I have this affiliate link on my site:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0486292576/?tag=bookclubz-20
But, when I send this link out in an email via mandrill, it gets changed to:
Does this shortened version still place the affiliate cookie? I see an Amazon cookie on my machine but it doesn't contain my tracking information anywhere that I can see (bookclubz-20). If it strips the cookie, is there a way to make the affiliate link work correctly?
Also, to teach me how to fish, how would I tell that the cookie is getting set correctly?
Thanks!
Yes, your affiliate cookie is still created by amazon.com because your link wasn't changed.
http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/[...] is simply a redirection (of type 302) used by Mandrill to track your clicks (and some other things). If you click on this link, you can see that you are redirected to http://www.amazon.com/dp/0486292576/?tag=bookclubz-20.
About your cookie, you don't see bookclubz-20 anywhere, because it's probably encrypted or hashed. But the only thing to check is your url: if ?tag=bookclubz-20 is at the end of it, it will work.
Note: a good way to check if all is working as expected and if your links are clicked by your email recipients is to look at your amazon affiliates account.