me know what you mean and ill see if i can help.

 
 
Comment by TY Subscribed to comments via email
2008-12-24 15:04:06

thanks for sharing this! Had a quick question though..the 2nd part of the code..

where does that go? what i have is a landing page, then i have links to go directly to the offer. So I’m not sure exactly where at piece of code goes.it doesn’t go on the landing page too does it?

Thanks!

TY

Comment by Matthew Berman
2008-12-26 15:19:55

hey TY,

the second piece of code needs to trigger when the user clicks out to the offer page. it depends whether you are using javascript or php or href to do it how you implement it. i used javascript so when the piece of javascript triggers when they click the link to the offer page, it sets the cookie. this means they have been to the offer page (at least assuming they made it there after clicking). let me know if that helps.

 
 
Comment by TY Subscribed to comments via email
2008-12-26 13:34:40

how would you make the cookie last indefinitely or until they clear out their cookies?

Comment by Matthew Berman
2008-12-26 15:22:12

to make the cookie last indefinately, just set the time ($month) to however long you want. i’m not sure how to make the cookie indefinite…but since its already a month using “$month = time()+60*60*24*30;”….just multiply that by 12 to make it for a year….then multiply by 10 for 10 years etc.

$month = time()+60*60*24*30*12*10;

 
 
Comment by Film-Book dot Com
2009-01-04 10:43:31

How would this code be beneficial for someone that uses: a.)AdSense, b.)Kontra and c.)link images on their website?

Comment by Matthew Berman
2009-01-04 10:55:29

well this code is for people who use PPC marketing. this means that you actually buy traffic. adsense, kontra, etc dont count as this.

 
 
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