We know as online customers ourselves, that when you do a Google search, or click on an ad, you expect to find the product you’re looking for at the end of the link you’ve clicked on. And when we end up at a busy homepage, it is off-putting and can distract us enough to leave without making even a necessary purchase.

This is where deeplinking comes into play – often it’s essential to send visitors to a specific landing page, especially when you are using search engine marketing. Many visitors will leave your landing page without making a purchase if they do not find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.

The Commission Junction affiliate network, or CJ.com, is one of the largest networks serving US and UK based affiliates and merchants. But I’ve never found it the easiest network to use, and until recently, I thought it was not possible to deeplink to specific pages or products – the same as with Clickbank. But many merchants do provide a deeplinking option if you know where to look.

How to find out if a merchant offers a deeplinking option:

• Go to the ‘advertise details’ page for a merchant then click on the link type you want to use at the right hand side of the page:

To find out if the merchant you want to link to allows it go to the merchant links area click on a banner or text link if deep linking is allowed there will be a note next to ‘Destination’ which says ‘Advertiser allows URL redirects for this link.’

How to create deeplinks:

• click ‘Get HTML’ besides one of the links from the list of results. (If you select more than one link with the checkboxes, then you will not be taken to the deeplinking page).

When you are given the HTML for the link, you will find out whether you can make this particular link into a deeplink. Unfortunately you currently have to check each link for a merchant to see if you can deeplink with it. This is something CJ are looking into changing, and according to their blog you can give them a call on 020 8785 5870 if you can’t find a deeplink for a merchant.

The image below shows the field you are looking for – a destination link option:

Change destination link to the URL of the page you want to an affiliate link to, then  click the ‘Update Link Code’ button.

Then, grab your deeplink code.

Affiliate Window

Catering to the UK market most specifically, the Affiliate Window network offers affiliate programs for a huge selection of high street brands and online stores which offer UK delivery. This is my favourite affiliate network for the quality of merchants, products and bi-monthly bank transfer payouts (at no extra charge). The below is a screenshot of some of my recent earnings through this network:

Merchants you can be affiliated with include:

• Play.com
• Marks and Spencers
• Vodafone
• Sky
• Currys
• ELC
• New Look
• PC World

Best features:

• Deep link builder tool – creates your product links automatically and tracks where your clicks from from clearly in your Aff Win analytics reports
• High quality merchants’ websites – no poor quality landing pages as all the affiliate programmes are for big name brands. This gives you the option of  direct linking to products and seeing good conversions, if you prefer not to use your own landing webpage for PPC campaigns.
• Shop window – an online store front that you embed into your website. Shop window provides your visitors with the top-selling products across the 4.5 million products on offer from 700 merchants through the network. Selling any of these through your online store will result in a commission.  See the demo site here
• Useful reports - breakdowns of where your conversions come from, including keyword tracking clicks (very useful for PPC!), earnings by merchants, earnings per click (again, useful for PPC to see if you’re in profit at a glance), and performance over time.
• Easy way to find affiliate programmes that convert and pay out - you can search for new merchants by important features like network earnings of affiliates, top rated (‘star performer’) programmes – those which genuinely convert best for affiliates, conversion rates, programme approval rates, and current payment status (if the programme is currently paying affiliates ).
• Good conversions - I’ve actively promoted about 3 affiliates through the programme (but hundreds of different product types through these), and 2 of 3 have converted really well, with daily sales resulting in profits through my PPC campaigns. Oh, and I don’t use my own landing pages either – but direct link to merchant pages… which usually isn’t recommended, but works for me with the programmes I’ve chosen.

You can sign up with Affiliate Window to become an affiliate here:

It costs £5 to register as an affiliate, but this is credited to your account when you are approved.

Other Affiliate Networks

I am also currently testing Market Leverage (CPA Offers), Clickbank and CJ on some of my sites. They are not converting well at present. I don’t like the quality of offers through MarketLeverage or Clickbank to be honest, but I am testing them nonetheless. This list will be updated when I have sustained success or good experiences with other affiliate networks.