If you are an affiliate marketer or dealing with affiliate products, you must have definitely heard about cloaking software or services. Today, in this LinkTrackr review article, we will know more about this and see if it is the best affiliate link tracker tool available in the market. I have seen many marketers failing to take their affiliate earnings to the next level. One of the major reasons is that they are not practicing the strategies which can help them to promote their affiliate products/services in a good way. One side where we have people failing, on the other hand, we have the people who are expert online marketers. Their affiliate marketing technique is pure gold. One of the things they prefer is to cloak their affiliate links along with other strategies.
Shall We Cloak Affiliate Links?
The word ‘cloak’ or ‘cloaking’ may sound negative to you. You are right! Cloaking in SEO is deceptive and should not be practiced. But cloaking in Affiliate Marketing is no less than a boon. Almost all the top and professional affiliate marketers use cloaking software and services to track their affiliate marketing campaign (sales & leads) and to show neat & clean links/URL to the visitors. Some affiliate marketers make this mistake and show naked URLs (long URL with affiliate program name along with your affiliate ID) to their visitors. So, it is always recommended to cloak affiliate links and show clean and simple URLs to the readers. The cloaked URLs are more user-friendly (You can also include terms or categories related to your product)
Below is such an example of one of my affiliate products – Genesis Framework (PS: I am a huge fan of Genesis and never fail to recommend it to anyone. You can read more here – Why You Should Buy Genesis Framework ):
Naked URL: https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=1320631&u=1067791&m=41388&urllink=&afftrack=
Cloaked URL: https://catchupdates.com/go/genesis-framework/
So know you know about cloaking links and other things. This is where LinkTrackr comes into the picture and I hope this article on LinkTrackr review will be helpful for you to understand this.
LinkTrackr Review – What is LinkTrackr?
By now you would have got some idea about what Linktrackr. It is a SAAS product developed by Kash Media. Linktrackr is a web-based affiliate marketing tool that lets you create/cloak the links. It helps in link tracking and split testing as well. Don’t think that this is all that LinkTrackr can do. There are many add-on features that are very important for you to win your affiliate marketing game. We will discuss more in the later section of the LinkTrackr review.
LinkTrackr Review – Best Features & Configuration Settings
After linktrackr login, below is the glimpse of the LinkTrackr dashboard:
Image Source: LinkTrackr.com
Here is the basic walkthrough of LinkTrackr –
Best & Important Features
LinkTrackr offers various features. Below are shortlisted best features:
- Custom Domain URL
One of the best features LinkTrackr provides – Custom Domain URL. It means that it gives you the ability to use your own custom domain URL to cloak your affiliate links. Yes, you read that right! You can use your own website name to cloak your affiliate links. E.g. my cloaked affiliate link will be something link – https://catchupdates.com/LinkName (i.e. websiteName/linkName)
As mentioned earlier, the cloaked URL looks more professional and enticing than naked URLs.
In order to do this, just include Destination URL (URL where cloaked URL will be finally redirected to). Below is the sample snapshot:
Apart from this, there are other configurations that you set up.
Once you save the campaign, cloaked URL will be created. You will be redirected to a new page where you will have all the details. Do find one sample below.
Other settings you can configure here are (such as hiding links to maintain privacy):
Note: Keep in mind that before creating a custom domain URL, you will need to add your domain in your project. (Otherwise, it will take default domain) below is how I have added and you will need to add to as well:
PS: You can add multiple custom domain names in your project.
Once it is added, go to your Project setting –> Change Tracking domain to your newly added domain (in my case, it will be – catchupdates.com). By default, it will be set to your default profile URL.
After it is set up, you can track the results of your campaign in your Reports section such as Clicks, conversions, referrers, links & pages etc.
Also Read: Link Juice in SEO
- A/B Split Testing/Traffic Rotator
A/B split testing is the common testing used by marketers all across the world. This testing, as the name suggests, helps in comparing one page (A) to another (B), and determine which page produces the best results. You can also use the Split Testing feature as a “traffic rotator” if you run ad co-ops or shared advertising campaigns.
In order to create a split test, just create a new link or edit an existing link. You will see a section for split testing as you scroll down. E.g.
Image Source: LinkTrackr.com
If you see this snapshot, two URLs have been added for A/B Split testing. You can add more URLs if you want. Just make sure that the total percentage should be equal to 100% (including all URLs you add).
Note: When you disable the split test, all incoming clicks will be sent to the original destination URL.
- Conversion Tracking
Conversions are the main aspect of affiliate marketing. If you want to be a successful internet marketer, you will need a good conversion percentage. LinkTrackr helps you in tracking your conversions – such as leads and sales etc. If you are running ad campaigns or promoting products, you will definitely need to track your traffic conversions and see how your campaign is behaving. By doing so, you will see which campaign is driving lots of sales and leads (i.e. conversions). You can focus more on experimenting with them. To track your conversions, you will just need to add a simple conversion code.
Steps to create Conversion Code/Goal:
- Create a Goal, assign a Conversion Name& Conversion Value.
- You can choose to use SSL (secure tracking) for your conversion code. (Optional)
- Copy and paste the conversion tracking code for the Goal into the correct “thank you” pages of your sales funnel.
- You can also pass a Unique Goal ID to cross-reference conversions with your own data, and avoid duplicate conversion(Optional)
- Click on Create Goal button.
Once you click on Create Goal button, you will see the goal is completed. E.g.
- WordPress Cloaking
This is another best feature provided by LinkTrackr. It allows you to automatically convert your keywords into affiliate links. This feature is very helpful for Bloggers using WordPress. You will get a FREE cloaking & tracking plugin that you can install on your WordPress site which will convert the keywords you specify into your affiliate links. Now, you can imagine how much time you can save by using this if you have a lot of content on your blog.
- Cloaking with Viral Bar/Tool
We all know the power of social media, don’t we? You can imagine how much we can scale up our business if we can integrate social media with our campaigns. LinkTrackr allows you to display a social sharing bar at the top (or bottom) of your affiliate links to let viewers share your links which will help you to get more traffic and probably more conversions too 🙂 😉
Also Read: Top 13 Proven Tips To Increase Conversion Rates
- Real-Time Tracking
Another awesome feature provided by LinkTrackr is real-time click-tracking software. It means that click stats will be shown in your dashboard without any delay. You can easily monitor your campaign performance and do your analysis. You do not need to look for any other tracking tools if you use this. It tracks affiliate links in real time. Isn’t it a good web app?
- Paid Ad Tracking
This feature becomes very handy if you are paying money to get traffic. It will help you to analyze those stats as well. A few examples for paid traffic will be – AdWords (which can divide a campaign into sub-campaigns or ad groups), Single Tier Source (where we do not have ad groups), Referral traffic sources (includes the one which does not pass referral data; generally shown as ‘Direct traffic’ as in Google Analytics Account) or banners ads from forums, etc.
- Pixel Tracking
LinkTrackr’s pixel tracking code can help you in tracking conversions on your landing pages or even affiliate networks. This pixel tracking codes are widely used in the industry.
LinkTrackr states pixel tracking as –
“In fact, it’s “ancient” technology similar to counting banner impressions. An image is hosted on a server, and the HTML code for the image is put into a page or post.
Every time the page loads, the image loads (or “fires” as they say in the industry). Every impression of the pixel image will be recorded as a conversion for a sale or a lead, depending on how you use it.”
Many affiliate networks allow placing a tracking ‘pixel’ in the merchant’s page. So, once a sale is generated from your affiliate link, this pixel is fired and the information is passed back to your LinkTrackr account. Isn’t it great? 🙂
- Postback Tracking/ Server Side Tracking
This service is also called S2S tracking or callback URLs. Using Postback tracking service, you can get accurate data from third-party websites. You do not need to depend on cookies, which is awesome. As you know, Cookies may get lost, overwritten, or fail to work when several devices are involved, since the cookie is only placed one time on one device which makes this feature awesome. With this technique, a unique transaction ID or click ID is generated by the platform on the initial click, and this unique ID is passed on from one page to another, until the conversion page, where the same ID is passed back to the merchant or tracking system to record the referrer and other details of the conversion.
In order to set up Postback tracking, you need to follow the two steps mentioned below:
- You have to create the Postback URL in LinkTrackr using parameters given by the affiliate network or merchant.
- You have to copy the Postback URL you’ve built in LinkTrackr, and place it into the network or merchant’s Postback tracking fields.
LinkTrackr Review – Plans & Pricing
Linktrackr plans and prices have been set keeping all sets of users in the mind. The prices are very much nominal and affordable. If you are tight on budget, you can choose the basic plan and then upgrade it later on. LinkTrackr also offers you 30-days money back guarantee and so you do not need to worry at all. Also, anytime you can upgrade or downgrade your plans as you want.
There are 4 pricing plans for this software ranging from just $9 – $69 a month –
- $9 Per Month
- 100 Tracking Links
- 10,000 Clicks Per Month
- Advanced Viral Cloaking
- Branded Domains
- $19 Per Month
- 500 Tracking Links
- 50,000 Clicks Per Month
- Advanced Viral Cloaking
- Branded Domains
- Conversion Tracking
- $39 Per Month
- 1000 Tracking Links
- 100,000 Clicks Per Month
- Advanced Viral Cloaking
- Branded Domains
- Conversion Tracking
- A/B Split Testing
- $69 Per Month
- 5000 Tracking Links
- 500,000 Clicks Per Month
- Advanced Viral Cloaking
- Branded Domains
- Conversion Tracking
- A/B Split Testing
Currently, LinkTrackr accepts payments via PayPal. In case if you don’t have one, you can make a direct credit card payment using the PayPal checkout system.
LinkTrackr Review – Other Reasons To Go For LinkTrackr
- Your data is regularly backed up using cloud hosting technology. In case of any disaster, you can relax and be sure that there will not be any data loss.
- Your business is your business, none of their business 😉 Your data will not be shared with anyone else. Privacy is guaranteed.
- Provides the best uptime. Servers are fast, stable and reliable.
- LinkTrackr provides 30 days Money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied due to any reasons, the full money will be refunded. Support is also very good.
- 100% Web-based tool. You do not need to install or upgrade anything. Your account will be accessible from all over the world. You can access it at multiple places.
- Provide flexible billing (subscription basis). Pay only for what you use.
LinkTrackr Review – Final Words
Undoubtedly, LinkTrackr is one of the best affiliate link cloaking tools available. If you are into affiliate marketing or an online marketer, it is very much important for you to track and analyze your marketing strategies. LinkTrackr provides you with a platform to do so along with other awesome features. We recommend you give a shot to basic plan at least which is not costly ($9/mo). You can upgrade at any point in time. (If you are serious about online marketing, you can go for higher plans). It also provides a free trial. We are sure once you start using this link tracking software, you will never look back.
That’s all in this LinkTrackr review article. I hope you found this article helpful. Do not forget to share it with your friends. If you are already using LinkTrackr, do let us know your feedback and what we could add in our LinkTrackr review article. Do share your comments in the comment section below.
You can connect with me on Instagram Or Quora And Linkedin as well.
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First of all, I would like to thank you for sharing such a nice help on the basic problems that we come across often. It’s too good article.
Hi,
Very good article.thanks for sharing.
Keep up the good work