Donations

Does this also apply to AdBlockPlus?

If so, will selecting the "disable on LFGSS.com" option solve the problem?

I don't actually know.

There are now many similar adblockers and hosts file solutions, and they've all been getting more aggressive.

It used to be that they only stopped display adverts, but now they focus on tracking cookies too.

Tracking cookies are an issue, this is where you view something on one shop and browse the web and are shown an advert on another unrelated site for the item you were looking at on the original shop. It's known as re-targeting, the hope of the advertisers is that they can convert "lost" customers into actual customers.

The problem for us is that affiliate schemes rely upon tracking cookies. When you click a link it needs to place a cookie to say, "This buyer, came from that site... pay that site a couple of %" (usually 2% nowadays, this is the change in terms as it used to be closer to 5%).

So when those cookies are blocked... by browsers, or extensions/add-ons like uBlock, AdBlockPlus, etc... we don't get credited for the sales.

Sometimes I try and correlate the items people declare in the affiliate thread... as I believe they're just about to buy them... with what is reported by Wiggle or CRC. And more often than not... the sales are not there, no affiliate revenue earned.

I'm attributing those uncredited sales, and general decline, to adblockers because it seems most likely. But it's hard to prove without (ironically) adding a whole load of code to minutely track every transaction we believe is going to happen.

Overall though... this is a trend. Affiliate revenue is dying a death due to a multitude of reasons, and for us it's almost dead already. Donations already cover the vast majority of our costs, somewhere around the 2/3 > 3/4 mark. It seems more sensible for me to try and ensure those don't decline further as the affiliates stuff is out of my control in comparison.