Affiliate Software Change: Frustration for Affiliates

Affiliate managers are going to use the software that gives them the best options possible. So it’s not too unreasonable for them to make software changes from time to time. If you happen to be partnering with CJ or LinkShare affiliates, chances are you won’t have to worry too much about affiliate software changes. But affiliate programs do jump from one network to another from time to time. That all means that affiliates will have to be alert about the links that they are using on their websites and have a way to keep track of them. Affiliate programs do tend to give affiliates enough time to change their links, but that’s not always a given.

I have seen so many affiliates that are all over the place with their approach to adding links to their websites. It’s so easy to just use a service such as bit.ly to add affiliate links to your website. Sure, the tracking is nice. But if there is a change in your affiliate URLs, you are going to have to do a lot of URL updating. Spending time updating URLs all over your campaigns is not the best way to use your time, which is why you should never use a third party service to handle your affiliate links.

I understand that a lot of affiliates want to mask their URLs and keep track of the hits they get. But going with services such as bit.ly or BudURL is not the way to go. You are going to want to have a main URL that you can update once across your campaigns. That can easily be done through your .htaccess file. If you are using WordPress, plugins such as Redirection help you add URLs and keep track of the hits they get as well.

Working with affiliate partners is all about planning ahead and thinking of ways to improve the efficiency of your operations. Not having a proper affiliate link tracking system in place can be the difference between getting a lot done in a month or worrying about potential changes to your affiliate URLs. Using bit.ly and other similar services may be much easier on the surface. But you are going to thank yourself for using your own affiliate URL tracking system when your affiliate program moves to another platform.