Affiliate marketing is huge on the internet. If you are readingthis, you are probably one of the hundreds of thousands ofaffiliates that generate a large percentage of sales on the web.Some affiliates supplement their incomes through promotingaffiliate programs, others count on their commissions for theirlivelihood.
But let me ask you, are you giving away a percentage of yourcommissions?
If you promote the links most affiliate systems provide you "asis", then the answer is probably yes and you may not even knowit!
Let me explain.
If you get a link from an affiliate program and just copy andpaste it into your newsletter, web site or article, then you'releaving yourself "exposed" to commission thieves.
For example. If you get a link that looks something like:
http://affiliatelink.com/?343/MYAFFILIATEID
and you copy and paste this link into your newsletter, chancesare that some of your readers will chop off your affiliate ID,and either replace it with their own, or just cut off theaffiliate code all together.
Studies show that upwards of 30% of all affiliate links arestolen or chopped off, costing affiliates hundreds of thousandsof dollars. Almost one out of every three links!
So how can you protect your affiliate links?
Here are three things you can do today:
1 - Create a redirect page for every affiliate link. When youget an affiliate link, create a HTML page. Name it to match theaffiliate program you are promoting, and add a "redirect" METAtag using the affiliate link you received. This is sometimescalled a "redirect" page. Some hosting companies offer thisoption in their control panels, or you can easily create one.
Then instead of promoting the affiliate link directly, youpromote the page you just created at your site.
For example, if I was promoting a program, I mightuse a link like:
http://www.mydomain.com/loseweight.html
There are several benefits to this:
- you are promoting YOUR web site, and keeping your name infront of your visitors - the link is shorter and moreprofessional looking - you can check your host statistics totell how many visitors clicked on your link, and compare it tothe affiliate stats for this program (which can help determineif a promotion is working or not) - if the affiliate program youare promoting ends, or the company goes out of business, youjust change the link inside your page. You control the traffic.
2 - Use a domain name and point it to your affiliate link.
For example, if you promoted an affiliate program that solddiscount auto parts, you could register a name related to theauto parts business (using the most popular keywords that userssearch for) and have the domain automatically forward to thataffiliate link. Some web hosting companies offer this service,and there are others that specialize in domain forwarding.
3 - Use a tracking service.
Although the links don't look very clean and don't promote yoursite, tracking links will protect your affiliate links, and willkeep track of how many visitors clicked on your affiliate links.A few services now offer sales tracking also, which allows youto easily tell what promotions are working best in real-time.
4 - Use a link protection application to automatically hide youraffiliate links.
There are several "link protection" systems and softwareavailable. Some that you download, some that are web based. Mostalso encrypt the affiliate link in one way or another,automatically create an HTML page and save them to your harddrive to allow you to promote your links as mentioned above.
One of the benefits of using the pages from some of thesesystems is that you can submit the affiliate link page to thesearch engines.
Bottom line... choose the method that works best for you and"stop the drop" in your commission checks. Start protecting youraffiliate links today... your bank account will thank you.
Learn more about the Affiliate Profit Guard at: Affiliate Profit Guard.
About the author:Mark Idzik is an author and web automation specialist. Hecreates tools for online businesses and reports on ways to getmore done faster, with less work and for more money. You can getmore information about his latest product, Affiliate ProfitGuard at: Affiliate Profit Guard.
