Hi everyone, this is my first post here, looking forward to gleaning some gems from the community as I come forth from my past role here as lurker ^^ I have been reading a few posts on some other forums regarding how easy viglink is to implement for peeps like us who don't want to spend a lot of time having to organize and run affilliate programs, notorious for their time sucking value... a friend of mine who runs some very successful car forums was approached by Viglink...their technology allowing any posts made by him or his community to be tranformed into affiliate links..he makes a profit, so do they, and he saves time. I've researched a bit, and have found two companies that offer this kind of service... Viglinks and SkimLInks... I'm just trying to find out which of the two has the best chance of producing more affilliate links to companies that will pay commission. Which one of the two is better? Cheers gogo
Hey gogo, I work for Skimlinks, and I wanted to jump in and see if I could help answer your question! I wanted to let you know that we offer two ways to produce affiliate links on your forum, so you've got great potential to earn the maximum revenue possible. We have our original technology, SkimLinks, which converts your normal hyperlinks into affiliate links, but we also offer SkimWords, which converts product references, written domain names, and keywords into affiliate links too. We've got a great range of products and tools to ensure you're getting the most out of your content! If you have any other questions, please do get in touch, at supportATskimlinksDOTcom. Hannah @ Skimlinks
i saw the discussion of skimlinks and viglinks on another forum. I would love to look into it when i have the time. Shall keep it in view first.
Thanks a lot! I like to hear things from those who know what they talk about. Thanks also for the cotnact.
ha, my first post here, and I get a great response from a company rep. Awesome! +++ Hannah, as Truejeff actually noted up above, this topic is coming up at another forum, The Admin zone: Transparent/Invisible Advertising http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78064 where the concept of links like this, far less intrusive than most other ad types, is looking at to be added to member sites. I have a question regarding what you mentioned called Skim Word. Is this akin to Vibrant Media? How does Skim words impact content. We actually have Vibrant Media on my community's Wiki and Forum. Does Skim Words work in the same way? For example... with vibrant media...if a person mouses over a link, the window opens and you get an image that, if you click, will take you away to the ad page proper. Is Skim words something like this? Again, thank you for responding gogo
I am looking for the difference between SkimLinks and VigLinks too. I am wondering if anyone else has a response to gogoblender's question?
Hi gogoblender! Sorry for the delay in reply - I didn't get the notification for some reason! In regard to your question about SkimWords, there are a number of differences, such as: 1. There are no pop ups - just links - so it doesn't impact on the user's experience 2. Only product references, brand names and very specific keywords are acted upon, so links are logical within the content 3. The SkimWords links take users through to ecommerce sites (like BestBuy, Amazon.com etc) where they can purchase the item mentioned (so, still earning through affiliate marketing, like SkimLinks) I hope that makes things a little clearer, but do let me know if I can answer any other questions! Thanks! Hannah @ Skimlinks
I have installed skimlinks in one of my wordpress blog. And i have installed the skimlinks plugin in it and it showing that the skimlinks is working properly. But please explain to me how i can make affiliate links through skimlinks on my blog. I thought we simply have to write posts and the affiliate links will be made automatically. Rishad Jubin TP
Hi Rishad, Great to hear you're using Skimlinks. First off, when using Skimlinks on Wordpress, you only need to use one implementation, the code (found in the Skimlinks publisher interface), or the plugin (found in the Wordpress Plugin Directory). Now that you have it installed, the change to your blog might be hard to spot, but Skimlinks is working on the normal hyperlinks in your content. When a reader clicks through on one of those links, it turns into an affiliate link automatically. So, if you want to 'create' affiliate links on your blog, simply include normal links to products and services in your content! I hope that clears things up - if you have any more questions, you can just email support@skimlinks.com! Thanks! Hannah
think Viglink is better than Skimlinks. Viglink is backed by excellent people and ventures (Google also) and there are many cool features like Merchant coverage tool, fantastic reporting et
Very interesting of you to point out that there is no impact to the user's experience. Doing a simple search uncovers hundreds of user complaints. Users actually boycotting sites unless they stop using Skimlinks. 18 pages worth of complaints and threats: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=201523 This one is worth a good laugh http://www.avforums.com/forums/xbox-live-indie-games/1324592-abaddon-retribution-80-ms-points.html Full disclosure, I am a former SkimLinks publisher, who after more than a year still has not been paid out all of the revenue I earned. After I switched to Driving Revenue I was paid once by SkimLinks, and for whatever reason they didn't pay out the entire balance, instead they have held back a small amount to this day. My guess it's because the amount did not meet the unusually high minimum payment threshold. Here are my impressions, so take it for what it's worth Being in the IT field, I found their technology to be immature and unrefined. Redirecting every outbound click through a third party server? that's a scary proposition Their US merchant coverage was not very comprehensive, seemed like their focus was on European merchants The minimum payment threshold was exceedingly high when converted from British pounds to US dollars The earnings to payment turnaround time was much longer than it should have been, occasionally taking as long as 90 days! They had no concept with regard to US tax laws, i.e. 1099-misc and W-9's Customer service was hit or miss, you either received a response within in 8 hours or 8 days, they decide. In late 2009 I was contacted by a representative from Driving Revenue, a US based direct competitor to SkimLinks and decided to give them a try. My average monthly earnings were slightly higher on DR's system, but more importantly they didn't hold on to my money unnecessarily, they consistently paid a large portion of my earnings within 30 days, something SkimLinks never did. Another added benefit was that user complaints/questions regarding them being redirected through an unknown domain (redirectingat.com) completely stopped. I've had one issue with Driving Revenue in my 1+ yrs of using their service. I had a dead merchant link that was expired and displayed a Commission Junction error page, they were able to fix it within an hour of my email. Driving Revenue was acquired by VigLink late last year, and soon thereafter I was notified that I was being migrated to the VigLink system. I was honestly dreading the migration and potential issues that could have occurred. Surprisingly it was a very smooth transition that didn't require me to do a thing, very impressive. Once I was migrated, my co-workers and I studied/dissected the code (yes we're ubber geeks), we were all very impressed, using JSONP to make a round-trip call to affiliate a link is just brilliant. I also found their reporting and analytics heads and shoulders above what Driving Revenue or SkimLinks offered. Real-time reporting, link level revenue break down, purchased product details, the whole nine yards and all of it neatly exportable for use with your software of choice. One thing I've just begun exploring is their fully documented API, looks like I could get a lot of use out of it. Apologies for the prolonged diatribe. I just wanted to offer my experiences and impressions.
Hi DynamiteSlim, We really appreciate your honest review of your experience with Skimlinks. Hearing from our customers is the best way to ensure we're constantly improving our service. First off, the two forum threads you mentioned are unfortunate, in those cases, members were unhappy with the integration of SkimWords specifically. Skimwords is an optional product that increases monetization opportunities extensively, but it does create new links in member's content, so can be an negatively received in sensitive communities. Rest assured, we now do our best to work with forum owners to achieve a smooth and positive integration, offering our best practices to help them along. If I may take this opportunity to address your concerns: - In the past, we did redirect every outbound click, but we have updated our technology considerably since you last used us. We now also use JSONP, but rather than do a round-trip call to affiliate a link, which may have a performance impact on-click for users with slower connections, we use JSONP to check if a link can be affiliated on page load, and therefore only affiliate those links that can in fact be affiliate-enabled. We made this decision to use the option that would be faster for the user, and this method is also necessary to affiliate certain types of merchants that don't support normal deeplinking methods, which is about 25-30% of all merchants. - We only show merchants in our list that you are pre-approved on, so the list may appear shorter than VigLink's. However, you won't earn commission from all those merchants until you are opted in to them. You will earn commission from a wider range of merchants with us, with extensive coverage in the US that continues to grow daily. - We now have offices in both London and San Francisco so we offer 'round the clock support, and we have a large team of bright, passionate account managers to help with any question you have as quickly as possible. - We do have a higher payment threshold and longer pay-out, but it is only $50 for US publishers, and we offer a range of payment methods, including PayPal, US bank transfer and check as well. We're sorry to hear you weren't paid out your remainder, usually after the first couple of months, most customers are paid a regular large and clearly communicated amount each month, but we can understand it would be disappointing if you haven't hit the threshold. - As for reporting, we are currently undergoing an exciting update to our reporting, so it will also be super quick, real-time, and at page and link level. You can also export your data to csv, Excel or PDF. We have focused a lot of our development effort over the past six months building SkimWords, as we felt our commitment to help publishers earn more was top priority. We also invested efforts in helping different kinds of publishers make money, but our reporting is our next focus. - We also have a rich and documented API as well. Our range of products is unrivalled, and we strive to offer our publishers all the tools they need to reach their maximum revenue potential. We understand that you may have found success elsewhere, but Skimlinks has seen a great deal of innovation in the past year, and we are confident we now offer a service that is efficient, reliable, and equals, if not exceeds anything else on the market. We wish you all the best with monetizing your forum! Hannah @ Skimlinks
I cannot find good or complete comparison between VigLink and Skimlinks. Due this I apply both of them for my sites make a comparison for you. You can look it from here: http:// erdem_ua.users.sourceforge.net/viglink_vs_skimlinks.html
Never heard of either, it's always a good idea to find regular reviews from folks who have been paid by a network before investing your time and money on them
Hi All! My name is Whitney, and I work for VigLink. This is an important thread, so I wanted to chime in. Both VigLink and Skimlinks work with some great merchants that will affiliate your links and earn you commission. We also both offer two products. VigLink offers Automatic Link Affiliation to your existing hyperlinks. So, let's say you've linked out to a pair of boots on eBay. VigLink will affiliate that link you created, and will pay you for any purchases of those boots coming from that link. Alternatively, we offer Link Insertion, which does all the hyperlinking for you! Let's say you make a reference to a product on your site. VigLink will automatically turn that product keyword into a link out to that particular product, and will pay you for anyone who buys the product through your site. We've been told that our Publisher Dashboard is outstanding. Every time you log in to VigLink to check your earnings, I would suggest looking into which links are earning you the most money. That way, you can scale those out and multiply your revenue! Savvy content monetizers use the VigLink dashboard regularly for inspiration. You can direct any VigLink-specific questions to supportATviglinkDOTcom. Happy to help! Cheers, Whitney
I wanted to take a moment and throw Prosperent's ProsperLinks into the ring here. As with Skimlinks and Viglink, we also monetize your existing links by affiliating them. We go a step further though by analyzing your page content, determining the topic of conversation and highlighting products relevant to the topic of conversation. This includes references to brands, retailers, and even any products mentioned in your content. Our detailed analytics give you insight into the brands, merchants, and products that your users really connect with. You can then make use of our Performance Ads to further monetize your site by displaying relevant products to your users. We work with thousands of online retailers and have plugins for most popular platforms like wordpress, tumblr, blogger, vbulletin, and phpbb just to name a few.