Difference between revisions of "Linkcode"

Revision as of 14:41, 28 September 2012

A linkcode is a referral URL tracked by Offerit. Link Codes are how affiliates get credit for the traffic they redirect through Offerit. To get an affiliate link code, click the Link Codes link under "Affiliate Quick Links."

There are three types of link codes that Offerit will recognize:

• Encoded Links
• Un-Encoded Links
• Shortname Links

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL THREE TYPES ARE INTERCHANGEABLE WITH EACH OTHER.

Encoded Link Codes

Figure 1.1 - Encoded Linkcode Explained

Encoded link codes are the most common variety of link code seen in Offerit. All of the information required by Offerit to tie an affiliate to a visitor is located in the string of characters at the end, which are base64-encoded. The last part of the sample URL is known as the Offerit Code, which has multiple uses in Offerit.

For more information on what a link domain is, please visit our Link Domain article. For the variations on track, please see our track and strack article. For more information about the Offeritcode, please see our OfferitCode article.

Unencoded Link Codes

Figure 1.2 - UnEncoded Linkcodes Explained

Un-encoded linkcodes display a period-delimited list of all information that would be in an encoded string within your URL. This is an alternate way to display affiliate link codes; the following example will break down what is displayed in an un-encoded link code.

• Tracking Domain – The domain of your Offerit install, necessary for proper cookie tracking. This can be a custom domain as long as it points to the domain of your Offerit Install.
• Track - The alias to the Offerit tracking script you are using. Variations include strack, ttrack, etc.
• Affiliate Username - The username of the affiliate who referred this visitor.
• Commission ID - The numeric ID of the commission that the visitor's transaction will be paid out under (See Things to Remember).
• Offer ID - The numeric ID of the Offerit offer your visitor is trying to visit
• Landing Page ID - The numeric ID of the offer's landing page that your visitor will be redirected to (See Offers Admin for details).
• Affiliate Campaign or SubID set - The numeric id of the Campaign or SubID set associated with the affiliate (0 = the default SubID for that affiliate).
• Creative ID - If the visitor followed a link code associated with a creative, this will represent the numeric ID of the creative the visitor saw. If no creative was used, this will default to 0.
• Custom Affiliate Pass-Throughs - If you would like, you can pass back additional parameters from an external website. Offerit will then assign to it a numeric ID number.
• SubAffiliate ID - The numeric ID of the SubAffiliate associated with this linkcode (if any).

Shortname Link Codes

Shortname link codes look very similar to un-encoded link codes, with a crucial difference. Instead of using ID number like an un-encoded link codes, this format uses the shortnames of the commission, offer, and landing page you have specified in the URL.

http://demo.offerit.com/track/offeritdemo2.15cpa.baseball.baseball.0.2.0.0.0.0.0.0/

Decoding Link Codes

Encoded link codes can be decoded using base64 decoding, which uses ASCII characters and binary to encode/decode links. For the admins, we built a page that allows for creating/decoding Offerit code. The URL should be http://<Offerit_URL>.com/admin_codes.php. The affiliates also have a page that is not shown by default. The URL should be http://<Offerit_URL>.com/internal.php?page=code_info.

Things to Remember

• All three formats are interchangeable!
• The non-encoded formats are security-smart! If an affiliate alters a link code so that he/she sends traffic to an offer/landing page that can not be promoted, the affiliate will not get paid out on any transactions that result from that traffic.
• The non-encoded formats are NOT fool-proof! If an affiliate alters the link code so they are using a commission they don't belong to or using a landing page that doesn't belong to the offer, they will not get the desired payment or the visitor will not land on the right landing page in most cases.

Deep Linking

Affiliates can link to any other page on your offer by appending a forward-slash and a relative URL to the link code. For example, using the following linkcode to link to http://example.offerit.com/landing_page1.html:

http://example.offerit.com/track/MjozOjE/landing_page1.html

Affiliates can also manipulate the query string. For example, the affiliate can pass the variable extra_var=1234 to a landing page by appending a question mark and the variable assignment to their linkcode:

http://example.offerit.com/track/MjozOjE/?extra_var=1234 

HTML / Embeded Linkcodes

In addition to the standard link styles offered, Offerit also offers the ability to attach the HTML code that is necessary in order to provide visitors with hyperlinks containing your affiliate linkcode. Just choose either

• Encoded with HTML
• Un-Encoded with HTML
• Shortname with HTML
• Tiny with HTML

These options will create embeded, hyperlinked linkcodes, depending upon creative type. If you want just the URL for your affiliate linkcodes without any HTML code attached, simply choose a option without HTML.

Redirecting to the Correct Page

When Offerit turns a linkcode into a landing_page URL, it automatically appends a slash (/) to the end of barewords. You can prevent this by appending a question mark to the end of the URL. For example: