A few weeks ago I showed you a simple way to cloak your affiliate links using a simple line of php code to accomplish it. It still works fine, but it has some major limitations. I am still planning on using that system on many of our sites, but I am definitely making the switch to Ninja Affiliate (which I bought today on sale) for all our Wordpress blogs starting right now. If you are serious about making money with your blog, you should definitely think about doing the same.
If you are not familiar with Ninja Affiliate, it is an extremely powerful Wordpress plugin that helps turn your blog into an affiliate sales machine. I could go over all the benefits here, but they do a much better job explaining everything this plugin does on their site.
I have always wanted to buy it, but just kept putting it off for one reason or another. Well they definitely got my attention this week, as they are having a sale on Ninja Affiliate. For 4 Days Only (Aug. 18 – 21st at Midnight) they are giving a $30 Discount on the plugin.
(SALE has ended… but still a great piece of software at the price)
So instead of their regular price of $97 (which it is still worth), you can get Ninja Affiliate for ONLY $67.00… but only until this Friday night (Aug. 21st) at midnight! Then the price goes back up.
For me the the $30 DISCOUNT was the tipping point for me making the purchase. I knew I was eventually going to buy it, so when I saw it was on sale, it just made sense to buy it now and save some money.
I know there are many of our readers that already use Ninja Affiliate, as many of them have recommending it to me. If any of you are reading this, I would love it if you could tell us how you like it in the comment section below.
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Asswass on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 12:02 pm
I still don’t understand how this plugin can help you with affiliate sales. I’m going to visit their site to see if I finally understand.
Asswass´s last blog ..Yesterday I made $22 with Amazon Affiliate Program
Doug Dillard on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 1:48 pm
I could try and explain it to you here Alfredo, but it would take forever and I could not come close to doing as good as a job as they do on their site. After installing it, it is even cooler than I thought. This is another one of those products that I give it my 100% recommendation.
Just go their site and take the time and read all the cool things it does and make sure to watch the videos. That should sell you right there!
Asswass on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 1:50 pm
Hey Doug I went to their site and read it. It sounds really good, the only problem is that in my blog I don’t sell a lot of products, so I don’t think I would get my money’s worth :S.
Asswass´s last blog ..Yesterday I made $22 with Amazon Affiliate Program
Doug Dillard on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 1:58 pm
Well I am glad you at least took a look
Stefan on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 2:10 pm
@Asswass: This plugin can make you more money through two different methods.
1) People have to click on your link since they can’t copy it and remove the referral part.
2) A short link with your own domain have a lot more trust then a link that’s three times as long.
Stefan´s last blog ..How to Install Wordpress on Hostgator
Stefan on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 2:11 pm
My bad. This is the bad thing about opening all of the pages in Google Reader before your start reading them. A post can get several new comments without you can see them.
Stefan´s last blog ..How to Install Wordpress on Hostgator
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:33 am
Good points Stefan. Plus it is great for tracking purposes, it automatically creates links for you for the different keywords you create, it allows you to limit the amount of links in a post, and much more.
Lee Ka Hoong on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 10:58 pm
From what I understood and observed, after you’ve activated the ninja affiliate plugin, your affiliate links will be hided. When your mouse pointed on the link, there is no URL shown at the bottom left corner of your browser, so no people knows whether that is an affiliate link or whatever else.
Lee Ka Hoong´s last blog ..The Next Generation Google Search Engine : Google Caffeine
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 10:12 am
Yes… it has that option Lee.
Extreme John on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 4:43 pm
I am really starting to see this pop up all over the place it must be getting more widely used in the blogging world, my guess is probably because it works.
What’s better than getting something that kicks butt at a special price, nice find Doug!
Extreme John´s last blog ..Strikeforce and Fedor Can Shove It
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:34 am
Those are the 2 reasons why I purchased it John
earningstep on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 6:20 pm
i have heard a news that ninja affiliate has new offers , $30 for this great plugin and the offer is just for 2 days
earningstep´s last blog ..All in one seo pack the real all in one seo tool for wordpress
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:34 am
Yep… ends Friday night at midnight!
Lee Ka Hoong on Wed, 19th Aug 2009 11:01 pm
$30 off is really an awesome discount, I’ve heard about this plugin and roughly know how it works, but I’ve yet to be seriouly getting into affiliate marketing. I do like to hear your review about this affiliate tool and interest to hear your successful story on your affiliate sales after using this ninja affiliate tool.
Regards,
Lee
Lee Ka Hoong´s last blog ..The Next Generation Google Search Engine : Google Caffeine
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:35 am
I will definitely write a review in the future with my experience with the plugin.
Jacob Yap on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 12:42 am
It’s a great offer. But I seldom sell products on my blog. Anyway, I’ll head to their site and take a look. Thanks Doug
Jacob Yap´s last blog ..Envato Birthday Bundle – $300 Of Files For Just $20
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 10:15 am
You said “seldom”, not “never”
Atul on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 12:45 am
I know Ninja Affiliate makes our affiliate links as
domainName/recomments/productName
But I cudnt understand the differnce betweeb 2 links as:
domainName/recomments/productName
and, domainName?affiliateId=…
Can u point out how former is useful for us in increasing our affiliate Sales?
Atul´s last blog ..Funny Lines
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 10:06 am
Sure Atul. Let’s say you are trying to promote some software called “Really Awesome Software” that sells for $100 and that pay’s you 50% commission… so you work really hard at promoting it. The affiliate link that they assign you to promote this software is: TheReallyAwesomeSoftwareCo.com/?affid=12345.
If you go around promoting that link, there is a good chance that someone that sees it… instead of clicking on it they just type in TheReallyAwesomeSoftwareCo.com and go directly to their site, skipping your affiliate link. And if they make a purchase.. you miss out on your $50 commission. Is that fair? Absolutely not! You spent the time and energy (and probably some money) promoting that product, and the customer would have never heard about the software if it wasn’t for you.
Now, if instead you cloaked your affiliate link… it could look something like this: OceanOfTheWeb.com/awesomesoftware/. Now if a potential customer is intrigued by what you are promoting, the only way for them to get to the merchant site is to click on your link which will take them to the merchant site and your affiliate link will be tracked so you get paid this time if they end up making a purchase.
Now I have no idea what the reasoning is that someone will bypass an obvious affiliate link and go straight to the merchant site, as it does not save them any money. It just makes the merchant more money. But I do know people do this, as I have done it myself in the past.
Another reason to cloak affiliate links is for offline promotions. It works great on business cards, classified ads, flyers, etc..
Hope that helps Atul
Atul on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:43 pm
Thanks for the detailed input Doug. Will surely look now on cloaking the links.
Just 1 catch
u wrote— OceanOfTheWeb.com/awesomesoftware
Mine site is OceanOfWeb.com …..”The” is not there
Atul´s last blog ..Funny Lines
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:56 pm
Sorry… the link was just an example
Typhoon on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 7:15 am
I have been using that plugin from last 2-3 months and I would say it’s really superb for tracking links also it automatically inserts the link in the post if it gets that keyword which you added while cloaking the link.
Typhoon´s last blog ..Make Money with Your Email List
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 10:09 am
Thanks Typhoon. I have heard nothing but good things so far about Ninja Affiliate.
bbrian017 on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 7:41 am
Call me old school but I don’t like to mask my affiliate links. I allow my users to know exactly what’s going on. Good or bad that’s up for discussion and perhaps a matter of opinion.
If you go into my forum, or my main site you will see no masking is happening. I just feel better about it this way.
I was over at Josh’s blog a few days ago and he was writing the same review.
http://homebusinessposts.com/264/the-ninja-affiliate-link-cloaker-for-wordpress/
I made a point to also discuss on his blog how it’s hard to trust that these plugins are not crooked or using our links only 50% of the time.
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:28 am
I agree Brian that some people do not like to mask links, but this software does WAY MORE things than simply masking links. If you read their entire sales page you will see all the cool stuff it does. But on the subject of masking links… I have read comments that some people will not purchase products from Affiliate Marketers that cloak their links. Who cares? Seriously… those people would not purchase the product through the marketers affiliate link if it wasn’t cloaked either. They would simply go to the merchants main page. The average visitor to your sites doesn’t care if cloak your link. I have been doing this stuff for a long time and I know that you make more sales cloaking links versus not… and that is the bottom line for me.
As for your conspiracy theory that the plugin might steal 50% of your sales… c’mon Brian. This plugin has been around for quite a while now and is uploaded to your own server. I highly doubt it is crooked. I am sure it has been tested thousands and thousand of time and if it was… someone would have noticed by now and you would have heard about it
Doug Dillard´s last blog ..Comment Spam Detective Trick
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 8:50 am
This is definitely something worth buying, from what I’ve heard. I tried using a free cloaker, and it’s been horrible so far. I’m going to guess a big reason that this is so popular is that it works smoothly.
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet´s last blog ..CommentLuv NOT Coming To iBlogPlanet Soon
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 10:10 am
I have been playing around with it a lot for the last 24 hours and I must say it is a very cool piece of software.
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:15 pm
Yeah, I read the site. Has TONS of features, from what they say. Deneil also told me about it. Looks like something I’ll need to buy soon. Have you set it up on your blog (this blog) yet?
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet´s last blog ..CommentLuv NOT Coming To iBlogPlanet Soon
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 9:32 pm
I am actually using it in this post for the keywords Ninja Affiliate. See how they are now a link (at least they should be). That is all I tried on this site so far, as I am testing it out on a my test blog so I understand all it features first.
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet on Fri, 21st Aug 2009 12:19 pm
Yeah, I see that. Looks a lot easier than what I do every time I want to cloak an affiliate link — make a .php file, etc,etc.. It’s not complicated, but just gets tiring. I’m sure this makes the job 10 times easier.
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet´s last blog ..CommentLuv NOT Coming To iBlogPlanet Soon
Doug Dillard on Fri, 21st Aug 2009 12:42 pm
And you can track your link clicks… which I really like!
Benjamin Cip on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 10:23 am
I use that plugin since I have my new premium theme, and I just can’t blog without it. It’s so interesting, and you can check what are the word that generate most of the clicks! It’s great if you are going to write a post including that particular word.
Benjamin Cip´s last blog ..What Is The Best Place To Display Your Ads?
Doug Dillard on Thu, 20th Aug 2009 11:18 am
Thanks Ben for sharing. I am excited to see how it works over an extended period of time. It is good to know that is working well for you.
Brian on Sun, 23rd Aug 2009 6:17 pm
Say Doug I like the way you spelled out how ninja affiliate works. I finally understand it now. But im just getting started in this blog game and I was wondering if you could give me any pointers on how a begginer can get money thru a blog or a website? Right now I just have one blog with clickbank on it, but im very determined and patient.