What's Your Handle?

I would say that 85% of all new affiliate marketers pick their affiliate ID without thinking about how it will look to others. They don't seem to realize that it will be seen by thousands of people.

I have seen affiliate "handles" that have made me stop everything just for a good laugh! Only last week I saw "spankme" and "angeleyes." Well, one of them is a bit better than the other. I'll leave it to you to decide which :)

I suggest that when you are given the choice to pick your own affiliate name that you choose something a little more professional. Use a variation of your last name or even your first name with another word added on. Like "mynamebiz" or something similar.

Ideally, your affiliate link should not even be seen by the newsletter ad or website readers. There are several disadvantages to letting your affiliate link be seen:

* The affiliate link is usually very long. If you advertise in an ezine, the affiliate link may not fit within the 60 characters allowed for line length. The newsletter publisher may not want to publish an ad for that reason, and normally will have guidelines allowing him to delete the ad.

* For some reason, when a reader realizes that the link is an affiliate link, they won't click on it. He will just select the first part of the link (http://affiliatesite.com) and leave off your affiliate ID. Result? No commission.

* When a savvy website visitor wishes to purchase your affiliate product, she will substitute her own affiliate ID in the place of yours. Here the result is that SHE receives YOUR commission - and purchases the product at a discount!

Your best bet is to "hide" your affiliate link using one of the following methods:

1. Create your own redirect pages. To do this, create a new blank page using your web page editor of choice. If the program is "what you see is what you get," you'll need to switch to code view. Delete any code that appears and cut and paste the following into your page:

One moment please while we redirect you...

Of course, you will replace "youraffilaitelink.com" with the affiliate product link that you are promoting. Be careful to keep the "refresh" line all together, without adding extra spaces.

Save your page file name. Example: http://yoursitename/affiliateproduct.html. Upload the page to your website server and use this URL in your ads or on your website.

2. Use one of the many software programs, affiliate maskers, that will create your redirect pages for you. The advantage to using one of these programs is that your affiliate ID is encrypted and therefore hidden from anyone who tries to see it by viewing the source code on your site. Type "affiliate link cloaker" or "affiliate link masker" in your browser and take your pick.

3. Use a URL shortening service such as http://tinyurl.com or http://shorturl.com to shorten your links. This method is better than nothing, especially when you have one of those very long affiliate links.

4. Use an Ad Tracking Service or Script to create your advertising links. By rights, you should be tracking your ads anyway so you know which ones are working and which are not. This method is my preferred method since it cloaks your link and counts your hits both at the same time. Type "Ad Tracking" into your web browser to find hundreds.

There are other methods available that use scripts and frames pages to hide affiliate links. Most of these are quite complicated so I won't try to explain them here.

The point to this article? If you are going to sell affiliate products, ALWAYS hide your affiliate link. Even though the above methods are not 100% foolproof, you will get paid your commissions more often by using them. If you don't make it easy for them to "cheat," then they will be more likely to buy through your link - which is just what you want them to do!