A few questions regarding Linkshare links

[scotopia]

Hey all,

1) Linkshare programs are country specific, so for instance the links the iTunes banners on Omegasoft - The Last Word In iPhone Entertainment route through the US Linkshare. What happens if users in other countries browse to my webpage and hit that link? Does it just go to there normal iTunes and i just don't get commissions or does it throw up an error in their iTunes?

2) Is there any way to "Affiliatize" the link to your developer profile in iTunes (for instance: iTunes Store - Omegasoft )

These are two linkshare links for two of my apps:

Aura Trainer for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/...rtnerId%253D30

It seems like, from looking at these urls, that there may be some way to modify the developer link by appending most of the info in the above links to "affiliatize it". Does anyone know about this? Thanks!!

[DenVog]

Originally Posted by scotopia

Hey all,

1) Linkshare programs are country specific, so for instance the links the iTunes banners on Omegasoft - The Last Word In iPhone Entertainment route through the US Linkshare. What happens if users in other countries browse to my webpage and hit that link? Does it just go to there normal iTunes and i just don't get commissions or does it throw up an error in their iTunes?

My understanding is that as long as the item you point to is available for sale in the iTunes store of the country the user is signed into, the LinkShare link will redirect to the appropriate product for that country's store. Meaning that you shouldn't have to create country-specific URL.

The caveat is that not all items are available in all countries. So for example I've found some music I like on the UK iTunes store, that's not available for sale on the US iTunes store.

I would highly encourage you to confirm this with your app. I had one user complain that links weren't working for his store, but I think it was for items not available in his country. I never could get him to confirm/deny.

[scotopia]

Thanks Den,

I got another quick question. I want to know what the affiliate link will be for a new app before it gets in the store...based on the above would it be fair to assume that the link would be:

http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/...rtnerId%253D30

where MY APP NAME is the app name and MYNUMBER is the app ID. (copy paste the link and the ones in my OP and paste them somewhere to compare).

If so how would special characters need to be fore the app name. (as my app name is like "This Thing : Super Awesome" with a colon in it. Thanks!

[DenVog]

Originally Posted by scotopia

I got another quick question. I want to know what the affiliate link will be for a new app before it gets in the store.

where MY APP NAME is the app name and MYNUMBER is the app ID. (copy paste the link and the ones in my OP and paste them somewhere to compare).

Test this, as I'm trying to respond from memory and a single cup of coffee. First you need to decipher the name of your app in iTunes store. You should be able to get the app ID from iTunes Connect. Linkshare includes a link generator in their site. Use it to construct a couple URL for your apps and see what's different between the two. Should only be the app name and ID. Key thing you don't want to change is your Linkshare partnerid.

I thought there was an existing thread in this forum covering this in detail, but I can't find the link to it right now. You might also want to check the help file in Linkshare.

Originally Posted by scotopia

If so how would special characters need to be fore the app name. (as my app name is like "This Thing : Super Awesome" with a colon in it. Thanks!

Does Apple allow special characters in the App name? Since you're passing a URL, I think you have to escape/encode it (e.g. a space becomes "%20").

I recommend you try constructing some test URL for existing apps on the app store and see what works. I didn't find it very intuitive. For example my app name is "Kevin Smith", but in the Linkshare URL they change it to "kevin-smith". Had I guessed I would have used "kevin%20smith".

[scotopia]

Yeah... from the above the only thing that was different between multiple links was the app name and id number; but as you said the fact that they added mystery underscores instead of the ascii code for spaces gave me pause.

I think with some experimenting it may even be possible to affiliatize the developer profile page above (maybe just appending the partnerID). I'm not finding good docs on this sort of thing.

I seem to recall that a few of us here on the forums have actually written books about mastering the affiliate program...anyone care to weigh in?

[scotopia]

I figured out how to affiliatize the developer profile. In the linkshare linkmaker if you search out one of your apps; just click the arrow on the right of the iTunes like listing to get the developer link and not the app link... sweet; that's one question solved!

To see this in action click the icon banner in my sig...and then please buy everything on the iTunes store

[JesseP]

scotopia - It looks like you figured it out manually but there are some details about how to programmatically create affiliate links from raw iTunes or App Store links.

iTunes & App Store Affiliate Tools - Advanced Affiliate Linking

In regards to DenVog's comment about the different items available in different stores this is absolutely correct. Even though an item may be the "same" thing it may have a different ID and therefore the link will be different. This obviously makes things a little more challenging when dealing with an international audience.

And finally in regards to creating the link before it's available the ID is the only thing that is important. I think you can have whatever you want as the title and it won't matter.

I hope that helps.

Let me know if you want to try out my service that does the geo-targeting, translating and affiliate encoding on the fly for iTunes and App Store links.