Need some help with itunes affiliate program

[J smith]

Hello warriors. After a few months off I decided to try give IM another try, and seeing how this site is as helpful and as ful of great ideas as ever, I thought I'd ask a question here.

I have a site that I've done soem work on and off in the past, but I'll be putting soem major focus on working on it now. I want to monetize it using itunes, as that seems the best way to go with that site.

So, I signed up to becoem an itunes affiliate, itunes apparently uses linkshare to handle all the affiliate stuff. (in fact, I signed up with linkshare and got accapted as an itunes affiliate would be more correct)

But in the email i got from itunes there is one line that is confusing my newbiew mind:
"Please remember to replace utGfpCaF*d8 with your own Affiliate ID to ensure that all links track properly."

Seeing how there was no extra "Affiliate ID" in itunes email, am I correct in assuming that it's my username for the linkshare program? so if my username for linkshare was jsmith I would replace utGfpCaF*d8 with jsmith in the affiliate link?

Your answers are greatly appreciated!

[J smith]

No one here an itunes affiliate? Would really appreciate if anyone could answer this.

[Eric Land]

from reading what you have just said the utgfpcaf*d8 is probably in all of there example links.

And so they will give you an example link to a song that looks like www.itunes.com/utgfpcaf*d8

But when you sign up they give you your own unique id lets say for example its j smith

This means you have to turn www.itunes.com/utgfpcaf*d8 into www.itunes.com/jsmith

Thats probably what they are saying

You have to do that to get the money from your affiliate sales

[J smith]

Thanks!
That's what I was thinking but just wanted to double check. I guess I was expecting a new affiliate id in the itunes email, instead it seems like the id I have for linkshare is what they mean by affiliate id (makes sense I suppose =p)

[GeoRiot]

Granted this is years late, but for the record....

That crazy 11 character string is your "Encrypted ID" (or EID for short) it's what identifies you in the affiliate link.

If you are just getting started with the iTunes / App Store Affiliate Program then DON'T code links by hand, start off with one of their tools: Link Maker Tool, RSS Feed Generator or Widgets.

These will create links that are properly formatted for you. However, it's important to know that you have to access these tools from within the LinkShare dashboard (they reside on the iTunes / App Store "Create Links" page).

In the last couple years there have been a ton of resources added to the Apple website.

I strongly encourage you to take a run through some of the documentation there.