In the last week there’s been a lot of discussion on ABestWeb and a blogs by Connie Berg and Sam Harrelson regarding Google Checkout and it’s inability to pixel track affiliate programs.

Even CJ representatives have weighed in and advised publishers to evaluate offers carefully to ensure they're not ‘leaking' revenue.

The core tenet of Affiliate Marketing is that MERCHANTS MUST PAY PUBLISHERS for the traffic they send. As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), Google Checkout does *not* allow merchants the ability to place pixels in the Google Checkout process, but can however API the data to the merchant to incorporate into their own order confirmation pages or send to their Affiliate Networks.

This is not unique to Google, as many 3rd party shopping cart providers do not allow 3rd party pixels to be placed in their systems.

The problem arises when Merchants that are not technically advanced, but do want the business, don’t fully evaluate the implications of their actions and launch new shopping carts without fully considering the effect it’ll have on publishers when commissionable sales ‘leak’ from the system. It not only makes the merchant look unprofessional or dishonest but negatively affects the performance of the affiliate program as a whole. This can easily start a downward spiral that is a nightmare for an affiliate manager to manage.

Put yourself in a publishers shoes. Would you waste valuable inventory on someone that you don’t have 100% trust in?