What is a Smartlink: The Affiliate Guide

What is a Smartlink: The Affiliate Guide
smartlinks definitive guide - CrakRevenue

Affiliate Marketing

Written by

Mathieu

PUBLISHED ON

February 25, 2022

Category

Affiliate Marketing

Sooner rather than later, you will be faced with a dilemma: where should I send my traffic?

Even though we have multiple quality offers—some of them exclusive even—you can’t ever really know what exactly will convert for your users. 

You may have a good hunch over what sells or doesn’t sell in regards to your audience, but nothing is guaranteed. As more and more affiliates want to eliminate the guesswork from their operations, we developed an advanced tool to help them better convert traffic

This tool is called an affiliate smartlink, and today you will learn what that is exactly. Better yet, you will come to understand why a tool like this has become such a big deal in affiliate marketing over the past few years.

What’s a Smartlink?

In a few words, it’s a unique link that makes your life loads easier

The concept behind a smartlink is simple: it drives your users to offers they are most likely to care about (i.e. convert) without the hassle of multiple campaigns.

An underlying technology powered by complex algorithms takes into account multiple variables including user device, user localization (GEO) and chosen vertical to present users with top converting offers that have a higher chance resulting in a payable action trigger for you—either an email submit or a sale.

Indeed, affiliate smartlinks help you get more conversions by generating links to creatives and landing pages with click-through rates (CTRs) head and shoulders above the rest!

Why should I use Affiliate Smartlinks?

It’s easy to have loose ends in your sales funnel if an offer does not match expectations. 

Let’s say you run an adult tube site with banner ads as your main promotion method

You could choose one of our many offers to promote based on payouts or other factors you care about. 

However, that’s not optimal. It’s kind of like throwing darts in the dark, hoping you will hit something.

What happens if a user clicks on your banner, but the offer is restricted to say, Canada? In this case, we already have a backup plan in place: fallback offers, which groups many different (yet similar) offers to display so the user isn’t led to an incompatible offer.

However, fallback offers are not as effective as smartlinks because they have been predetermined.

For instance, a fallback offer for MyFreeCams could lead to the T2 and T3 (in order) options  before switching to the next offer in its group. On the other hand, a smartlink doesn’t have to follow the same logic: it picks the best offer suited to your traffic, regardless of rank.

6 Great Reasons to Start Using an Affiliate Smartlink Now

Still need convincing as to why Smartlinks remain a hot commodity? 

Well, since you asked...

1- They’re a turnkey solution

Once you add your link, we take care of the rest. All you need to do is send your traffic so you can begin making money. Smartlinks give you more time to improve your brand. 

2- They convert any and all GEOs

Smartlinks are designed to convert users no matter where they are from. This means you'll never "lose" anymore sales because every territory and region can be fully monetized.

3- They have higher payouts

Since we receive an incredible amount of traffic to our smartlinks, we can ensure you’ll always receive the highest payouts in the market… and therefore, unbeatable earnings per click (EPC) to boot!

4- They’re auto-optimized

Traffic sent through smartlinks is permanently optimized. In other words, you don’t have to worry: we make sure you get the highest conversion rates and boost your revenue in more ways than one.

5- They feature only our top offers

We spend a lot of time A/B testing. In the end, you get premium offers that match your traffic interests and are known to make affiliates a lot of money. Also, some of our top offers can only be found in our smartlinks, so if that's not a strong enough reason to start using them, we don't know what is!

6- They lead to responsive designs

Every click leads to a responsive landing page, which guarantees you the best possible results. Whether the click comes from a desktop, tablet, smartphone or smart TV, you can rest assured our smartlinks will lead users to not only an adequate offer but a truly relevant one.

How can I create my own Affiliate Smartlink?

In your affiliate dashboard, notice there is a Smartlink tab waiting for you.

Click on it and you will be able to create your own custom affiliate smartlink.

First, choose from one of the 6 available verticals:

  • Global Adult (18+)
  • Cam (18 +)
  • VOD (18 +)
  • Dating (18 +)
  • Gay (18 +)
  • Adult Gaming (18 +)

By default, extra earnings are activated. Pop-unders appear behind the browser while back offers act as separately treated retention tools to turn a visitor into a customer. It’s kind of a last-ditch attempt to sell something, our take on the “But wait, there’s more!” tactic.

custom smartlink

As you can see, it’s possible to add a SUB ID if you want to track the performance of your link depending on where you place it within your layout, email campaigns, etc.

Smartlinks don’t only have to be plain old, boring URLs either: you can choose other formats such as banners, HTML ads, pop code and iFrames to qualify as smart promotion

Banners are particularly interesting because we have creatives available in 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Dutch. If you have a specific request, talk with your affiliate manager for more details.

Affiliate Smartlinks: Optimization is Key

Optimization is a science in itself which requires deep and masterful knowledge of affiliate marketing.

We must understand how traffic flows, but also all of the different promotion methods used by affiliates like you. We also need to evaluate the traffic’s quality, among other factors. 

Like most affiliates, we look at EPC first with an added focus on the conversion rate (CR). The reason is simple: we want to generate as much money as possible so you convert more often. This means you get better results and can scale things up quicker

Optimization on our part is a careful balancing act: it’s not just giving more weight to a “winning” offer and less to a stagnating one. No.

We do extensive tests to ensure profitability, so our smartlinks keep pace with your own growth and even evolve into something better where all affiliates stand to gain.

Choose a vertical and maximize your results with Smartlinks

Earlier, we mentioned there are a number of verticals you can promote with your own affiliate smartlink. 

Below you can find more details about each vertical so you know what to expect:

Dating Smartlink

  • Choose this if you only want to push dating offers
  • It’s highly effective
  • Offers from this smartlink often have bumped payouts for extra revenue

Global Adult Smartlink

  • Great for testing various kinds of adult offers to match your traffic
  • It’s a great stable performer
  • It’s optimized on a daily basis

Cam Smartlink

  • Choose this if you only want to push cam offers 
  • Traffic of the highest quality is required to use this smartlink

Gay Smartlink

  • Contains gay offers from all verticals
  • Terrific turnkey solution for any and all gay traffic sources
  • High conversion rates and EPC!

VOD Smartlink

  • Tons of PPS offers for hardcore adult traffic
  • Great for member zones and pops

What works best with affiliate smartlinks?

We have developed quite the experience with affiliate smartlinks, which have become a significant part of our operations lately. 

The quality of your traffic will always be the #1 determining factor for conversions. With that said, our data has shown some interesting insights into what works best for certain verticals. Here are 3 examples taken directly from the source:

Dating Smartlink  

  • Top Traffic Type: SEO, webmaster, mailing, media buy

  • Top GEOs (Revenue): United States, France, Germany

  • Top GEOs (EPC): Norway, Denmark, South Africa

Global Adult Smartlink 

  • Top Traffic Type: social media, webmaster, networks, mailing

  • Top GEOs (Revenue): United States, Germany, United Kingdom

  • Top GEOs (EPC): Norway, Denmark, Sweden

Cam Smartlink  

  • Top Traffic Type: social media, webmaster, media buy

  • Top GEOs (Revenue): United States, United Kingdom, Germany

  • Top GEOs (EPC): Australia, Austria, Norway

GET YOUR SMARTLINK NOW!

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