How you normally cloak your affiliate link or you just direct using the affiliate link in a blog post or place it at somewhere in your blog such as sidebar? Cloaking an affiliate link professionally could definitely increase the click through rate and sales. There are many ways to cloak an affiliate link, either using free method or using paid softwares and tools.
There is nothing wrong to use free method to cloak your affiliate link, you can simple create a folder and an index file with some redirection coding and you’re done. Why people still want to use paid softwares or tools for link cloaking if they can do it themselves without paying a cent? Of course, there is some features which free method couldn’t do but they can be done by using paid softwares and tools.
Cloak Your Affiliate Link Professional
I’ve been using free method to cloak my affiliate link on my blog, but I found it difficult to track the performance of the affiliate link such as the click through rate and etc. We don’t know how’s the conversion rate of the affiliate link, so we need a link cloaking software or tool to do the job for us. Recently I got to know about a link cloaking tool named LinkTrackr and I’m testing the performance of this tool.
Linktrackr - Links
LinkTrakcr is a link cloaking software which helps you to cloak the affiliate link and track the performance. That being said, you’ll know which affiliate link converts well and which affiliate link does not. It’s a very simple software, you just have to add your link and do the setting, place the affiliate link with your desired URL for better conversion, and track the performance, that’s it.
Linktrackr - Links Setting
The tool is easy to use, even a 10 years old kid knows how to use and manage it. What I like LinkTrackr is the statistics, at least I know which affiliate link converts well. If the affiliate link doesn’t convert well, then I know that I need to do something else to increase the click through rate, this is what I can’t do with the free link cloaking method.
Linktrackr - Stats
LinkTrackr benefits:
- Easy to use web-based application – great for the average user
- Complete video tutorials, knowledgebase and PDF guides
- Viral marketing tools that help you get free traffic
- Flexible billing and low start-up costs – $1 trial, cancel anytime
- Don’t have to install / upgrade / fix script or software
- Centralized ad / click tracking for all your sites and blogs
- Complete data backups, reliable 24/7 servers
- Constant improvement and optimization
LinkTrackr features:
- Link cloaking, link tracking / masking
- Full graphical stats and reports
- Viral bar – shares your cloaked link on FaceBook / Twitter
- Custom domain names – as many different domains as you want
- WordPress plugin that converts keywords to your tracking links
- Use on all kinds of static sites, BlogSpot blogs, email links, PPC ads
Upcoming features:
- Weekly / monthly email reports of top 10 links
- A/B split testing and conversion tracking
- Integration with ClickBank API for accurate conversion tracking
- Viral bar can be positioned on top or at the bottom
- Ad builder – create ads similar to Google AdSense from all your links
Wrap Up
The method that you use to cloak your link would definitely affect the click through rate and sales, so you must learn how to cloak your affiliate link professionally. If you’re an affiliate marketer, you definitely need to know about the strategies of link cloaking. LinkTrackr provides free affiliate tips on their site and I’m sure you’ll learn something new over there.
Have you heard about LinkTrackr? Or if you’re using it, what do you think about LinkTrackr?
Image Credit : tarotastic
About Lee Ka Hoong
Very good Lee. I can see some possibilities with the software in some of the things we do in real estate. Nice!
Colleen@Kennewick Homes recently posted..Barnard Griffin Winery’s 5 for 5 at 5-00pm
Hi Lee,
I have look little deeper on LinkTrackr and If you have affiliate link on your blog or site; buy it, its very good and cheap.
I also cloak my affiliate links because it looks more professional and many people are afraid of clicking on strange ugly looking links.I normally cloak my links with a simple redirect but perhaps a cloaking software would be the best way to go.
Tom @ marketing tips recently posted..Top WordPress Plugins For Internet Marketers
i awalys use pretty link plugin. Its free and i’m fine with that.
abrablog recently posted..Get SEO juice from Squidoo
Yes if you have an existing free plugin, there is not much reason to switch. Just be sure you are using a trustworthy plugin as it would be easy for them to randomly replace your affiliate link with their own.
I too normally just setup cloaking on my own site for free. I don’t like having a middleman between my affiliate links. Also I could imagine it being quite time consuming to setup external tracking software if you have a high number of affiliate links.
It’s good to know there is an intuitive tool out there to help cloak affiliate links. However my experience has shown no matter how good that tool is a persistent hijacker can always beat the program. Only the affiliate web site can really create a way to hide affiliate link and make sure the initial referrer gets the commission.
SEO Expert SF CA recently posted..Overview Of Social Media As A Marketing Channel
Doing things manually is bit tedious job but it is secure, I dont believe pretty links authors is going to steal any of the affiliate links.
Imran recently posted..10 Great WordPress 30 Ready Themes for Free
By the way, the title of this post is misleading. Hijacking more refers to stealing something from others, whereas this is more of a technique just to boost CTR and sales.
Cloaking link professionally to hijack CTR and sales; is a perfect title for this nice article.
Great share Lee! I’m still new in cloaking links. I will consider to try what you’ve mentioned there :-D
Jeen Hao@ Become a Super Affiliate recently posted..How to Become a Super Affiliate in 5 Steps!
Thanks! It took me a minute in confusion to realize this really isnt about hijacking links, thank goodness, but I needed to find a good link tracking plug in so I will check this one out too.