REDIRECTED TRAFFIC
21 August 2015
Admin
clixGalore recently introduced functionality that allows Affiliate to redirect invalid traffic to a URL of their choice. This article will explain in which situations this becomes necessary and what it means for Affiliates and Merchants. It will also go into a few ways you could use this option to ensure your program operates at its optimum level.
Good Affiliates watch their accounts like hawks for anything that can be improved or isn't working properly. Sometimes, this is necessary as a Merchant might quit the program or go to a low balance and it is necessary for an Affiliate to change the links on their own sites or find alternative Merchants to promote. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to correct these situations immediately in a lot of situations. Affiliates need sleep!
So that is where this URL redirect functionality can come into play.
At the moment when a Merchant goes inactive or has a low balance, the traffic that an Affiliate sends to that Merchant will be redirected to a clixGalore page with the following message:
"Unfortunately we cannot redirect you to the website requested. The program may be inactive, have a low balance or the Merchant may be geographically targeting and filtering the customers / traffic received at their website. The country source of this click may have been filtered out."
Now, I am sure you will realize this was a lost opportunity. Now you can get a second shot at converting that traffic into a sale by using the URL redirect function.
Just log in and go to "Edit / Add Affiliate Program Details or Website" and then scroll to the bottom of the page. You can put your alternative URL in the text box marked "No Redirect URL"
Just input the URL you want visitors to go to.
Now, while an Affiliate can choose to redirect to any URL, there are a few main options that would seem to be the logical choices.
No Redirect - If you leave the option blank, invalid traffic will continue to be directed to the default clixGalore redirect page with the message above displayed. From an Affiliate's perspective, this is probably the least appealing option. You should seriously consider any of the options below.
Home Page - Redirecting invalid traffic to your own website's homepage is a slightly more attractive option. This gives you the chance for the visitor to click on another of your Affiliate banners and increases the odds that you can convert them into a commission! The downside of that option is that the customer basically has to start over at your website.
Own Error Message - Another option is to develop a special page on your own site with your own error message. This could let the visitor know the reason for their redirect and perhaps offer them links to other parts of your site or other Merchants. This would certainly streamline the experience of your visitor and avoid any confusion. It also improves your chances of converting them into a sale more than the previous two options would.
Alternative Affiliate URL - The best option is probably to select an alternative Merchant who sells similar products to those that you promote on your site. This at least keeps the visitor on a site with a similar theme and ensures that your tracking cookie is placed so that you would receive commissions if they made a purchase.
To do this, simply take a look at the tracking code for an alternative Merchant and take the Affiliate tracking URL (the part after a href=) and place that URL in the "No Redirect URL" using the instructions above.
Alternative Network Affiliate URL - It is also possible to add the tracking URL from other networks. This differs from network to network, so you would need to determine their tracking URL.
Now, these options are the best possible for an un-ideal situation (when you are sending invalid traffic for whatever reason). They are aimed at improving this situation. As always, a bit of due diligence on your Merchants should avoid the Redirect being used at all. If your Merchants have set the pending and auto redeposit options to affirmative (you can see that on the Merchant Search page) and you have checked that they accept traffic from your country, then these options may never need to be used. Of course, it is very handy when they do!
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