Using an affiliate link without using an ad tracker or some other URL redirect to mask the URL is a mistake.

If you are using any link without tracking it is just wasting your time and money. If you don’t know where your hits are emanating from, then you can be flying blind.

Sending your affiliate link out just to anywhere can simply allow someone to remove your affiliate ID and proceed straight to the site to register. It also can let them do a search and find out the direct link to the company and/or someone else in the company. This means that you will lose the sign up and possible commission.

Using our made up XYZ Lemonade company as an example and assume their affiliate link is something along the lines of XYZLemonade/67845/rep The 67845 being your affiliate ID- you go out and promote that link- then two bad things happen.

First, XYZLemonade.com is in the link which gives people a direct link to the site.

Second, if you post that link on 20 different sites, you will get hit stats from the affiliate area of XYZ Lemonade, but you won’t know specifically where those hits are coming from.

Now, if you use a good ad tracker like I have to offer you below, you could create 20 different URLs using the ad tracker. Since XYZ Lemonade will not be in the URL, you are protected from someone taking any part of your URL and going directly to XYZ Lemonade.

Plus, you will know exactly where your hits are coming from, so if you have 20 links out there but only 4 are giving you any hits, get rid of the other 16. This will allow you to focus more of your time and energy on the types of places where you are getting worthwhile hits.

To avoid the possibility of losing your commissions and not knowing where your hits are coming from, you need a good quality ad and link tracker. This allows you to mask or hide your affiliate links. It enables you to track all your links and know what is working for you and what is not. The ad and link tracker in my system is one of the best on the Internet.

Not responding to email requests in a timely manner is a mistake.

How often have you ever sent an email only to either never get a response or to get one days later? We all know how frustrating it is. Entire books are devoted to techniques in business such as speedy response on answering the phone; closing the sale; taking care of the prospect; selling yourself and your product and so on. It’s the same scenario online. One of the worst things you can do when working online- or anyplace- is not take care of your clients and associates. Unless someone is on vacation or sick, there is no reason to not respond to people in a timely manner. People NOTICE this. Consider how impressed you are when someone gives you superior service in a shop or online. You don’t forget, and are more likely to go back to this person again.

There have been times when it has taken me a few hours to get back with someone on a support issue. 9 times out of 10 they will thank me for the speedy response. Now to me a “speedy response” is within minutes! While that is not always possible, I have found that if you respond to emails as you get them, it makes your entire day easier and shows that you have respect for the person who sent you their request.

Consider that if someone is interested in your product or service and they have to wait a day or two to hear back from you, they will simply go on to the next and forget you ever existed.

It is wise to invest in Outlook or some other email management program that runs on your computer. While this IS common sense- let it check all your email accounts for you so you get notified when you have an email. You can setup Outlook to automatically check for emails every 60 seconds or every 60 minutes if you wish. » Read more: Common Mistakes Online Marketers Make and How You Can Avoid Them