Hi Guys, I have couple of questions and hope to get answers for those here.. 1. I am using flexible destination tool in order to create eBay affiliate link. The link they provide me is very big. Can I shorten URL by using tinyurl or clickaudit to track my traffic? 2. Can I use email promotion to promote ebay affiliate links? Thank you in advance. Dennyboy
"1. I am using flexible destination tool in order to create eBay affiliate link. The link they provide me is very big. Can I shorten URL by using tinyurl or clickaudit to track my traffic?" Answer is yes.
Realistically, why would you need to shorten the URL? It's not like you're telling someone a link over the phone, you're putting it in source code.
I use tinyurl to shorten links, It looks better. . . I guess alternatively you could add a mouse over to display ebay.com, and still have the link direct to your flex link
The domain that all ebay links go to is rover.ebay.com, so I don't think visitors would be put off. I think visitors would be more suspicious seeing another domain besides ebay.
Here is the reply from eBay affiliate team guys...I guess they might have misunderstood my first question.. Dear Affiliate, You cannot shorten the link in the Flex Destination Tool. Additionally, when sending emails, we need to go through a vetting process where we scrub our opt-out users with yours. We also need to approve emails prior to you sending them. In regards to newsletters, will they be eBay centric? Or include different merchants/topics, etc? We will also need to review newsletters prior to you sending them for our approval. Please advise if you wish to proceed. Thank you, The eBay.com Affiliate Team
DENNYBOY is not asking for any url shortning services. DENNYBOY they have not understood your point i had been using this url shortning service earlier 6 months ago at that time i did n't had any problem and i got paid for all that. i think it is allowed. and if you are using this service to hide the ref url than don't do that it is not allowed to incentivecize your visitors
Denny asked the same question over at the ebay affiliate forum. What I told him over there (which I will repeat here) was that everyone should be wary of using any shortening url service. They make their money by converting trackable links to their own tracking link. How do I know this? Because I came up with the same idea 2 years ago and brought the idea to ebay. They hadn't heard of anyone doing it, and during the vetting process with them we discovered that any of the services we looked at that was shortening ebay URLs was also converting the links to tracking links for themselves. Basically all they do (and I) is when you submit the form to shorten your url we check for a pattern in the url, ie "ebay.com", or "amazon.com" and if we find it we then promptly convert the link as required to a tracking link format for ourselves. Obviously I'm making money doing the exact same thing, but I make it from ebay users who want to distribute their links without them breaking in emails and forums. I'd hope to not be making money because I converted another affiliate's links. I've not tested trying to insert my own affiliate links into it from another PID to see what happens, either. So I cannot verify for you what might happen. Just exercise caution when placing your affiliate links into someone else's hands. Best, -Bill
Thanks for this. I've wondered and figured these services do this sort of thing. DO you know of any that do not do this for sure? Also how can I check if one is doing this?
I don't know about you guys but I would not put my affiliate links (revenue) into a 3rd (unknown) parties hands. Nothing wrong with rover links anyway.
whats the need for any other url shortening service why don't you create your own url shortening service for your own you can even use any free host to do that just create a free account at http://fasthoster.info/ upload script and hide ur links
i am not spamming i am just suggesting a free host yes the host is mine but none of the free host will advertise for url redirecting services all the visitors will be on site for less than a sec than what will i earn from them just keep your mouth shut
for that only i had posted to use a free host so that they can upload there own script on there server ghoulardi how will i change there aff links if they use there own scripts