Companies, services and scripts that automatically scan your content and replace keywords or normal links with affiliate links are not new however, when a company like Skimlinks comes along with such a slick and powerful product it deserves a closer look. Suddenly giving a chunk of your commission away in exchange for using their technology isn’t perhaps too much of an issue after all.

Put simply, Skimlinks takes normal product links and replaces them with affiliate links on-the-fly. By simply placing a single line of code on your site you can not only monitise new content but it’ll automatically scan through and populate the archives. Is it any wonder why large online content publishers like The Daily Mail who receive 19.7 million unique visitors per month are implementing the technology.

So how does it work?

The recruitment of The Daily Mail and content heavy sites such as OSOYOU and T3 hasn’t gone unnoticed by investors as reported last month on Techcrunch who broke news surrounding Skimlinks successful first round investment.

The move means it has now attracted first round investment led by Sussex Place Ventures with participation from UK government body NESTA, The Accelerator Group, and Angels Duncan Jennings (eConversions) and Alex Hoye (Latitude Group). The amount was undisclosed but is understood to be in the vicinity of £700,000.

In terms of reach, Skimlinks aggregates a reported 7000 merchants across 16 leading networks. This in itself is quite some achievement if you think about the idiosyncratic and sometimes overly complicated routes affiliates must navigate to build a working deeplink through a network interface. What’s impressive is that Skimlinks also allows it’s members to deeplink to a large number of merchants that don’t normally support deeplinking! It begs the question “why couldn’t networks offer this in the first place?”

Where does the control lie?

From an affiliate management perspective my initial concerns were over quality and where my clients links may now be appearing? What control, if any, would my clients now have over the affiliate application and approval process? What if there were affiliates my clients do not want to partner with, could these affiliates now simply apply via Skimlinks as a backdoor route? What if my client can’t for legal reasons work with say cashback sites? You get the idea…

I was pleased to see in the Skimlinks Merchants FAQ section that they had this covered…

However, if for whatever reason you do not wish to be part of Skimlinks, or do not want to feature on a specific publisher’s site, please let us know and we can exclude you on a case-by-case basis, or across the whole Skimlinks proposition.

We also provide a merchant login that gives you visibility as to what publishers are linking to you, and the ability to opt-out of specific publishers if you prefer not to work with them.

And again on the cashback scenario…

We don’t permit cashback or coupon sites to Skimlinks. Our criteria for inclusion is the publisher should be seen to add value to the purchase process, so offering a service or creating content that benefits the merchant.

In summary Skimlinks appears to be a dream solution that allows those who just want to focus on content to do exactly that without ever having to login to an affiliate network, sign up to a programme or pick up a link. For merchants, networks, or agencies there’s the reassurance that they can opt out if they really want to but as this appears to be a very well managed solution with a focus on driving additional quality would you really want to?

How much does it cost?

Skimlinks is free to join for all but if you’re an affiliate you are no doubt wondering what percentage of your commission you have to give away. The answer is 15%-25% depending on the revenues you generate.

You can sign up to Skimlinks here.

Thanks