The Linkcracker
Affiliate Marketing EXPOSED
Here’s what the Amazon’s affiliate marketing link looked like from last week’s Wirepine Holiday Picks for the Wyze Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera. That’d be the one I really want to play with, but I really don’t need and is now sitting on my desk:
https://www.amazon.com/WYZE-IP65-Rated-Security-Compatible-Assistant/dp/B0B9TWY11Q?crid=2PU9JB9VHODPN&keywords=wyze%2Bcam%2Bpan%2Bv3&qid=1702051251&sprefix=wyz%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=wirepine-20&linkId=ebd4a6b17b5490b22564a342a6e0ce54&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tlThe link is gobbledygook at first glance but break it down and a link tells all. It’s worth a look, because links can be misleading, taking you to places that will give you grief and nobody’s got time for that.
Know what you're clicking/tapping - let’s crack that link!
Breaking it down
Links or URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) magically let you zip from one side of the internets to another. They whisk you away (via your browser) to a new site/page completely different from the one you're on.
Here’s a breakdown of the above Amazon Wyze PTZ affiliate link:
https:// - protocol the browser has to use to access the resource. The s tells you its secure and encrypted
www.amazon.com - domain name - where in the World Wide Web the link is taking us
/WYZE … - that’s the specific path of where we’re going on Amazon’s site
/dp/B0B9TWY11Q - /dp/ is syntax specific to Amazon - B0B… is a unique catalog identifier for this particular WYZE Cam
? - key character - signifies the end of the destination section of the URL and the beginning of the query string which is data sent to Amazon along with the pointer to the resource we’re visiting
& - 2nd key character - separator for all the arguments/values sent in the query. Here you can find &tag=wirepine-20 - that’s my affiliate ID!
% - 3rd key character - % is used to encode special characters like a space for example that can’t be in a URL. %20 just represents a space.
Now you can parse URLs with the best and not only make sure they’re not taking you anyplace you don’t want to go but also secrets like if they are affiliate links.
Unique Gobbledygook
Don’t get thrown off by long strings of letters and numbers often with dashes thrown in - these are labels generated to be unique pointers. There are standard algorithms to generate these. In computer shoe size they are 128bit and typically 32 characters long using the numbers 0-9 and letters a-f. These are hexidecimal values (16 characters). It’s kinda cool that any system can generate a universally unique ID. Go figure they are called Universally Unique Identifiers/UUIDs or Globally Unique Identifier (GUIDs) in Microsoft’s world.
It might be hiding
URLs are usually hiding. Because URLs get long and ugly, they’re typically at least dressed up with a text label. For example:
I like friends :) But wait the URL under the text label is actually:
I don’t like enemies :(
Now that you know that the label can be anything - peek underneath before you click - look legit? Your browser will show you the for real URL if you hover over it - usually down in the lower left, your phone will give you a preview of the link if you tap and hold.
It might be shortened
URLs are often shortened. Because who wants to look at a long ugly link when you can generate a short clever one? If you see a link that starts with any of these it’s courtesy of off an official big tech Linksquasher:
amzn.to
msft.it
t.co
g.co
lnkd.in
fb.me
youtu.be
If you see one of these, you’re probably ok to click and you can figure out the company hosting the link - Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube respectively for above.
Here’s a sure fire holiday party joke for you - what do Tonga (.to), Colombia (.co) Italy (.it), India (.in), Montenegro (.me) and Belgium (.be) have in common!? Check out my article What’s in a name on the Internet and Gophers to understand why these country specific domain names were added and how big tech bought a piece of internet real estate from them - all to create Short URLs.
The short URL service name will be followed by an equally short alphanumeric code like this:
https://amzn.to/46WngEs This is the short URL version of the Wyze PTZ Camera loooong link at the beginning of the article.
If you’re not down to write your own Short URL service or buy a domain name from a small country, you can use one of these:
tinyURL.com (the first)
bit.ly
BL.INK
There’s more.
For a small business, short link services can be worth paying for. Similar to QR Codes they let you track clicks to analyze where your visitors are coming from and how many. They can also provide vanity URLs - so for example I could get https://bit.ly/wirepine to point to my newsletter.
When you click on a short URL you first go to the short URL service where they lookup the full URL based on the shortened key and then Redirect you to the full site.
Redirects
URLs are sometimes redirected. Short URLs are always redirected - they use a redirect HTTP status code of 301 letting your client know it’s a permanent redirection. No worries.
There are scenarios where a redirect can be used that aren’t good. For example if you see something like this you should know from our Linkcracker breakdown this is not one you want to click on :
http://www.iamyourFRIEND.com/redirect?goto=https://www.iamyourENEMY.comLink checkers
If any of this is making your head hurt - don’t sweat it. I just want you to have the means to make a reasonable decision that a link is legit based on your trust of where you found it.
Modern browsers like Edge have built in link-checking services that will keep you safe by checking links for you ahead of time and keeping blacklists of unsafe sites.
Linkcracking can also satisfy your curiosity of what you’re clicking on. The week before I wrote up my Wirepine Holiday Picks I got an article full of what seemed like objective product recommendations from a guy I used to work with. Spidey sense kicked in and I checked out one of the links and sure enough the whole article was affiliate links!
The ubiquitous share button
You know the one - it may look a little different depending on the app you’re in but there’s always some kind of arrow involved - typically one trying to escape from a box - and it lets you pass along whatever gem you found and send it to your besties. Typically when you choose share you then can pick how - direct message? Text? Email? Whatever you want! This is just a way to share links. There is always a link behind that share with all of the same characteristics covered above.
Links are and always will be core to the internets. New tech builds atop the foundations of old tech. You want to share the amazing AI picture you generated of a penguin doing a pirouette on a peach? You are sharing a URL. How about your ChatGPT conversation about what would happen if a penguin ate a peach? You are sharing a URL. That URL knowledge you gained in the past 5 minutes - going up in value faster than bitcoin.
URL Preview Services
This (relatively) recent innovation is what turns links into little previews of where you’re heading before you tap. They show up in text, email, social media and it’s brilliant. URL Preview Services pull descriptive data and visualizations off the target site/link (metadata) and show it to you in a thumbnail preview so you can see what’s waiting for your tap.
Affiliate Marketing EXPOSED
Now that you can read links like an oracle you will never be fooled by a link and that’s a lot.
Something that made me just a wee bit sad digging into affiliate marketing is just how prevalent it is. I’m down with the buying and selling but sales commissions hidden in links feel a little disingenuous and because it’s easy to wire up and no disclosure is enforced you should assume they are everywhere.
Heard of Wirecutter? That’s the New York Times product reviews site. Every single thing they recommend on their site is behind an affiliate link. Here’s one I just grabbed off the front page; you can see their amazon affiliate code in the link - ‘thewire06-20’
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092TG3QMP/?tag=thewire06-20&linkCode=xm2&ascsubtag=AwEAAAAAAAAAArEG&th=1They tell you all over how their reviews are independent and unbiased and I want to believe that but know the revenue model 🤨
Here’s another thing that feels sketch. You search and find an ‘expert’ for a thing and then realize they too are getting paid via affiliate $$. YouTube has playbooks galore on how to create ‘expert’ articles for a niche space to grab you based on an internet search and then cash in with affiliate moneys.
Here’s an example. I searched for ‘best dog carrier for car travel.’ I scrolled past the row of explicit sponsored ads and clicked on the first non-sponsored independent review:
https://longhaultrekkers.com/best-dog-crates-for-car-travel/
Super legit looking looking site featuring Sitka the dog and extensive review. ugh so many ads tho. I won’t throw another cryptic URL at you but yep for sure - it’s an affiliate link.
So, I guess the bottom line is every influencer on the internet is today’s version of the traveling salesman - everyone gotta get paid and that’s OK! you should just know.
Cookie Stuffing
Had to share when I discovered the name of this affiliate marketing hack. Perhaps you recall I am so entertained by Cookies I wrote a whole article on them - Can I eat ALL the Cookies 🍪🍪🍪
Here’s how the Hack, er Fraud works:
Affiliate programs are setup so there’s a block of time to make a qualified purchase.
In Amazon’s case it’s 24 hours. So if you clicked on the Wyze Cam link and decided to sleep on it, I’d still make that affiliate commission if you bought it the next day.
Amazon leaves a cookie on your computer to track your purchases for the next 24 hours to give credit to the affiliate.
Cookie Stuffing places said cookies on every visitor to the affiliates site regardless of whether they clicked an affiliate link or not
That way they get paid for anything a visitor buys on Amazon over the next 24 hours 💸
Repeat …
Should you get in on Affiliate Marketing?
Happened on a Warriors game streamed live last night on Max of all places 🤷♀️ btw, my experiment with Tablo for local sports/news broadcasts - Fail. I found zero local over-the-air stations; don’t bother.
Anyhow. The Warriors (and every NBA team since 2019) have a sponsor patch on the front of their Jerseys. For the Warriors it’s always been a company called Rakuten. The first time I saw it I thought two things:
Tacky. Right up there with the Bad News Bears and Chico’s Bail Bonds.
Rakuten?! Who are they and what the heck do they do to merit placement on the NBA champs jerseys? A halfhearted search at the time didn’t tell me much other than they have some kind of online marketplace.
Now I know the answer and yep it’s affiliate marketing writ LARGE. Rakuten (.jp site!) is a Japanese conglomerate, and in their earnings report they call out ¥33.8 Trillion1 (33,800,000,000,000!) Gross Transaction Value for their B2B2C marketplace. In simpler terms they aggregate sellers and provide a rewards/affiliate layer to customers taking a piece of every sale and the total of every sale was over $238 Billion Dollars!
So yeah. If you’re selling your products online and want to go bigger, for sure check out the affiliate game. Below article gives a summary of the industry and points out where the most opportunity is - like lifestyle brands. If you want to know more, lets talk.
https://influencermarketinghub.com/affiliate-marketing-report
best, Andrew
I’ve thrown around a lot of big numbers in The Wirepine Weekly but this is the first Trillion citation. It’s Japanese Yen ¥ which turns into Billions USD $ but still 🤯