Maskng Affiliate Links. Does It Really Improve Converison Rates?

[kflo01]

Does using url masking services like tinyurl or using domain redirects in your cpanel really improve CTR and conversion rates?

Also if you had the choice would you rather use a service like tinyurl or pinurl or your domain redirects in your cpanel and why?

Thanks in advance

 

[Larwee]

kflo01, here are a few threads you might find helpful.

HTAccess Cloaking How-To http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...s/9457-how-redirect-using-html.html#post28579

<a href="http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/internet-marketing-article-submissions/1992-how-hide-your-affiliate-links.html">How to hide your affiliate links</a>

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...m/10121-cloaking.html?highlight=link+cloaking

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...m/13244-link-cloaking.html?highlight=htaccess

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...cloak-affiliate-links.html?highlight=htaccess

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...pting-affiliate-links.html?highlight=htaccess

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...liate-links-wordpress.html?highlight=htaccess

 

[Linda Buquet]

Does using url masking services like tinyurl or using domain redirects in your cpanel really improve CTR and conversion rates?

Also if you had the choice would you rather use a service like tinyurl or pinurl or your domain redirects in your cpanel and why?

Using regular redirects like through htaccess can help conversions because some people are scared to click long weird looking URLS. I think given the choice of clicking yoursite.com/product vs gkpdjzjk.com/?pidrduwi2335867 most would pick the one with the 1st one.

To me and I think most normal people who aren't marketers (therefore maybe used to it) Tinyurl and other redirect services look very spammy. I won't even click on one usually unless it has a preview so I can see where it's taking me, because there's so much junky stuff out there using TinyUrl.

My 2 cents...

 

[Anomaly]

agree with what's been said, i'd avoid tinyurl like the plague, who wants to click on tinyurl.com/DD7GJIE02 ... you have no idea what you're getting ...

what works best i think is something like yourdomain.com/recommends/product or something like that ...

 

[CharlieEssmeier]

I don't know that using TinyURL helps much, as I don't like clicking on links when I don't know where they're going.

I also don't like clicking on links that look like this:

hxxp://www.blahblahblah.com/e?=this_is_an_affiliate_link

I cloak my links so they help motivate my customers to click on them. They tend to look like this:

hxxp://www.mydomain.com/recommends/This_Product

As a bonus, cloaked links help hinder hijacking by other affiliates.

Charlie

 

[Edwin]

If you want really clean looking URL's you can do the following:

First you create a redirect page to either simply 301 redirect or strip your referrer information, whatever works for you.

I'll use the example of a basic 301 php redirect which will keep your referrer information intact.

Open up notepad and copy and paste the following code and when you save it name it as you see fit, i.e. - you could name it if it is a affiliate program for digital cameras and the link goes to a product page for a Nikon camera, you name it nikonmodel500.php or something like that.

<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.your-affiliate-link-goes-here.com" );
?>

The reason why is in the event your visitor has javascript turned off it will still show a decent link.

But since almost everybody has it turned on we can take it to the next step and that is to make your link look like whichever link you want it to be.

So when your affiliate link links to Amazon's product page, you can actually show the Amazon product page in the status bar.

Your visitor will not see it links to a affiliate url nor that it links to a page on your own site.

With the previous page you have created ready you will continue by creating the link code you use on your sales page as follows:

<a href='/nikonmodel500.php' name="http://www.amazon.com/nikon500/">Buy Nikon 500</a>

Then you place this code at the bottom of your page:

<script language="javascript">
_links = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for(i=0;i<_links.length;i++) {
if(_links[i].name) {
_links[i].onclick = function() {
window.location = this.name;
return false;
};
_tmp = _links[i].href;
_links[i].href = _links[i].name;
_links[i].name = _tmp;
}
}
</script>

Doing all this you will now be able to show whichever url in the status bar to your visitors and when clicked it will in a blink of an eye use the redirect that you've created and uploaded to your server holding your affiliate url to Amazon's product page.

One of the better ways to mask your affiliate urls, since it actually looks like a official url when you hover over it, upon clicking it you'll briefly see the redirect to the php page you've created, but the non-webmasters you cater to would probably not even notice this most of the time.