Comments on: Skimlinks in action

By: Paul Wright

Paul Wright — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:19:33 +0000

Hi Jason,

From an affiliate management perspective this was my concern too. I gather Skimlinks have a merchant side to their system that allows merchants to see which affiliates (using skimlinks) are promoting their programme and remove if necessary. I’m sure the guy’s a Skimlinks can confirm. In fact I’m pretty sure this was in their FAQ.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:13:44 +0000

Hi Paul

An interesting read, how do merchants keep control of their brand? It seems that if I am declined from working with a merchant, I could sign up to Skimlinks and get paid.

We looked at this in depth when we were choosing the model for Easy Content Units, we originally planned to use our links all the time and pay the affiliates a share, but found that merchants were against this, as they couldn’t control where their links/products were being shown.

So now we show the affiliate’s links and payments are handled by the networks.

By: Paul Wright

Paul Wright — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:13:18 +0000

The world has just got a bit smaller…. I live with Tim Dingley!

By: Forest

Forest — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:42:28 +0000

Ha ha!!! Just came over here as a recommendation from my mate Duncan (He is a friend of Tim Dingley) and saw the first comment is from one of my friends / clients from up north :)…. Small small world.

Anyway I have just joined PPC Coach and am going to be trying out this Affiliate Marketing malarky a little more seriously…. will be back here and there.

By: wilcarter

wilcarter — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:14:02 +0000

Has anyone checked out the legality of the links not disclosing to your readers that you are paid as a sales agent? I read all the time about companies being fined for bad sales practice which is often things like not disclosing to the customer that you are a sales agent. In the energy market companies have been fined millions for bad sales practice. I couldn’t find any disclosure on Matthew Dunham MyDell Mini. With a forum your content is user generated so you are not going to know what you are a sales agent for. I wouldn’t be surpised if this isn’t under the radar for now but not sure I’d put all my eggs in one basket.

By: Emma

Emma — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:33:07 +0000

Thanks Paul, should ahve read the site eh :)

By: Paul Wright

Paul Wright — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:54:23 +0000

Hi Emma, glad you liked the post.

Almost all the info you need can be found in the Skimlinks FAQ however to answer your questions…

You don’t need to be signed up to the programmes yourself. It’s Skimlinks who do that and you instantly become a member of all the progrmames that they are already a member of. At the time of writing that was 4898 programmes across 16 networks.

Skimlinks record all the sales made via your links and pay you rather than you getting paid by the networks. You can log in to skim links and instantly see how many clicks and sales you’ve made. Within the Skimlinks interface you can inter in your bank account details so that they can deposit any commission due.

Hope that helps

Paul

By: Emma

Emma — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:36:11 +0000

Hi Paul,

Interesting post, do you have any insight as to how it works,

do you need to be signed up to the networks the programme is on and approved for the programme?
How does payment work if a sale is generated? Do skimlinks pay you or does the network?
How do you see the data is it all in the skimlinks system?

Thanks

Emma

By: Paul Wright

Paul Wright — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:23:51 +0000

Hi Matthew,

That sounds great way to use Skimlinks, especially when forums are notoriously difficult to monetise. What’s even better is that you now have people in your community providing the content, researching bargains and you benefit from the commission in exchange for running the website. I like it!

Thanks
Paul

By: Matthew Dunham

Matthew Dunham — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:18:00 +0000

I’ve been running skimlinks for about 2 weeks now on my netbook forum.

When I first started out there were very few places to purchase upgrades from, so I could easily make sure I had all the different stores covered with my affiliate programs, but 6 months later there are no end of different manufacturers offering upgrades for the products I cover. With many users posting links to all the latest deals all over the web it was hard for me to capitalise from the manufacturers without signing up to a specific program and then invasively changing a link to an affiliate one. Thankfully skimlinks addresses this exact situation, its a great service for making revenue, and saving time.

Especially now the cookies are out there the revenue is coming in!