Cloaking affiliate links. Does it make a difference?

by 27 replies
32
I trying to increase my affiliate sales and one thing that I am wondering if my sales are being stolen somehow. I signed up for ClickMagick and I am wondering if others have tried this service or something similar. The cost is reasonable at $17 / mo. Has there been a big difference in sales per hops by using cloaking.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #affiliate #cloaking #difference #links #make
  • Affiliate cloaking is a must.. Never heard of ClickMagick but I think thats a lot for just affiliate cloaking, if that what it does..

    You can cloak your links with a simple php code like this one

    ----------
    <?php
    header( 'Location: your-affiliate-link' ) ;
    ?>
    ----------
  • ClickMagick is the bomb.

    I honestly don't think tracking will increase affiliate links sales as a DIRECT result... But it still has a boatload of indirect benefits. It lets you CHANGE your link if you get banned from a particular affiliate link, or otherwise want to promote something different.

    Say you publish a book, and 10,000 people have it. Pretend for a moment that book has a bunch of affiliate links. Then you get banned (or decide to switch affiliate programs) or links... WITHOUT a redirect... You'd be hosed.

    But if you have a redirect? It's no problem because you can change where it points to.

    Also, it's great for tracking, and it just looks better to your end users.



    Hope this helps you brainstorm...

    Stay cool
  • Is there a reason why anyone would use a service like that when they can do that on their own through their own hosting?
    • [2] replies
    • It probably comes down to convenience for most. There's people that like you suggested, would want to set it up themselves, but I'm guessing most people like the convenience.
    • [DELETED]
    • Thought the same thing, but realized that these services/plugins also have a lot of features that if you tried to replicate (link tracking, link rotating, auto submit links to social media, etc.), the non-techie person would probably want to smack himself 1000 times
  • I use pretty link pro, it's always been a solid plugin.
  • If you are using WordPress than you can use "Pretty Links" Plugin to cloak your affiliate links.
    • [1] reply
    • I'm going to have to check that out. Thanks for the tip.
  • I am using pretty link lite plugin and it is working just fine, and it's free.
  • I am using the redirection plugin for wordpress. Great plugin to cloak your affiliate links and you can also do a redirect 302 with this plugin.
  • Yep I agree - cloaking links is an absolute must! There are so many reasons why you should do it... For wordpress there are loads of free plugins, alternatively you can do it by amending your .htaccess file or in some cases just use tiny url which has the added benefit of great tracking and stats etc...

    One other method and this is a little on the advanced side is to double cloaking which many of the super affiliates use... So in that case your cloaked url goes to another site then it moves it on to the affiliate site.. Reason being you might not want to expose your money sites due to your strategy to vendors/aff market place as it may compromise it - now that's another story ;-) ...
    • [1] reply
    • All My wordpress sites have Pretty link plugins for cloaking affiliate links.
      It works well and also helps to hide from google
  • I use the PHP version and have done so for years.

    It is free and it works really well.
  • I have never heard of clickmagic, but you don't need to spend $17 per month to cloak your links. You should be able to cloak your links with your hosting account
  • You should always cloak your affiliate link. It is great to have a service that help you keep track of your links to see whats working and where your traffic is being generated, but I don't think I would spend $17/month for it. You can do it free using bit.ly
    • [1] reply
    • Yeah I guess so, but I don't see how it can get anymore convenient. Then again I always have my FTP and cPanel up..
  • absolutely.... tiny bit url is free, why spend for a service when you can get it free and put the money into your business?
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Because if you make the mistake of using that (or any of the other, equivalent, free services available) you'll end up with part of your business being unnecessarily dependent on a third-party service you neither own nor control.

      That's why so many hundreds of Warriors have been posting here, ever since I've been here, warnings about all the entirely and unnecessary accidents (and even "disasters") they've incurred by using services like tinyurl, bit.ly, goo.gl and others.

      Cloak your affiliate-links by all means, but as attested to here by dozens of "warning threads", it makes absolutely no sense to do so in a way that you don't own/control how it's done and what can happen to them in the long run.

      When you're building and running a business, Scott, "Why spend for a service when you get it free?" isn't what matters. What matters is "Am I in control of as many aspects of my own business and future income as possible?".

      .
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Personally I think it's a very beneficial to cloak your affiliate links because it makes the link look much cleaner and professional. Nobody wants to actually click on a link that looks like the following: badlink.com/zz56tsg24mmdu8hcv7

    That just looks spammy, and most affiliate links do because they have to be tracked by the affiliate network somehow. Professional affiliates always mask and cloak links to get higher a CTR (click through rate) and to keep their reputation from becoming tarnished quickly
  • Unless you want to look spammy, I would suggest using a cloaking system for your affiliate links. Pretty Links works great for me.
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    Cloaking affiliate links. Does it make a difference?

    I trying to increase my affiliate sales and one thing that I am wondering if my sales are being stolen somehow. I signed up for ClickMagick and I am wondering if others have tried this service or something similar. The cost is reasonable at $17 / mo. Has there been a big difference in sales per hops by using cloaking.