Affiliate Link Cloaking - Why Should You Use It?

Have you heard people talking about Affiliate Link Cloaking? Perhaps you've been wondering how it works and if it's something you should be using on your website?

There are a couple practical reasons why you may want to cloak your affiliate links,

Affiliate links can be hijacked - this is when someone, usually another affiliate, uses their own affiliate link to purchase the product you're promoting. They can copy your affiliate URL and then plug in their own affiliate id, effectively stealing your commission.

Affiliate links can be bypassed - this is when someone simply goes directly to the merchant's main sales site by removing your affiliate link. People may do this because they don't want you to get any commission for the product they're purchasing.

There are also various cosmetic reasons why you may want to cloak your affiliate links, the most useful being affiliate link condensing. Some affiliate links are long and ugly, which makes them appear unattractive and some people may avoid clicking the link. Affiliate links like this are easily recognizable by many people, which may cause them to avoid clicking the link because they feel it's a sales pitch. Plus, an affiliate link that stand out opens the door for affiliate link hijacking and bypassing.

How Do I Cloak My Affiliate Links?

The easiest way to cloak your affiliate links is to create a framed page. This is explained in detail at No-Nonsense-Marketing.com – Affiliate Link Cloaking.

If you do not have your own website to host a cloaked page, you may want to consider a link cloaking service such as TinyURL.com. Link cloaking services take a URL and generate a redirect for them using a shortened URL such as http://tinyurl.com/merchantsite. However, if you decide to use a link cloaking service, be aware that some pay-per-click programs and ad sites don't allow the use of redirected URLs.

Once you've learned how to cloak your links, you may ask yourself if this technique is appropriate for your website. Cloaking your affiliate links can be a useful technique to secure your commissions, but it is a little misleading to your visitors. You will ultimately need to decide if affiliate link cloaking is right for your business.

How to Sell Your Product Using Affiliate Marketing Part II

We will therefore regard joint ventures as a different animal to affiliates, and exclude them from the topic of this article. You can either operate your own affiliate program, if you have the software to administer it, or have a third party such as Clickbank do it. Each has its specific advantages, though a program such as Click bank or Pay-Dot-Com is the better of the two for newcomers to affiliate marketing to promote their own products.

Taking Clickbank as the example, you first have to register with them as a merchant. You then provide details about your product and yourself. You have to set up your Hoplink details, that affiliates use in their link to your sales page, the sales page URL that the Hoplink is linked to, the price of your product, the affiliate commission, methods of payment, and so on. You also have to provide the URL of your 'Thank You' page.

Having done that, your product is put on Clickbank's database of products, or 'Marketplace'. Clickbank users can browse the Marketplace for products to sell, although you should offer your affiliate program on your own sales page and also within the product. This provides buyers of your product the opportunity to recoup the price they paid by selling two copies.

Commissions offered are generally 50% though can be higher. You will find it difficult to get takers at less that 50%. You can offer commissions to two levels if you want. The second tier is comprised of affiliates recruited by your initial affiliates. They get their 50% and you can also offer 5% or 10% to the people who recruited them. Although you pay out more, it is for sales you wouldn't have had originally.

Clickbank is a good way to sell electronically deliverable goods, and preferred over personal software systems by many experienced marketers. However, if your product is a physical product you will need to purchase your own affiliate software, or join another program such as Trade Doubler or Commission Junction. Quite frankly you are probably best with one of these companies, since they look after all the administration and payments for you, and it is a lot less bother than trying to do it yourself.

If you have a product to sell, or frequently generate products to sell on your website, you should learn how to sell your product using affiliate marketing since you will then have lots of other people generating sales for you that otherwise would not have had. This is well worth paying a 50% commission for!

History Department Professional Development Lecture

From the History Department at GW:

The department is planning a series of sessions on professional and research issues, and we're writing to announce the first meeting. The topic is Disseminating Your Work. The session will be held on Friday, February 25th, 2:00-3:30 p.m., in the department's conference rooms. We will cover issues involved in presenting a paper at a conference; preparing an article for submission to a journal; and publishing your dissertation.

We have consulted with interested representatives of the History Graduate Student Forum to develop sessions of interest to both M.A. and Ph.D. students. The session for March 25, 2005 will be devoted to history careers. In the fall semester, we will have sessions on preparing a dissertation prospectus and the job application process.