UPDATE Google developed a solution. Checkout Affiliate Tracking Now Works - Here’s How.

UPDATE - Ahhhhh the power of the blogosphere! Matt Cutts from Google just let me know over at ThreadWatch that he jumped in to help as soon as he heard. Thanks Matt you are awesome!

“Linda, as soon as I heard people saying that there were tracking issues, I escalated it to the Google Checkout folks. I know they’re looking to see if there’s anything they can do pretty quickly to help on this issue.”

Matt Cutts Google Checkout Yesterday I blogged about a huge issue that is impacting affiliates this Holiday season. Google Checkout Eats Affiliate Holiday Sales. Since then I have had time to calm down, do some more digging and have come up with some new information.

A Big part of this whole issue is that Google’s offer of free transactions through December was VERY effective and lots of merchants jumped onboard quickly. Networks and merchants should have been prepared and should have already figured out a solution to the tracking issues. Most didn’t have a clue. Just found out the Google is extending the FREE transaction processing offer til the end of NEXT year. Now tons more merchants will be jumping on Checkout. We need to find the solution and get this fixed.

I woke this morning to find a thread over at WebmasterWorld about the whole Checkout issue. Marcia brought up the affiliate tracking problem by saying:

“Is everyone also aware that Google Checkout is washing affiliate links/tracking and not tracking those that are tracked with cookies, so that affiliates won’t get paid for sales made by customers they send to merchants using Google Checkout?

This is not a small issue, some folks are calling Google a “parasite” who are doing affiliates out of their legitimately earned commissions which they’ve rightfully earned by customer referrals.”
I replied with what could sound like I’m backing down on the issue. It’s not, it’s just the facts as I see them now after a few days to process and analyse things and gather more info.

“To set the record straight, I don’t think anyone is accusing Google of being a parasite or purposely washing cookies or causing sales not to track. True that MOST affiliate commissions are NOT tracking through Google Checkout - NOT TRUE that Google is doing it on purpose. It’s actually more of an issue with merchants and networks.

Here’s the deal. To track, a merchant needs to place the tracking pixel on a specific page on THEIR cart. If a merchant added Paypal as a payment option and consumers could choose which payment method to use and the merchant had not implemented the tracking pixel with Paypal then it would also be a serious commission leak and sales through Paypal would not track either.

At 1st I thought Google didn’t offer a way to track sales. I now believe there is a way for merchants to set up tracking so it will work with Checkout because some merchants have done it. It takes extra work to figure out and implement though and CJ has said they are still trying to figure it out.

So bottom line, Checkout hit hard with lots of merchants joining fast due to the promotions and it’s all happening during the holidays - the busiest time of the year for everyone. Merchants and networks SHOULD have thought about this and worked out tracking issues sooner, but I don’t think any of this was intentional on anyone’s part.

All Google is trying to do is push Checkout and tons of merchants joined suddenly. Then suddenly in the heat of holiday sales season, affiliates realized there was a problem and bloggers started blogging. Now some pro-active merchants on some networks have figured out a way to fix it, but it seems the majority of the big merchants on CJ may not make it until the holidays are over. Some merchants on CJ are doing internal tracking and manual batching of commissions in the meantime.

I don’t know what affiliates can do at this point, besides asking your main merchants that are using Checkout if they have set up tracking. Maybe some have that we don’t know about. My guess is most are too busy to even realize this is a problem yet, SO LET THEM KNOW AND PUSH THEM TO RESOLVE IT. Send them here and to some of the blogs to be sure they know what a big issue this is.

If the merchant does not have tracking set up maybe they can tell you what % of sales are going through Checkout and then decide if you want to switch out links to another merchant.
At this stage of the game, I’m hesitant to suggest changing anything though. Some affiliates are probably pulling links to all Checkout merchants. Not sure that’s wise since many sales will still go through the merchant’s cart. If I were an affiliate I’m not sure what I would be doing about it right now. Glad I’m not to tell you the truth. I know this really sucks.

It’s an unfortunate situation. Networks should have seen this coming and been prepared but I think Checkout just crept up on everyone so fast that no one thought about it until the holidays hit and the whistle was blown. Sad! “

Not all merchants are using Checkout YET. A few merchants I’ve heard about have been able to set up tracking. We need to push the networks and merchants to figure this out. I don’t think it will happen for most merchants until after the Holidays however.

Google’s blog yesterday that announced the free offer being extended for a year, also mentions something new about integrating Checkout with your own cart. Possibly there is info in the new developers guide that will help.

“Simple website integration: With the HTML API, integrating Google Checkout with your shopping cart is easier than ever. Simply add an HTML form to your website and use it to send us your shopping carts. Learn more in the new Developer’s Guide.”

Still have to figure out how to get the merchant cart to pass the affiliate tracking info to G and then how to get the Checkout transaction processed back to the network with affiliate id intact.

DISCUSSION IN PROGRESS at the 5 Star Forum in this thread.