send me your affiliate links

As someone who appreciates when a friend or even a stranger throws me a bone, I like to do the same for others when I can. I know many bloggers like myself struggle to earn enough income from their blogs just to pay their hosting bills, let alone actually get something in return for the hard work they put into their sites. If I had the money, I would donate regularly to every blog I read. But since I can't do that, the least I can do is try to make sure that a portion of the money I have to spend anyway ends up in a fellow web site owner's pocket. So whenever I am making a purchase online at a merchant that has an affiliate program, I try to find someone who is an affiliate to whom I can credit my purchase. Well, this has proven to be a lot harder than it sounds. I don't know if bloggers and other webmasters are just really bad at publicizing their affiliate links, or if it's a matter of search engines unfairly burying them, but it's next to impossible to find an affiliate of a given merchant by searching for one. If you're an affiliate, put the word "affiliate" somewhere on the pages that contain your affiliate links. It's not going to turn people off; if anything it will attract more people like me who want to give you a commission.

Anyway, today I'm inviting you to spam me with your affiliate links. Well okay, it's not really spamming since I asked for it, is it? Use my e-mail form to send me as many of your affiliate links as you want, and I will add them to my affiliate mall not only for my own future reference, but to help others find you, too. Be sure to tell me the name of the store, and give a link to a page on your site that contains your affiliate creative (not a direct link to the merchant). The only requirement is that your web site is free for visitors to use/read (since if you charge for access, you're already being paid for your efforts). I would also hope that you would use my mall (either my own links, or someone else's) to do your own shopping, but since there's no way for me to enforce that I'll just have to trust you to do the right thing.

So bring it on, and let's hope this helps us all earn a little bit more!

November 25, 2009 at 1:59pm via confoozled.com · Share on Facebook · Share on Twitter

Ricky Buchanan

Since I know you have the evil email-eating contact form of DOOM I'm just dropping you a comment to let you know I left an email via your contact form. If you didn't get it, please let me know! :)

Love,
r

November 25, 2009 at 11:42pm

Carly

I already replied to Ricky's e-mail, but just want to assure anyone else reading, the contact form won't eat your e-mail as long as you know we live on earth (that's a hint, by the way).

Also I want to clarify, don't limit the links you send me just to stores I don't already have on the mall. I will add your links under my own. Since some merchants frown on affiliates purchasing through their own links, I prefer not to take my chances and will always shop through someone else's link.

November 26, 2009 at 9:17am

Anne @ b6s.net

It's very kind of you to offer this - but I wonder why not just sign up with more programs and fill it up with your own links? I highly recommend Shareasale - great selection of programs there and it's an honest no-parasites network. Here's my aff link to Shareasale if you're not signed up yet and would consider signing under me -
http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=45&u=132119&m=47&urllink=&afftrack=

As for my links on your mall - would you consider links to actual websites? They will just be links to the domain names where I promote my affiliates.

November 27, 2009 at 10:55am

HelloKit

Hi, Anne. A few reasons:

1. This isn't just an attempt to pretend to be nice in order to make more money for myself. I really do want to throw a few bucks in the direction of a fellow struggling web site owner when I have to spend the money anyway.

2. Some merchants do not like their affiliates purchasing through their own links, and will reverse the commission and sometimes even terminate the affiliate if they catch on to it. Rather than try to keep track of which merchants do and do not allow this, I'd rather play it safe and let someone else have the commission. I do shop through cash back and reward malls at times, but not all merchants are available this way, as some of them disallow incentivized traffic.

3. My site is small, extremely low traffic, and low ranked. Though I don't understand the logic (a sale is a sale, right?), this makes me unworthy in many merchants' eyes, and they will not approve me as an affiliate. Though I'd just as soon boycott these stores and take my business to the competition, sometimes they have the best price or are the only ones carrying the product I'm looking for. Also, I live in Rhode Island, one of the states to have enacted the illegal "Amazon tax" - thus many merchants, Amazon included, will not have me for that reason.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking with your final question. Links to your web sites are what I'm looking for... so long as the banner or other link to the merchant is contained on the page I land on. For example, for Amazon, Ricky gave me a link to an article on one of her blogs that contains links to Amazon.

December 4, 2009 at 4:44pm

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