Do any affiliates use skimlinks.com?

by 84 replies
103
Does anyone use skimlinks.com to indirectly direct their links to their merchant? Or has anyone heard any success stories regarding it?

As a California resident, I'm interested in this service for promoting Amazon products after the affiliate cut. So I'd like to hear from first-hand experience.

Thanks.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #affiliates #skimlinkscom
  • Banned
    Until you posted this thread, I had never seen or heard of this website before. It definitely isn't one that is being heavily discussed on the forum...unless they are all talking about it behind my back.

    After examing the site for myself, I wouldn't use it. I wasn't able to verify the awards that they supposedly won and their little stat counter at the bottom of the page is more than likely fake. No thank you.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • [DELETED]
    • Yes Joe, many people are talking about and using them behind your back LOL

      No, in all seriousness I've heard that they're pretty good and most people I know, who use them, use phpbay plugins with them. It's an option for ex EPN & Amazon affiliates who were terminated because of new us state laws.

      I've only heard good things about skimlinks.com and would recommend them to everyone.


    • Hey Joe!

      Just wanted to clear up any worries you had and let you know that our stats counter, and our awards are all legit - trust me, if we were making them up, we would have thrown a few more in there! You can find the list of our awards with links to the organizations that gave them to us at press.skimlinks.com/awards

      Cheers!
      Hannah @ Skimlinks
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • It's a slick program and I like it. Simply test it the earnings to your existing links and see which is more profitable.

    Apparently, Joe, a lot is going on behind your back

    .
    • [2] replies
    • Are you using skimlinks? Is it legitimate?

      Thank you.
      • [2] replies
    • Banned
      Apparently. I could never hope to know it all though.
  • Banned
    Never heard of it but it looks very interesting.
  • I've never heard of the site but will be checking it out soon!
  • Thanks for the responses so far.

    I'm surprised that more CA affiliates that got cut a few weeks ago aren't talking about Skimlinks here! Instead they're talking about incorporating in other states.

    I mean, why do that if we can just use this service?
    • [2] replies
    • CA affiliate here, too. I just signed up with Skimlinks and I'm in the process of setting it up. Crossing my finger. Like someone said earlier, 6% is better than 0%.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • I have been trying to get the word out on Skimlinks every time I saw a thread where affiliates were cut in the various states. But for the most part I was ignored. So I figured that no one cared enough. This thread got some interest though. As best as I know, they are a real good company.
  • Personally I've used 123LinkIt and prefer them. Skimlinks is pretty much the same, but 123LinkIt keeps less of a commission.
  • Im using skimlinks along with linkshare. they are working well together
  • I think more might know about it if they kept up my couple posts about it. But because I made the mistake of promoting it through affiliate links they banned me for a bit and took the posts down. Sorry about that I'm new to the forum and IM in general and am a bit to overexcited about some things. I personally haven't had to use it yet because my state is till letting us do business as usual but have heard good things from some ppl who have used it. I do promote it though because the give out referral commisions. :-)
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I use skimlinks but is there a way to find out what product you are selling? All I see is the quantity sold. Not what is sold.
  • i am using Viglink.
    • [1] reply
    • The only think I don't like about Viglinks is the lack of control. I tried it once and it linked my H1 & H2 titles. No bueno.
  • >> If I right click and copy the link before the page loads I am still getting the "natural" address, not the redirect.

    He is talking about timing matters.

    He is not talking about the link will never be modified into affiliate link.
    • [1] reply

    • Exactly, it is about timing. There is a "delay" before the link is converted. Looking at my conversion stats in Skimlinks vs my old stats in my Amazon account there is a significant enough difference for me to think that the delay is enough to hurt me (15.75% vs 9.75%) and Skimlinks for that matter.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Ive never had "first-hand" experience with it ye but Skimlinks has gotten mostly positive feedback.Those who work with the program, say that it can be helpful. It can save time and effort, and to many people that’s worth the outsourcing cost.
    • [1] reply
    • Another Californian here too. I just got approved from Skimlinks a couple days ago. Glad to see some positive feedback here about them. Thanks for posting about it as well SkimHannah

      I had finally began making a bit of commission from Amazon, and then the termination came. Hopefully I can get myself set up on it this week!
  • The only problem I am having is I use the plugin on a Wordpress site and it will highlight the word sony when I want it to go to a model of sony. I tried contacting them but haven't got a response. Can someone please help if you found a way to directly link to a product. I have some specific Amazon products I want to link to but not sure how, right now I have their search widget on my site and I'm having them search for the product hah. But that will definitely drop my conversion rate, cuz it's just easier to click a link than search.
    • [2] replies
    • I just had SkimLinks reject a site. They said it "would generate negligible revenues" from their merchants.

      So I sent them a screen shot showing significant traffic and over $1000 in commissions from just 1 of their existing merchants.

      Maybe $1000 is negligible - but I'll bet compared to all the websites approved for SkimLinks it's in an upper percentile.

      Frankly, SkimLinks should let us worry about our business: marketing and monetization. That's what us Warriors do.

      It should focus on it's business: obtaining linking opportunities and helping us make use of our content.

      There's been a lot of "negligible revenue" ideas shot down in history by person X that made person Y a lot of money.


      Update: Skimlinks came back and said the denial was a mistake and my site is approved.

      Apparently, fingers are quicker to click the reject button these days as Skimlinks is discovered and a flood of crap websites are being submitted.

      .
      • [ 1 ] Thanks

    • All you need to do is put in the organic link to the Amazon Product. Just search for the product you want on Amazon, copy the address and link to it on you site. Skimlinks does a redirect on that link.

      jen
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • How does the skimlinks approval process work?
    • [1] reply
    • I just submitted my info then a day or two later I was approved.

      jen
      • [1] reply
  • Hello,

    I'm going to try their service on my sites and see what happens.Will let everyone know.

    Thx
  • Hi CopyAcolyte - I got your PM, but I can't reply as I'm new to the forum. Can you email your questions to supportATskimlinksDOTcom?

    Thanks!
    Hannah
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Hannah,

      I've been with Skimlinks about a month and have questions. I sent these questions to support about 5 days ago and no response. I re-sent the questions 2 days ago and still no response.

      My question was about the fact that I had 3 or 4 sales a week with Amazon before they dropped California affiliates. Now with Skimlinks 1 sale in the last 3 weeks. I don't get it. I wanted to see if someone could check my sites but no response.

      Can you help me?
      • [1] reply
  • traffic amount stay similar ?
  • hello,

    Sounds not familiar, I'm looking forward for it.

    Thanks..
  • I had similar problems with Skimlinks where my Amazon links were just not getting affiliated. That, on top of the requirement to apply for each of your sites, nudged me over to Viglink and I haven't looked back.

    Viglink also has a cool disclosure badge you can add to your page that helps you meet the FTC disclosure requirements. You can see an example at my sites in my sig (I have the badges in the footer). It's really easy to set up, if you are having problems adding it to your Wordpress or Blogger blog, let me know and I'll try to help.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • hmm interesting, I gotta check that out. Ya it seems like links aren't getting counted and there customer service is horrible! I haven't heard anything from them in days. I want to change to something else, thanks for the tip.

    • Hey sdradius,

      Sorry to hear you switched - I would have been interested to check out why your Amazon links weren't being affiliated!

      Our disclosure badge was actually first out on the scene - earns referral commissions for you too!
      • [1] reply
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Wow, I've never heard of viglinks or skimlinks. Very cool concept if it turns out they are actually legit. I'll have to give them more of a look tomorrow, but sounds promising!
  • I have no idea why anyone would ever want to use a service that takes 25% revenue off the top for something you can more easily do yourself. Especially for Amazon, there is almost no case where you would make more money using Skimlinks rather than your own links. Is this marketed toward people that are completely clueless?

    I realize it's an option for Amazon affiliates who had the program shut down in their home state, but it seems as though there are far better options than something that seems like it gives you a minimum of 15% less revenue; even more, if you regularly hit higher pay brackets than 7%.
    • [2] replies
    • Well in my case I live in California and was dropped as an affiliate. However i'm not ready to give up on Amazon. It has nothing to do with being "completely clueless". My experience is that there aren't "far better options" than Amazon. Some of the companies that offer higher commissions and longer cookies don't convert that well.

      For whatever reason, Amazon is a company that people tend to trust and for me it converts much higher than other merchants. The prices are generally quite low and they have all of the products I sell. I checked out CJ, Pepperjam etc. and all of the merchants there and the prices were higher or they didn't carry the products on my site.

      I would love to return as an Amazon affiliate but we have to do whatever it takes to compete in this game. Until Amazon gets things straightened out with the Nexus states, 15% less revenue sure beats nothing. I wouldn't be so quick to judge others and make comments about people being clueless.
    • Hi Matt,

      I guess where we come in is with the 17,000 merchants, the link creation and maintenance and the benefit of a centralized solution.

      If publishers have a good set up with Amazon, and they're happy doing it themselves, then they may just keep that direct relationship. But if they've got a load of content, lots of links (maybe they're a content network with 20 different sites under their umbrella and affiliate is a complete headache, or just a site with editors that don't have time to do affiliate links) trying to achieve affiliate coverage at the level Skimlinks offers would become quite the time suck.

      Getting approved on 17,000+ merchants, and then creating the links and maintaining them is a mega task for some. So they're sacrificing the 25% for the time-saving, and extended merchant coverage they probably couldn't get on their own.

      Publishers that use us get to streamline everything too - so they get one check every month, one set of reports etc.

      There are lots of people that see great benefits from using us, but others that feel they've got a better deal doing it themselves. But, of course, each to their own

      Cheers,
      Hannah @ Skimlinks
      • [1] reply
  • I guess I should have worded that better, but I'd intended to separate "clueless people" from people using it because they got banned from Amazon. I clearly didn't mean to call people in your situation clueless, so I apologize if it came across that way.

    This service was around before California got hit, and isn't specifically marketed toward those people, as far as I know. That is why I can't understand why people would voluntarily use it if they don't have to. At best, you're losing money; the 6% bracket on Amazon is so low that everyone will hit it. Yes, it's better than not being able to promote Amazon at all, but I cannot understand why someone who can promote Amazon themselves without a middle man would ever opt to use this service. That's why I said only clueless people would use this voluntarily, unless they're something I'm missing here that isn't apparent from reading the FAQ on the site. :confused:

    I'll admit that I don't know much about the U.S. Nexus laws, but I recall seeing at least one thread here from someone talking about how they'd gotten their Amazon account reinstated by opening a business in another state. That's what I meant by "better options."
  • >> I'm in the process of changing all my links to Vig, looking forward to seeing the stats.

    I am not using skimlinks, so i cannot compare between the two.

    But Viglink is really helpful, no complain.

    And i can send "add merchant" request to them,
    and they will try to add my suggestion.
  • How does this website work ?
  • Hi there,
    I applied for both of them for my sites and prepare a comparison table for their services. You can better to read and choose best one for yourself.
    The Comparison of VigLink vs SkimLinks Affiliate Networks
    Thanks.
    Erdem
  • regarding Transction Fee

    as a non-US paypal user receiving fund, i never need to pay any fee for receiving money, unless the company/person try to pay you money via "direct credit card transfer".

    Do you mean skimlink send money to you via direct credit card payment/transfer ?
    • [1] reply
    • It's not for just US, they pay paypal fee for UK too.
      But if you are from another county they don't pay transaction fee. You can clearly see this at "Payment" panel at SkimLink. I don't have my payment yet.
      So that will drop from your payment. It's like $10 donations comes to your balance as ~$9,60...
      After some mailing, SkimLink CEO decided that SkimLink will cover PayPal fees too for international publishers and also she said that they will decrease payment threshold starting from September :-)
  • I haven't tried using skimlinks.com but I've heard a lot of good reviews so I think that this would be worth a try, I'm checking it too if it would suit my preference.
    • [1] reply
    • My experience with Skimlinks and Viglink has been disappointing. Before being dropped by Amazon as a California affiliate i had 4 or 5 sales a week. I went to Skimlinks and had 1 sale in 5 weeks. I then switched to Viglink and basically having the same poor results. Has anyone else experienced this decrease in sales?
  • EUA

    your paypal account is a business account or personal account ?

    personal account can receive fund free of charge except receiving credit card payment
  • It's personal. I said but repeatin again, I don't receive any payment yet but this info write at SkimLink page. I asked about this warnign to CEO Alicia and She answered, they don't pay the paypal fees for other than UK-US. I will inspect this when my first payment reached to me. Also SkimLink will remove this issue at this month, after I will change that page :-)
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • I was invited to use the skimlinks a few months back one of my busy forums and I was unsure at first, however, after enabling it on my forum I making quite good money, what surprises me so much is that I have never seen a link on my forum.

    So I don't think it retracts from the user experience nor does it take away from any other commissions on the site, so I'm quite happy with them.

    In fact, I'm more than happy with them
  • Hi CopyAcolyte,

    I have a large number of sites WP mage, Thin sites and a few Googlesniper sites after giving S'links a trial I moved 50% of my sites over from epn mainly due to the volatile nature of epn. The data from my trials showed me I was not losing any clicks and and had an alternative to epn if I should receive the dreaded epn email.


    The only negative (for now) is that I pay them a comission, but hey thats life


    Regards
    Jack
    • [1] reply
    • Having the alternative available is extremely important with EPN. That alone makes it worth sending some business to SkimLinks.

      I've switched campaigns back and forth between EPN and SkimLinks depending on where the best return is.

      But one issue with SkimLinks is the length of time to get paid. EPN pays the next month. Not SkimLinks. So if you want your money before Christmas, you need to be moving your traffic back to EPN.

      .
  • This skimlinks is awesome although it looks like some wordpress plugins that do the same thing only this one has a lot more spunk in it.
  • I noticed a large difference in clicks that were reported through Skimlinks and what Statcounter was showing. After emailing support, they said that "we don't monetize links with affiliate tags in them by default."
    So, if you previously had an Amazon Aff ID in your links and it is still there, Skimlinks will just ignore that click. That isn't going to work well if you can't earn from Amazon anymore.

    I am using WPZon and want to continue, but apparently you must have an Affiliate ID in order for the plugin to work. Anyone have any ideas how to get around this? Does Viglink ignore Amazon links with aff tags in them? Is there a different Amazon plugin that will work w/o an Associate ID?
    • [2] replies
    • Hi there -- Anna here w/ VigLink. If I understand the question correctly you are looking for a tool that can overwrite existing affiliate links? While VigLink does not do this by default, it is a feature you can enable. Under the "features" tab in a VigLink account you'll notice a setting option that says "reaffiliate affiliated links". Check this and you are set.

      Hope this helps --

      Cheers,
      Anna
    • I am looking into viglink and now skimlinks since I found it on the forum. I`m from Colo. so no Amazon affiliate for me. I wonder how long this will go on as more and more states are getting the axe from Amazon, but I digress. Anyways I asked Viglink about if it would work with Amazon plugins that you would need an affiliate I.D. with and they said no. So it must only work with actual text in body of article.
  • I heard that from lots of source, their click counts (and income also) is much more different using their own scripts. If your site earns much from amazon or ebay, you would better to code your own script with amazon/ebay override disabled at viglink/skimlink services. I will update the comparison of affiliate networks (you can look from my signature) page soon. I heard VigLink start to create links from text too... It's also good to include 123linkit services into my review. Wish, they start to support link affiliates soon.
    • [1] reply
    • Bit of a late reply... but, are you saying that skimlinks amazon override script doesn't fully work?
  • Skimlinks is legit. It is owned/run by Alicea and there are many articles out there about her and the company. A lot of people use it to:

    1. promote affiliate offers that they have been rejected for themselves
    2. promote Amazon when Amazon was banned in your state
    3. ease of use

    That said, they do take a 25% chunk of your earnings.
    So the question is would you pay 25% of your earnings in order to effectively have them manage your affiliate links on your site.

    I use them for one site where I have links going to 100's of different advertisers because it would be a nightmare for me to try to manage this myself and I'm willing to sacrifice the 25% for the time it saves me. On sites where I am only promoting a handful or less of affiliate programs I do not use Skimlinks because I'm not willing to pay them the 25% cut on those sites.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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  • 103

    Do any affiliates use skimlinks.com?

    Does anyone use skimlinks.com to indirectly direct their links to their merchant? Or has anyone heard any success stories regarding it? As a California resident, I'm interested in this service for promoting Amazon products after the affiliate cut. So I'd like to hear from first-hand experience.