TopRanked.io Weekly Affiliate Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [+500 Affiliates Program]

Quick Disclosure: We’re about to tell you the +500 affiliates program is pretty great. And we really mean it. Just know that if you click on a +500 affiliates program link, we may earn a small commission. Your choice.

So, this week confirmed Nvidia’s the hottest thing since Billy Boy Gates was imagining all the stuff we were going to do with computers in 30 years.

Yep. It officially became the most valuable company ever. And now some people are worried.

Apparently, the S&P 500’s ready for a nosedive if the AI buzz wears off.

So, what’s this got to do with affiliate marketing?

Not much.

Except for the 500 part.

And the stocks part.

Read on and you’ll see what I mean.

TopRanked.io Affiliate Partner Program of the Week — +500 Affiliates Program

Take the number 500 and put it together with stocks (and a bunch of other financial stuff) and what do you get?

An effing great affiliate program — that’s what.

Let me introduce you to the +500 Affiliates Program.

+500 Affiliates Program — What You’ll Be Selling

With the +500 affiliates program, you’ll of course be selling the similarly-named trading platform — Plus500.

Specifically, with the +500 affiliate program, you’ll be selling CFDs, also known as “contracts for difference”. And yes, you can totally promote Nvidia CFDs to your traffic if you join the +500 affiliates program.

You can also promote a bunch more in the +500 affiliates program.

Got crypto traffic?

The +500 affiliates program has you covered.

Got people interested in commodities like oil and… palladium?

Yep. The +500 Affiliates Program has your back.

Got people wanting to hedge their AI exposure with a short on the S&P 500?

Yeah, you guessed it — the +500 affiliates program will look after you.

Basically, if there’s an asset that people buy and sell, then you can probably sell a CFD for it with the +500 affiliates program.

+500 Affiliates Program — What You’ll Be Earning

Here, let’s keep this bit simple. Join the +500 Affiliates Program today, and tomorrow you can start earning CPA commissions that look something like this.

Country	CPA Rate
Australia	$800
Germany	$800
Netherlands	$800
New Zealand	$800
United Arab Emirates	$800
United Kingdom	$800
Italy	$700
Norway	$700
South Africa	$700
Sweden	$700
Austria	$500
Cyprus	$500
Denmark	$500
Finland	$500
Israel	$500
Luxembourg	$500
Poland	$500
Bulgaria	$300
Greece	$300
Ireland	$300
Malta	$300
Romania	$300
Slovakia	$300
Hungary	$200
Other Countries	$200

Now, of course, the +500 affiliates program doesn’t hand out such handsome CPA payments for just any referral. That means you’ll need your +500 affiliates program referrals to meet some basic requirements:

• Be a human
• Deposit money
• Start trading

That’s pretty much it, though. As soon as they’ve started trading and crossed a minimum “spreads” threshold, the +500 Affiliates Program will drop a minimum of $200 into your account. More if you promote in the right geos.

+500 Affiliates Program: Next Steps

Keen to get started earning $800 CPA commissions with the +500 affiliates program?

Knew you would be, so here’s the link to join the +500 affiliates program now.

Or, if you’re a “I need more information” type, why not head over to TopRanked.io and check out our full +500 affiliates program review?

Affiliate News Takeaways

So this isn’t quite breaking news. But right now seemed like an appropriate time to revisit that little story about Google phasing out of third-party cookies.

So why’s now a good time to revisit it?

There are a couple of reasons.

First, it’s been six months since we last covered the topic. That was back in December in our Ole777 Affiliates Review edition. And there have been some changes since then.

Secondly, it’s right about now that some of the bigger affiliate networks are getting serious about pushing advertisers over to alternatives. To give one example, last month Awin said “Upgrading your tracking setup as an advertiser is no longer optional, and all advertisers are required to upgrade by July 2024.”

That’s only a couple of days more than a week from today.

So let’s crack on. There are a few things I want to cover.

• Who’s going to be impacted?
• What’s changed since the last time we visited the topic?
• Why you should care now.
• How to check that affiliate programs are protecting your commissions.

Who’s Going to Be Impacted?

Let’s get one thing straight. For as long as Google’s threat to eliminate third-party cookies has existed, there’s been plenty of fearmongering over a “cookieless future”.

Now, some of this is partly attributable to the need for a catchphrase to capture the moment. I mean, “cookieless future” certainly rolls off the tongue easier than “a day sometime in the not-too-distant future in which all Chrome browsers will begin blocking any response to a request to a third-party domain from setting cookies in the user’s browser.”

But while the need for a catchphrase might explain part of it, it doesn’t explain all of the other fear-mongering you see LinkedIn “thought leaders” and their ilk spreading around.

So let’s get one thing clear — there’s no such thing as a “cookieless future”, and people aren’t about to become “un-monetizable”.

Cookies (of the first-party variety) are here to stay, and you’re still gonna be able to monetize users to your heart’s content.

Now, of course, there are some “complications” here. But these mostly concern data brokers and ad networks. And maybe some publishers are going to be affected.

But maybe they won’t.

After all, there are plenty of pretty knowledgeable people who question just how effective all this targeting really is.

One criticism is that despite the targeting, ads just show up in the wrong places.

I mean, do you really wanna get retargeted for that butt plug you were looking at last night while you’re browsing today’s news with your kid this morning?

Not really. 

But there are plenty of other questions raised about the efficacy of all this targeting besides context.

This HBR article, for example, makes what seems like a bizarre claim at first: “Digital ads look way more effective than they are because they’re sold on the number of people who buy after clicking on them.”

But then it all makes sense: “Most of these people are likely to buy anyway, without an ad’s prompt.”

Anyway, we’ll save that endless debate for another time.

For now, here’s all that matters — as “publishers”, we’re gonna be just fine.

Advertisers are still gonna wanna advertise. And there are a billion other options out there besides cross-site tracking, retargeting, and everything else that depends on third-party cookies.

Heck, affiliate programs are just one example.

And that means, so long as your affiliate programs are using first-party cookies to track your referrals, you’re still gonna get attribution for your referrals.

What’s Changed?

The biggest thing that’s changed since the last time we looked at this is the timeline for Google’s banishment of third-party cookies.

Last time we talked about it, this is what that looked like.

Basically, the plan was to have 100% rollout by late Q3 this year.

Now that timeline looks like this.

As you can probably see, now we’re looking at a probable early 2025 rollout… “subject to resolving any remaining concerns with the UK Competition and Markets Authority.”

So, what are the CMA’s concerns?

Honestly, I don’t know. Something about competition and cartels or something like that. If you really care, you can read all about it here.

Here’s Why You Should Still Care Now

Now, I know I said that affiliates are gonna be just fine. That’s because, in theory, we should be fine.

However, things get a little messy when you look at how the affiliate ecosystem works.

Basically, there are thousands of brands that outsource either their entire affiliate program, or at least the software component to third-party platforms or technology providers. You probably know a bunch of these names already — ShareASale, Post Affiliate Pro, Awin, etc.

Now, for the most part, a lot of these technology providers/affiliate networks have relied on third-party cookies to track referrals. In practice, this means that while your referral might go to example-merchant.com, the cookies that track them might have been set by example-affiliate-network.com.

And this is exactly the type of cookie Chrome will start blocking by default in 2025 (if it doesn’t get delayed again).

And that’s why we’re now seeing some of the more “we’ve got our shit together” networks like Awin putting deadlines on merchants to switch over.

But here’s the thing — right now as we speak, plenty of browsers are already blocking third-party cookies. And this is a problem because clearly, there are still plenty of affiliate programs relying on third-party cookies.

Now, you’re probably wondering what browsers are blocking third-party cookies.

The answer to that is pretty much every browser that’s taking part in the “biggest boycott in world history”.

I’m talking, of course, about anyone using ad blockers.

Here, take a look at the second “feature” of Adblock Plus:

Or here’s another example of another popular extension in action when I went to the NSA’s website.

Now, there are a couple of things that should scare you here.

For starters, take a look at one of the domains getting blocked. Yep, that’s right — the world’s most advanced intelligence agency still depends on Google Analytics like the rest of us plebs.

That’s scary. I mean, aren’t they supposed to be able to wiretap an entire country’s internet traffic? And yet, they still can’t count hits on their own website?

Anyway, we’re not here to talk about the (apparent lack of) competence of our federal agencies.

What we’re here to talk about is third-party cookies — cookies most ad blockers and privacy extensions are already blocking.

And that’s scary because about a third of all internet users are using them.

And that means, they’re also blocking you from getting proper affiliate attribution if you’re promoting a program that uses third-party cookies for tracking.

Or let me say that another way.

You’re potentially loosing ⅓ of your affiliate commissions right now.

Kinda scary, right?

How to check that affiliate programs are protecting your commissions

So, hopefully you got the point — third-party cookies are a potential threat to your affiliate income.

So how do you check in on your affiliate program to make sure you’re not getting stiffed by ad blockers today and Chrome tomorrow?

Well, the obvious solution is to simply ask your affiliate manager. If you trust them and they know what they’re talking about, then that should hopefully sort things out.

But what if you don’t trust your affiliate manager? Or what if you want a response right now?

Well, here’s how you check yourself.

Step 1

Go to your affiliate website and find an affiliate link worth clicking on.

Here’s one I found on TopRanked.io.

Oh, hey, look. The +500 affiliates program.

What a coincidence (wink wink).

Now click on that link and let it take you wherever it wants to take you.

Step 2

Once your browsers successfully followed your affiliate link to its destination, open up “dev tools” in your browser.

To do that, hit “Option + ⌘ + I” on Mac, or “Ctrl + Shift + I” on Windows.

Once you’re done, you should see something that looks like this:

Step 3

Now go to the “Application” tab in dev tools.

And then expand the “Cookies” drop down.

What you’ll then see is a list of every domain that dropped a cookie in your browser.

Step 4

Obviously, with third-party cookies being something we want to avoid, we now wanna make sure our affiliate tracking cookies are coming from the same domain that we’re currently on.

Since we’re on the excellent 500affiliates.com right now, that means we wanna make sure it’s 500affiliates.com who’s dropping the cookies.

But here’s where it gets complicated. There’s no consistent naming scheme for referral cookies.

Fortunately, the +500 Affiliates program makes things easy — they prefix everything with “referral”. See here:

And do you see how each “referral” cookie came from 500affiliates.com?

That means, our affiliate commissions are safe, no matter how hard people try to block third-party cookies.

Happy days.

Here’s a Little Bonus

Before I close this one out, it’s probably worth mentioning Google’s rolling out a bunch of “alternatives” to third-party cookies.

For some of the bigger players in the whole tracking business, some of this stuff’s a pretty poor substitution.

But, for affiliates like you, some of it’s a pretty big win.

One example is the “Topics API”. It basically unlocks sophisticated “tracking” tools for anyone who’s got a few bucks to spend on a Fiverr developer. As in, with literally a few lines of code, you can get the “interests” of every visitor to your website, then serve them up some targeted custom links/content/etc.

Go check out our Ole777 affiliates review edition for all the deets.

Takeaway

Here are the big takeaways:

• The “cookieless future” is a lie, and users will not become “un-monetizable”.
• However, third-party cookies are already ⅓ dead — Google’s gonna kick that up to 100% next year.
• So make sure your affiliate programs are using first-party cookies.

And, in case you missed it, do you wanna know of a great affiliate program that’s already using first-party cookies?

Yep, that’s right. It’s the +500 affiliates program.

Closing Thought

By this time next week, the first of the 2024 presidential debates should have gone down.

So what are we gonna talk about?

AI, deepfakes, and disinformation?

Nah, that’d be boring.

Let’s talk about how to win an argument.

Now, if you look online, you’ll find a thousand tips and tricks.

These days, clips of Tate/Shapiro/Peterson/etc. seem to be pretty popular inspirational juice for gurus who promise to reveal the “one weird trick to win any argument.”

Of course, if you think about it for a moment, none of these tips ever really work, aside from giving you a quick hit of dopamine as you eagerly devour another “libs get rekt” moment.

I mean, come on. Do you think any of these clowns getting owned actually went home and changed their minds?

Maybe like 0.0001%.

As for the other 99.9999% of rekt libs — they’re just like everyone else. They’re never going to change their mind.

You see, the reality is, it’s pretty hard to win an argument, and no amount of ownage is gonna change that.

In fact, the only surefire way to win is to have the argument with someone you already agree with.

And this applies to marketing.

If you set out trying to convince everyone and anyone that they should buy whatever you’re selling, then maybe you’ll end up with some content that looks cool.

But you’ll convert nobody.

Instead, go out and chase people who already believe in what you’re selling. That way, your job’s no more complicated than giving them enough of a push that you get them over the line right about the same time that they see your affiliate link.

It’s a little like that theory about digital advertising we saw before. You know, this one from HBR that questioned the value of online ad tracking —
“Most of these people are likely to buy anyway, without an ad’s prompt.”

So how do you target people who are already interested in what you’re selling?

Ahh… that’s something for another day. (Or you can just go back and read some previous editions of our affiliate news digests… we’ve dropped plenty of ideas in the past.)

But until the time you’ve got some ideas on how to lazer target people based on what they want to buy, here’s another idea — promote something most people want.

What would that be?

Well, here’s a tip — lots of people care about making their money work for them. And most of them probably already agree that stocks/gold/etc. are a good way to make that happen.

Now all you need to do is sign up with the +500 affiliates program and guess what? Argument won — you just earned yourself and $800 CPA commission.

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(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

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