Question about Alawar (Regnow) affiliate system

[Loover]

Hi,

I'm looking for several affiliate systems and I have some doubts about the Alawar one. They use Regnow and in the help file explaining the method says:

Download Link:

You can use Download Link with your Affiliate ID to let your visitors download the game from Alawar's site. When a user clicks the download link on your site, your Affiliate ID is automatically recorded by RegNow. For that replace 'XXXXX' with your personal affiliate ID in Download Link.
Example: If your affiliate ID is 12345 and the game is Magic Ball, you should offer the game for downloading using this link:
http://www.regnow.com/softsell/visitor.cgi?affiliate=12345&action=site&vendor=1660&ref=http://www.alawar.com/download/MagicBall.exe

My question is... what happens when the costumer click in the link from the game to purchase it some days after the download? Will the system "remember" my affiliate ID?

There is other option called Special Builds:

Alternatively you can use Special Builds. Special build is a downloadable version of a game which includes all order links from this game with your affiliate ID and no links to Alawar's site. After downloading special builds of Alawar's games you must to upload them to your web site. Before downloading the special build replace 'XXXXX' with your personal affiliate ID.
Example: If your affiliate ID is 12345 and the game is Magic Ball, you should download the special build through this link:
http://alawar.com/affiliate.html?file=MagicBallAff.exe&id=12345

Is this option better?

Thanks!

[Nexic]

The first method will place a cookie on the person who click's computer. If at a later date, the person buys the game, it will be credited to you because they have the cookie on their system. Of course, some people block cookies, so there is a chance you may not get the money for your sale.

In the second method, the actual downoad is modified especially for you, making a user who clicks on any of the buy links go to the affiliate site. However I don't think this version uses cookies aswell, so if someone downloads the game from you, then goes to buy it direct from Alawar's site, you may not get the sale.

This is my understanding of the two methods, but I could be wrong. Perhaps you should email Alawar or RegNow to make sure?

[arcadetown]

Technically that sounds correct and pretty much how our affiliate system (http://www.arcadetown.com/affiliate/) works. When an affiliate drives any traffic including downloads or clicks from affiliate hosted free content online versions (http://www.arcadetown.com/free_content/), we slap a cookie on the users browser. Later when the user purchases any game, not just the one downloaded, the affiliate gets full credit.

There is the possibility of cookie blockers or users clearing their cookies between download and purchase but in reality that only affects a very small % of sales. I imagine making special builds of a large library of games could be pretty difficult but perhaps Alawar has a system down to get that out more easily.