If you are an affiliate marketer, joining multiple affiliate programs can be a great idea to earn more. But if you don’t manage your affiliate links, you will get in trouble as your blog grows bigger. In this post, I will show you how to properly manage your affiliate links.
As as affiliate marketer, you need to work smartly. And if you truly want to last long the game, you need to have a great vision.
Some affiliate programs you joined might switch to a new affiliate platform in the future and require you to change your affiliate links. In such a scenario, you logically need to edit your content as well. But, you don’t need to do that if you follow the tips below.
Shortcuts ⤵️
- Why You Should Manage Your Affiliate Links?
- Choosing the Right Link Manager Right Plugin
- Managing Your Affiliate Links
- Summary
Why You Should Manage Your Affiliate Links?
In general, the are two types of affiliate products: physical and digital. Amazon Associates is the most popular affiliate programs to find and promote physical products.
Now, image the following scenario.
You have a blog post in the form of listicle containing the best mirrorless cameras for beginners. The post performs very well on Google and is able of generating good sales on a monthly basis.
Suddenly, one day, you find that some of the products on the list are no longer available on Amazon. Since the post still has a good performance on Google, you plan to replace the affiliate links of the products that are no longer available on Amazon with the products from, say, Walmart.
Then you realize that you have mentioned the same products on several posts on your blog and start to think that editing each post to replace the affiliate links can take long.
But that’s not the case if you use a link manager plugin.
Instead of editing each blog post to replace the affiliate links, you only need to make the edit once.
How come?
Link Shortener Feature
Most link manager plugins come with a feature to shorten long links. This feature works by redirecting a link created by the link managers (the shortened link) to the original link (the long one).
You can leverage the above feature to manage your affiliate links.
For instance, if your original affiliate link is https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Alpha-ZV-E10-Interchangeable-Mirrorless/dp/B09BBLH4SG/, you can shorten it to something like https://utilizewp.com/go/sony-alpha. The latter link is the link you can add to your posts.
If you adopt the above practice, you only need to replace the original affiliate link in a case where an affiliate product is no longer available on a certain platform. You don’t need to edit the link already added to your blog posts.
Save time!
Another Scenario
Another scenario where using a link manager is extremely beneficial is when you promote SaaS products a lot on your affiliate blog.
For your information, most SaaS providers don’t use their own affiliate software. Instead, they mostly use a third-party affiliate software like Impact, Partnero, PartnerStack, Rewardful, and so on.
It’s a common thing to find an SaaS provider that switches from a certain affiliate software to another.
And when that thing happens, you typically need to replace your affiliate link.
Now, let’s go back to the mirrorless camera case above. How long it takes to edit all the content you have placed your affiliate link to if you don’t use a link manager?
In addition to the two scenarios above, using a link manager plugin is also beneficial in the new content creation process as you can easily find the affiliate link you want to add to your content in your WordPress dashboard.
Choosing the Right Plugin to Manage Your Affiliate Links
As I briefly mentioned above, most link manager plugins come with a link shortener feature which you can use shorten long links into the shorter versions that are easier to remember. However, it’s not the only feature you need to look.
To better organize your affiliate links, I strongly recommend you use a link manager that has a feature to create link categories. With this feature, you can add every link you create to a category to make it easy for you to find and edit it in the future. Much like the native post category of WordPress.
Another worth considering feature is statistics. With this feature, you can monitor the performance of the links you have shortened. A simple instance, you can find out how many clicks a certain link have earned.
Here are some key features you need to look on a link manager plugin:
- Link shortener
- Link category
- Statistics
- Ability to add link prefix
ClickWhale is one of the link manager plugins that has all the features above. And this post, I will show you how to manage your affiliate links using ClickWhale.
Managing Your Affiliate Links with ClickWhale
- Step 1: Install ClickWhale
- Step 2: Make the Necessary Settings
- Step 3: Add Some Categories
- Step 4: Add Your Affiliate Links
Step 1: Install and Activate ClickWhale
Before you can start managing your affiliate links, first, you need to install ClickWhale.
ClickWhale is a freemium plugin. The free version is available on WordPress.org, so that you can install it directly from your WordPress dashboard without needing to download the plugin file first.
Login to your WordPress dashboard and go to the plugin manager screen by clicking the Plugins menu on the menu panel. Then click the Add New Plugin button.
Type “clickwhale” on the search box and hit enter. Once you found it, click the Install Now button to install the plugin.
Activate the plugin right away once installed by clicking the Activate button.
On the next step, you will be asked whether you want to get email notifications about the plugin updates and other emails from the developer. This is optional. If you don’t want to get any email from its developer, you can click the Skip button.
Step 2: Make the Necessary Settings
Before adding any affiliate link, you can make some global settings first. This step is not required, but making global settings can help fasten the process of adding new affiliate links in the future.
You can make the global settings from the settings screen of ClickWhale, which is accessible by clicking the Settings sub-menu under the ClickWhale menu.
From the General Options tab, you can set things like access level, redirection type, link attributes, and so on.
On the Redirection Type option, you can set the type of redirection for every new link you will add. For permanent redirection (recommended), you can select 301 direct (the default option).
On the Link Prefix option, you can set the global link prefix. While this setting is not required, I strongly recommend you set one for one main reason:
Adding a link prefix can make it easy for you to identify between regular links and shortened links.
Those are the crucial settings you need to make on ClickWhale. The rest, you can keep them that way.
A little note. ClickWhale comes with a migration feature in case you are already using a similar plugin like PrettyLinks or Thirsty Affiliate. You can access the feature from the Tools menu.
Step 3: Add Some Link Categories
Link category works precisely the same as the native post category of WordPress. You can use it to better organize your content (or links in the context of ClickWhale).
Although link categories are not required, I strongly recommend you create ones. After all, putting together links into categories is the essence of link management.
To create a link category, first, go to ClickWhale -> Categories on your WordPress dashboard and click the Add new button.
Give your link category a name, set the category slug, and add a little description if needed. End by clicking the Save category button.
You can add some categories according to your need.
A little tip. You can add categories based on the product types you promote on your blog. For instance, for an affiliate blog that promotes WordPress hosting, WordPress plugins, and SaaS products, you can add link categories that look like these.
If you want to edit an existing link category, you can simply go back to the link category screen. Hover your cursor over the category you want to edit and click the Edit link.
Step 4: Add Your Affiliate Links
You have made the necessary settings. You have also prepared the link categories. Now, it’s time to add the affiliate links.
Start by going to ClickWhale -> Links on your WordPress dashboard and click the Add new button.
Give your link a title on the Title field. On the Slug field, you can set your link. This is the field to set your shortened link.
By default, your link will contain a prefix you have set previously above on global settings. But you can set a custom prefix if you want it.
On the link Target URL field, you can add your affiliate link. Unless you want to set a different redirection type than the one you set on global settings, no need to change the redirection type.
You can also add the description of your link if needed. Before clicking the Save link button, make sure to select a category where you want to add your link to.
That’s it.
If you want to edit an existing link, you can simply go back to the Links screen of ClickWhale. Hover your cursor over the link you want to edit to open the editing screen.
From the Links screen, you can also monitor the performance of your links by checking the number of clicks they have earned on the Clicks column.
If you need to check more detailed statistics, you can upgrade to the pro version of ClickWhale. On the pro version, you will be able to monitor the performance of your links during a certain period (week, month, or specific dates).
The statistics will be presented in a visual form instead of just numbers.
Summary
A good business requires a good management. In an affiliate marketing business, a good management can be started by managing the affiliate links.
In WordPress, you have plenty of plugin options to manage your affiliate links.
Most link manager plugins come with a link shortener feature which is beneficial for two scenarios:
- Your affiliate product is no longer available on a certain platform
- The affiliate program you joined migrate to another affiliate software
ClickWhale is a great plugin that you can use to manage your affiliate links. Its free version is totally usable. It comes with useful features like link prefix, category, and simple stats.
Unless you need to access detailed stats, these features are more than enough to manage your affiliate links.
