Link Cloaking and Tracking Questions Answered

Some of the information and links contained in this article are now deprecated and I ask you to refer to my later posts for up to the minute link cloaking advice and tips so....

PLEASE READ MY LATEST POSTS ON LINK CLOAKING FOR UP TO DATE INFORMATION

1) Affiliate Links and Internet Explorer

2) Link Cloaking Updates & Covert Links

UPDATE: The Cloaker Script Of Choice - Samurai Stealth Cloaker

Not long ago I wrote a post about cloaking affiliate links, but it's still a subject that I am asked about more frequently than almost any other. This surprises me because there is a lot of information out there if you go looking.

When someone asked me the other day what system I use myself, I didn't really have a simple answer because I test and use various methods depending on what I'm doing. In the spirit of helping others out, here are just a few more tips and tools you might find useful. (all of which I use or have used myself).

1) Doing it yourself with PHP (described in the earlier post, if you want to check it out) for those with a web hosting account.

2) Free Third party services offering cloaking and tracking. There are a lot of these about and I can't claim to have used them all, but I have tried ClickAudit and still use it from time to time, and Viral Link Tracker which I also think is worth a look.

NOTE: Clickaudit has been closed and is no longer available.

Another possible option would be Jon Leger's service called OffTo.net which, like Leadsleap, combines link cloaking with viral advertising on a credits based system.  

Third party services like this are the easiest option for those who don't have a hosting account of their own. Both are simple to set up and fine for anyone wanting basic click count. Personally I don't think any of them come close to a proper cloaking solution on your own domain, but if you're stuck on not having a hosting account they are all you have left. Viral Link Tracker has several additional features, the usefulness of which will depend a lot on what you are up to, but it does have a viral element.

There are several others but some I would not recommend because they have been overused by too many people pushing too much rubbish and as a result, to my mind, look rather "spammy" and obvious. That's just my opinion though and I'm not naming names.

The new kid on the block, which I only read about today, is a new service from the excellent LeadsLeap program. If you don't know about LeadsLeap, it's an interesting take on viral promotion and advertising. You can read all about it in my previous post on The LeadsLeap Traffic and Listbuilding program. Don't be too put off by the landing page, it is actually a very effective viral tool.

Anyway, the program owner continues to refine it and introduce new features, (a viral blog and a private messaging facility to name a couple) the latest being a link cloaker. Just so you can see how it works, I have taken one of my raw affiliate URL's -

http://wwkiosk.com/members/mosnell/

and applied the LeadsLeap effect like this:

http://www.leadsleap.com/go/10229

If you click on the cloaked link you will notice the "countdown" advertisement at the top of the page. (It can also be placed at the bottom) This can be turned on or off with each cloaked link you create - it has the potential to be annoying and distracting, so I would think carefully about how and when you use it. I just included it for the purposes of this demo. The address bar in the browser will not show your affiliate link, only the Leadsleap shortened URL.

3) Cloaking your links using software that is capable of encrypting the redirect and preventing even the most dedicated snoopers from viewing your page source. This is for those with a hosting account only.

Once upon a time you paid for these things, but they are now freely available. I've been using a couple of them in recent months - one is Cloaker Buzz. Download it, install it, run it, type in your URL, press a button and it turns out the HTML required. Save it, upload it to your server inside your chosen directory and name it "index.html" and you will have a fully cloaked link, like this one, where snoopers that view the source of your page will come up empty handed and where the URL in the browser address bar appears as you dictate.

http://www.thecaymanhost.com/passive_profit_robot/

If you like this idea, you can get a free copy of the software through this link - Cloaker Buzz Link Cloaker

Another free option can be found at this membership site, and will do the same thing. All you have to do is sign up for a free account and the cloaker is just one of the tools you get to enjoy.

PLR Wholesaler Sign Up Page

OK, that about covers cloaking, but what about tracking if you don't want to use a third party service? Well, I only usually bother with tracking clicks in my email campaigns, and here's how I do it.

I cloak the link using a software application as described in 3 above. I then convert that link to one that I can track from within my autoresponder service. Let's take the example I used for Leadsleap - my cloaked link www.thecaymanhost.com/kiosk/ then becomes this

http://kioskcities.ws/cgi-bin/t.cgi?k=caynews2:2

I use an autoresponder service provided by my host, but if you use one of the third party sevices they will usually offer full tracking of your links as well as more detailed stats on delivery rates, and mails opened etc. which, as users will tell you, is a great benefit for tracking and testing their campaigns.

The final option is to install a tracking and cloaking script on your server. There are several available but this one is free, simple to set up, very effective and works on both Linux and Windows servers. You will require an available MySQL database.

The Ultimate Link Cloaker Download Page

OK, that about covers it, I hope you will find that one or some of these solutions fit the bill for you.

Remember, there are plenty of paid options too, ranging in price from a few bucks up to nearly $100, and there are even people selling the information contained in this post. Save your money, because there really is no need to buy link cloaking software, and you now have all the information you need.

More On Cloaking and Tracking Your Affiliate Links

Some of the information and links contained in this article are now deprecated or broken and I ask you to refer to my later posts for up to the minute link cloaking advice and tips so....

PLEASE READ MY LATEST POSTS ON LINK CLOAKING FOR UP TO DATE INFORMATION

1) Affiliate Links and Internet Explorer

2) Link Cloaking Updates & Covert Links

Much has been said about the importance of securing affiliate links and there are various ways of going about it.

Although popular opinion agrees that it is, without doubt essential to disguise affiliate links if you want to maximize your conversion rates, there there are conflicting ideas about the best way to do it.

I'm going to give you what is in my opinion, the best way I have found to achieve secure affiliate links and show you, by way of demonstration, how it works in relation to various cloaking options. I'm going to look at just three options, and show you the benefits and pitfalls of each, using a popular affiliate program offering cheap caribbean vacations.

1) PHP redirects - the most obvious benefit of this method is that it's free and easy to use. Here's how it works:-

Our raw affiliate link looks like this: 

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-2392857-10426292

It's pretty obvious and pretty ugly, and by using a php redirect we can turn it into something like this -

http://www.thecaymanhost.com/caribbean-vacations2/

This is simple to do. Create a new directory on your server, called whatever you like - in this case we have created a folder called "caribbean-vacations2". Then, create a file within that directory called "index.php" and use the following code

<?php header('Location: http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-2392857-10426292'); ?>

There is no need for all those spaces between php and header - just one will do but my blog engine seems to want to put in those spaces!! 

As you can see, we've used the original affiliate link in the code, and you would change this to your own link of course. Click on both links and you will see that they both now take you to the same place. However - and this is a big however - you will notice that once you get to the web page in question, the address bar in the browser will still show an ugly long affiliate link. So, PHP redirect works - but only up to a point!

2) Free cloaking services are plentiful and some are better than others. I'm going to illustrate with a new free service called ViralLinkTracker.com which is free and offers some pretty cool features.

Here is the cloaked link generated - quickly and easily from the members area -

http://www.virallinktracker.com/vlt/links/7570

The important thing to note here is the address bar in your browser - it still shows the link that your visitor clicked on. The program also offers a secure cookie option and the ability to promote the cloaking program itself if you so wish. On the face of it, as a free solution it's pretty good and definitely one of the best free services released in quite a while. However, it can't be ignored that the link still looks like an obviously cloaked affiliate link. Many savvy surfers will know this, and maybe go back to the website after clearing their cookies and just buy through their own affiliate link or just to ensure that they don't buy through an affiliate link at all!

3) Here is my solution of choice - an encrypted redirect which for this example looks like this -

http://www.thecaymanhost.com/caribbean-vacations/

Looks like the PHP option right? Yes, it does, but now, when you click on the link, you will see the important difference in the address bar - it shows the link exactly as clicked. I'm not a techie, but I achieve this using the excellent Web Army Knife program. This software is not free, but contains a collection of great marketing tools and I think it's worth the price for this encrypted cloaking tool alone.

I should also add, that even viewing the source code of the page won't do a snooper any good - try it and see for yourself. I've tried other cloakers in the past, but this one is still the best by far. If that changes anytime I'll update you here on the blog.

Whatever option you choose, there is really no excuse for leaving your affiliate links as naked as the day they were born any longer. If you do you are inviting the loss of commissions on a daily basis.

TCH

Web Hosting | Marketing | Autoresponders 

Tiresome Affiliate Bashing Is Illogical

I have a couple of things to say today about affiliate marketing. Not so much for affiliates, more for the people who have somehow made the giant leap in their imaginations that it is somehow seedy or evil or somewhere in between those two extremes. What I want to know is - why is that? Discounting a lot of the unethical marketing proponents and people selling rubbish and of course the ever hated spammers, what do people have against affiliates?

Let’s take hosting. As an affiliate for various hosting companies I am forever encountering the argument that "you only promote it because you stand to get a commission" - therefore, "any review or comment written by an affiliate is worthless". Then there is the sweeping statement that "finding reliable reviews of hosting companies is impossible because of affiliate marketing". So, let’s examine those beliefs a little more closely. It is obvious that affiliates do what they do to make money, there is no argument there. It is also possible that some affiliates will write or say some things that they can’t back up with personal experience - also true. However, there is a big gap between that and the assumption that all affiliates are dishonest or only out for a quick buck or all the other misinformation out there about affiliate marketing. Tarring every affiliate with the same brush is hardly a balanced or reliable metric.

How Do I Make Money Online Part One - Kiosk.ws Affiliate Program

I often find when reading blogs about making money online that the information provided falls some way short of really telling people anything they don't already know, or skirts around the edges of  a subject leaving you unfulfilled and in many cases, suspicious of the author's true knowledge. Before starting this post, I was thinking of talking about how I made my first money online, but a friendly blogger only recently made a similar post so I decided to save that for another day. Instead, I've decided to talk in depth about one of the most successful revenue generators I have worked with.  Now, this is a long post, and my aim is to preempt a lot of questions and give people a thorough insight into one of the ways I currently earn money online.  I hope you will find it worth the read and that it will inspire you to continue your own efforts.

I have tried to write this so that it will be helpful to both beginners and the more experienced, so if some sections seem a little obvious, please bear with me and remember that you may know a lot more than some readers. 

If Andy Beard Says It's Cool...

......then DealDotCom must be worth looking into right? OK, that was a shameless piece of name dropping for which I hope he'll forgive me, particularly as I'm now one of his DealDotCom Queen Bees :-)

The program is set to launch on September 18 and offers a two tier affiliate program. I think a lot of savvy marketers will jump on board simply because once an affiliate signs up, they become "yours" for life. Any sales you make whether a week from now or five years from now, will ensure you a commission - no 30 day cookies here.

I don't plan to give this a huge talking up, just head over to the site if you're interested and read what they have to say - hopefully you'll want to join before everyone else does. It won't cost you anything to become an affiliate and could see you making some good commissions in the years ahead, particularly if you're able to get in nice and early.

Affiliate Data Feeds Made Simpler

If you are involved in affiliate marketing you've no doubt heard of data feeds, and might even have looked into using them on your own sites.

I'll be up front and admit that I'm certainly no expert, and that data feeds seem like a great idea until you realize that it's not that easy to use them without some technical know how. There are many helpful resources explaining what they are and how to use them and these are very helpful for some people, but very intimidating for others with for example, little PHP and SQL experience.

Some of the best articles and guides on affiliate data feeds are to be found at Carsten Cumbrowski's website, together with a lengthy list of useful resources and I would highly recommend this site as your first port of call. If you don't want to wade through all the links there just yet, bookmark his site and read on for a couple of quick and simple data feed tools that anyone can use, free of charge.

For beginners and those who don't want to spend money up front, one of the simplest ways to start using data feeds is via the web based application provided by FeedProcessor.com which will enable you to process and use data feeds in various ways, including converting them to RSS or building site templates from scratch. There are of course plenty of paid services, scripts and software out there that will do these things and more, but if you're just wanting to dip a toe in the water, this free web app is a winner.

I should also mention the excellent PopShops which is also free and enables anyone to build affiliate storefronts to add to existing websites with their simple point and click interface. They have a very user friendly and attractive Web 2.0 layout which makes the site even more appealing. This is also highly recommended and even the pro versions are great value if you decide to start building more substantial affiliate based websites.

This post is affiliate link free - enjoy the free tools without making anyone richer but yourself!

Since writing this post I unwittingly spawned another discussion on affiliate data feeds at the 5Star Affiliate forums to which the eminent Carsten Cumbrowski has added some very useful comments, so I thought it would be beneficial to include another link here. 

TCH

Is Email Marketing Still A Worthwhile Option?

For many bloggers and affiliate marketers the idea of any kind of email marketing is often not even a consideration. For some, the idea of marketing using such an old fashioned method is simply not worth it, but there are still plenty of people enjoying varying levels of success using email to get their message out, the question is, should you reconsider?

If you are a blogger you already have an RSS feed and you should have an option enabled for people to subscribe to your feeds via email and that's a great start for keeping in touch with your readership. But what about people who don't read blogs or subscribe to RSS feeds? There are always new people you can reach and a large number of them still use email far more than anything else.

The problem with email marketing is building your list of opt in subscribers, and for some people this is the stumbling block that prevents them from ever developing a "warm" email list. You should never even consider unsolicited mail to anyone, particularly if it is commercial in nature, and  a whole industry has sprung up in recent times, advising people on how to build a list, wearing out phrases like "the money is in the list!" But is it true and is it really worth trying to build that almost mythical profit machine? A lot of marketers will tell you categorically yes, 100%, so let's examine things a little more closely.

An email marketing strategy can indeed be a powerful tool for affiliates and this is why the whole list building machine still runs at full throttle. There are many ways you can build a list, or try to, so let's take a look at some of the options available.

Most people are well aware of the use of pages designed to do nothing but capture an email address - usually they will promise or offer something in exchange for which you must fill out your name and email address - capture pages. Sometimes they will offer a free report or e-book or video, the value of which can range from absolutely nothing to very useful, but the purpose is to get respondents onto an opt-in list. This is hardly news to most people, and the effectiveness of capture pages has waned as more people become more savvy, but, used properly they are still a valid way to start building a list of addresses to market your services to. To put one in place you will need your own hosting and access to an autoresponder service - this means spending money to make money, so if you still believe in free, it is not really an option. Several hosting companies including Kiosk.ws provide fully featured autoresponders and lead capture pages as part of their hosting packages.

There are countless list building programs that are ostensibly free to join but are they effective? Well, the earlier you get into one, the greater chance you have of developing a reasonable list, but you will still need to persuade new people to join, and the ultimate problem with these lists are that you are sending messages out to other marketers whose main aim is to sell or promote something of their own. This type of list is therefore less likely to see much of a return, but, they can be successful if you have something of worth to offer the demographic of the  membership. One such service is Your Lucky List which works on the basis of a regularly updated matrix, meaning that even if you don't directly recruit many new list members yourself, you will still be able to mail to a certain number of members each week. Ultimately, you are building a list for the program owner who is therefore the biggest winner.

You could try setting up something like a traffic exchange - there is a good reason for the explosion in the number of  traffic exchanges - you guessed it, building a mailing list! The effectiveness of traffic exchanges is a debate that has raged forever and despite one or two innovative ideas over the years, most of them are a dead loss in terms of promotion. Very few users of traffic exchanges are serious buyers of anything, which is why they are using free traffic generation of this nature, usually in vain attempts to recruit people into dubious MLM's and the like. However, it can be worth promoting certain free programs on them, particularly of you are working an affiliate program that pays for referrals or rewards you on a CPA basis as just one example. However, in general, the traffic exchange owners are the smart ones, they are building a list, just like any other membership site owners.

At this point I will mention safelists - these are invariably totally ineffective, simply because they rely on each member receiving huge amounts of mail from the list themselves and any savvy user just uses a dump email address and never reads a single message from the other members. They are certainly no substitute for building your own list, just as the safelist owners are doing. There are one or two safelist ideas that work slightly better than the traditional format, and one that springs to mind is Muscle Mail Safelist which works on a credit based system and requires the membership to at least read some mail if they wish to send any themselves. These types of safelist are really the only ones worth considering if you want to use them at all.

If you are cheap and still want to try your hand at developing some kind of list without too much financial outlay or effort, developing technology has seen the rise of things like direct desktop software such as Desktop Lightning. This doesn't rely on email, but enables you to send messages directly to the desktops of other users providing they continue to run the easily installed software. It's actually very good, although, as with other programs, the owner is the biggest beneficiary, and you could argue that you are still just preaching to the converted.

So, the message would seem to be, if you're serious about building a responsive list, it takes work, money and time - nothing new there then.

If you are prepared to spend a little money, there are several options and one very useful program from LeadSpinner enables you to collect email addresses from all your website visitors. It's automated and runs on your chosen sites 24/7, turning visitors into qualified prospects ethically and simply. You can find out more at the LeadSpinner website. (Update - LeadSpinner is currently out od action)

If you are already using email to market your services you might also be interested in developing your campaigns and raising them to a very professional level with the services of someone like Constant Contact who can turn your marketing campaigns into very slick looking sales copy with templates, surveys and more. At present they are offering a free 60 day trial and thereafter costs are very reasonable and should definitely help marketers see a much better ROI from email shots to their lists.

With so much focus nowadays on PPC , blogging and social networking as THE tools of the affiliate marketer, maybe adding a list building strategy of some kind wouldn't do any harm; after all, the succesful affiliate should not overlook any potential avenue for sales and conversions.

TCH 

Hosting/Marketing/Autoresponders

Google Cash Detective Much Needed Update

Since the original official launch of GCD, the problems that followed and now the release of another 500 copies, I have been seeing a lot of visitors to these pages, many, I imagine, looking for help with hosting, installation of the script and/or other difficulties. I just wanted to put a quick post up to try and direct people to a couple of places where they are more likely to find help with Google Cash Detective. Once commentator has already left details of the Unofficial GCD Forum on another of my posts here and there have also been discussions at the Digital Point Forum. 

There is also some information and discussions that have been going on over at Work Boxers on a couple of posts. Google Adwords Keyword Tool and GCD versus AdspyPro plus another interesting post entitled Opposition Rising Against......