Affiliate Link Cloaking - How Much Difference Does It Really Make?

[healymedia]

I've never cloaked any of my affiliate links. They're all just either standard clickbank links or the new hop-shield links.

My question is, does cloaking affiliate links really improve anything?

Does anyone have stats on their links when cloaked vs. uncloaked?

[healymedia]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I'll have to give it a try.

The only reason I ask is I have products that I promote with raw links and some of them are converting at better than 1 in 50, which is really quite good.
It just seems like the clickbank links aren't turning people off (in my case at least) from clicking through.

Although I guess the best thing for me to do is just run a test! Maybe I could make my conversions even better!

Cheers
Ryan

[Johnathan]

It makes a difference on several levels (depending on the level of cloaking):

1. If you do it to eliminate referrers, then you eliminate the idiot vendors who get upset at you for promoting a product that 'they' didn't think of first. (I.e., a few years ago a number of vendors got very "upset" because it never occurred to them to advertise via google, so they thought affiliates were "stealing" their commissions, so tried to shut them down. Some 'brand new' vendors (if they don't know what internet marketing is) tend to have this stupid mentality, even if they are advertising on an 'affiliate' network.

2. Again, if done correctly, helps people from stealing your ideas.

3. For 'regular' cloaking -- some 'purchasers' will actually take out the 'affiliate id', or remove it -- because they feel that the review/comments are not 'unbiased', so won't make a purchase, etc. Most don't care, but some do.

So overall, yes, I would say it makes a difference.

[Harry Behrens]

Personally I've only seen it make a BIG difference when promoting IM products, make money online, that kind of stuff. When it's a product about say dog training or acne prevention, there is still a difference but it's much smaller... probably because the people looking for and buying those products aren't really that savvy about the links.

One thing you do want to keep in mind though is that Adblockers are now commonly blocking out Clickbank hoplinks or any other links of that type that are known to be commercial, so that's a good reason to cloak right there.

[Biggy Fat]

I just think it makes a difference because potential customers can spot an affiliate link a mile away nowadays.

[BrianE]

[QUOTE=ClayRuss;904577]I'm new to this so forgive me if I'm not understanding this correctly.

Is this cloaking thing the same as if I were to use a tinyurl link?[/QUOTE}

yes, but tinyurl is the result of using a specific cloaking software/service - there are others.

[NewbiesDiary]

Originally Posted by ClayRuss

I'm new to this so forgive me if I'm not understanding this correctly.

Is this cloaking thing the same as if I were to use a tinyurl link?

yes but be really careful when using these types of link cloakers.

I used to use offto.net (it does the same thing as tiny url), I had links cloaked all over the place and one day I checked one of my links - I got a big nasty red screen telling me the site was blocked cause it contained some trojan virusy thing.

The point is that not everyone who uses these types of link cloakers do it with legitimate products - some people use these sites to hide trojans etc.

Once a LINK has been tagged as directing to a trojan there is no distinction between that link and your good links - THE WHOLE DOMAIN gets tagged - and you suddenly lose your business!

Use a link cloaker that you can put on your own site, one that tracks stats and more - oh I just happen to have one of those in my signature (the first link).

BTW - the above drama is the reason I had Cloak'n'Rotate created...

[rainingproblems]

Originally Posted by ClayRuss

I'm new to this so forgive me if I'm not understanding this correctly.

Is this cloaking thing the same as if I were to use a tinyurl link?

Yes Clay, but as some others have mentioned, you run the risk of having having links from that domain banned if there was any suspected activity going on.

You also having the option of creating a notepad file and placing your affiliate link in HTML code so that it is redirecting from your page.

[Slyknight]

People tend not to click affiliate links. They probably think someone is just trying to make a quick cash on them and stay away from w/e that is being offered. So, it would be a good idea to disguise your link.

[Michael J Ottman]

Hi guys, I use php redirects to cloak my affiliate links. Here is an example.

Say I have an affiliate link for Camtasia and want people to click on it.

I create a text file and call it Camtasia.php

Then I insert this into the file..

<?php
header("location: http://camtasiaaffiliatelinkhere.com");
?>

Then I place my Camtasia.php file into a link like this.

I recommend using Camtasia so you can find it at

michaelottman.com/uses/Camtasia.php

So my php file is located at "michaelottman.com" and in the folder "uses"

Those who don't really use the product but just recommend it can create the folder "recommends" instead but I find people click on the links more when they see that you actually "use" the product.

Hope this helps.

Michael J Ottman

[Brandon Tanner]

As Harry pointed out, it makes a BIG difference in the internet marketing / make money niche, and a much smaller (but still noticeable) difference in other niches. Definitely worth the few seconds it takes to do it!

[jcaviani]

The link cloaking issue is interesting. I think there is more going on here than is often parroted on the forums. While I have no doubt link cloaking prevents some losses, many of the systems used to cloak links also telegraph them so little is gained.

I think the bigger question is, why do some people resent someone being paid for a referral? Since I don't think many people aspire to grow up to be assholes, I think ultimately it has to do with receiving value.

Let's face it, some affiliates (another job btw) provide so little value that they don't deserve a commission. Some affiliates are as useful as tits on a bull or one of those pimply faced teenagers put in your way by a whole host of retailers.

While I can't account for everyone and their twisted morality, if you create undeniable value, most people will not balk at you receiving a commission for your efforts.

Too many people are still looking for shortcuts. Money has and always will be exchanged for value. The fact that some people have been paid for little or no value is an aberration that will disappear with the maturity of the internet. For me, that time can't come too soon.

[jakesellers]

I've found that normal affiliate links don't help and possibly hurt in terms of SEO. I've increased traffic on several by switching to dynamic affiliate links. I've also seen good results from using image submit forms with "click cues" in many cases. Any URL that works in an anchor tag will work equally well as the action in a get-method form and they're very easy to create.

[Tyrus Antas]

Don't forget one of the most important things with affiliate link cloaking: making it easy to manage all your affiliate links from a convenient location instead of having to go through hundreds or thousands of pages any time you want to change anything.

Tyrus

[Lanadili]

I've always cloaked my links, so I can't say from experience whether it's helped my sales or not, but I can say why I started cloaking links in the first place.

Before I even knew about affiliate marketing, I came across a site that had raw affiliate links, and the site it was saying that I was going to (through the link), was NOT the same url listed at the bottom of the screen when I rolled my mouse over the link. I was so close to clicking until I seen that long url and didn't know what to think. My first initial thought: What if this is some type of virus? Why would they say it's one site, but that site's url is not even showing up... You know what I did? I manually typed in the url and searched for the product. So that person lost a sale because they didn't take the extra time to cloak the link.

When I realized later that was an affiliate link (first starting out with affiliate marketing) I remembered how I acted when I came across a raw affiliate link and decided then that I would cloak all of mine so I don't loose any sales.