How to Track Links when Direct Linking

Someone asked me if i thought direct linking was dead. My response?

No, direct linking isn't dead, in fact many people make a ton of money from it.

To track clickbank links, simply add "?tid=KEYWORDS" to your affiliate link.

For example: hxxp://examplehop.djkshadow.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=ADWORDS or ?tid=DOMAIN

And this would be the link you would use for your redirect domain.

Now, you can only add 8 characters (numbers and letters) for your tracking id, so here's how I track keywords:

UPDATE: Just a few days ago, Clickbank upped their tracking to 24 Characters! It's awesome.

First, I create a list of shortcut strings that I'm going use for all my tracking ids, so figure out EXACTLY where that traffic came from.

Here's an Example (feel free to use):

First, I use a letter for the search engines.

G = Google, M = MSN, & Y = yahoo

Then, I create a 2 character string for the type of advertising i used:

SM = Search marketing (adwords and PPC)
SQ = Squidoo
RD = Redirect Domain
HB = Hubpages

And so on. And if I used 2 of them together, then i will combine them:

SMRD = Adwords to Redirect Domain (or SMR for more space)

So now i still have 3-5 characters to work with.

Usually I use these last few characters to do one or more things like:

1) Define the ad group it came from. I will make another list, and define my ad groups by a symbol and/or number.

So my campaign might be 'A' and my ad group might be '1'.

So i use this chara string:

C = Campaign + A + 1 = CA1

If you run into multiple campaigns or ad groups, then you can just get rid of 'C' and start using double-digit numbers: X13.

Or double letters for higher up campaigns.

2) You can also split test pages. If you drive traffic to different pages on a site, you could use a letter 'L' (landing) to define different pages.

If you send traffic to page for one keyword, and a different page for another keyword, then you could use a string to differentiate between the two:

LP1 or LPA

There are some more, but really those are the most important ones.

Note: You can use tracking on most affiliate programs like Clickbank, Pepperjamnetwork, Commission junction and so on.

Putting it all together

Once you have character strings setup, you can easily (not saying it doesn't take some time) track your keywords and see which ones are converting, and which pages are converting the best as well.

So here is an example:

So say I was promoting Google Shadow.

I was going to use Google adwords, send it to a redirect domain, and it was in one of my bigger campaigns, with a lot of ad groups.

my end result would look something like this:

hxxp://examplehop.djkshadow.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=GSMRCX34

Google (g) + PPC/search marketing (SM) + Redirect Domain (R) + Campaign (C)+ Campaign X (X) + Ad group "34" (34)

Once you have a list and a system, it just gets easier to copy and paste.

That's it. Hope that helps.

- Coty Schwabe

Ps. I know a lot of people have said some stuff about Google Shadow, but the PDF is actually pretty helpful. The software is alright, but anyone interested in Direct Linking should check it out. Or Google Cash by Chris Carpenter; he pretty mcuh invented direct linking.