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Guide How to Direct Link with No Tracker

MGID

Luke

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Apr 17, 2018
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Earlier this week, I had a member send me a private message asking about direct linking their campaign without using a tracker because their free monthly tracking credits were about to be gone and they did not have the budget to pay for the tracker and run the campaign.

I am sure this scenario comes up often with people that are new to affiliate marketing. I remember when I worked for PeerFly having publishers ask me all the time about how to direct link without using a tracker.

There are many benefits to using a tracking tool, but it some cases it does make sense to just direct link. So, in this guide I am going to show you how to direct link without a tracker and talk about the benefits of both.

Tracker BenefitsDirect Linking Benefits
Easily manage all of your campaigns in one place.Lower clickloss.
Easily split test offers.Decrease technical knowledge required.
Easily split test landing pages.
Privacy (data isn't necessarily open to networks).

The point of a tracking tool is to make managing your affiliate marketing campaigns easier. You can see campaigns across multiple traffic sources using multiple affiliate networks and as many affiliate offers and landing pages as you want. Managing those campaigns without a tracker is possible, but it is much more time consuming. It would also require some technical/programming skills in most cases.

One benefit of direct linking without a tracker though is that you will see a decrease in clicklos (you're avoiding the extra redirect caused by the tracker) and setting up a direct linked campaign also requires a bit less technical knowledge since you don't need to know how to use the tracker.

So, how can you manage a campaign direct linked without a tracker?

Here is an example campaign I am running right now with Monetizer and Evadav pops 👇




I am not using a tracker at all with this campaign. I am direct linking my Monetizer link on Evadav and doing all the optimizations using the Evadav statistics page and the Monetizer league statistics for my link.

As you can see from the top row of my Evadav stats, I am actually profitable today so far based on the optimizations I was able to make yesterday ($12.35 profit so far with 84.52% ROI).

So, how did I do it?

One important thing if you are going to direct link without using a tracker is to make sure your traffic source and/or affiliate network provides great reporting. Without a tracker, you are going to depend on their reports to do your optimizations. The reason I decided to do this with Monetizer and Evadav is because they do both have great reports.

For example, let's say I wanted to see the top Sources right now on Evadav and potentially blacklist Sources that aren't performing. This is really easy because I setup my Evadav postback on Monetizer so all my stats are available right inside of Evadav:



IMPORTANT: if you are going to direct link and use your traffic source for reporting, you will need to use a traffic source that supplies a postback and shows you the conversion date in their reports. Most traffic sources do this now 👍

Real quick, let's take a look at how I setup this postback using Evadav and Monetizer as an example.

Setup Monetizer and Evadav to do direct link tracking​

First, get the postback URL from Evadav. This is the same for everyone so you can just copy it:

But, it's available on the create campaign page as well:



You're then going to create a new League in Monetizer. You will want to create a new League for any new traffic source you are going to setup to do a direct link. This is because each League has it's own postback URL.

Go to your Leagues page on Monetizer (https://app.monetizer.com/leagues) and then click on the + New League button. Name your League after your traffic source (Evadav) so it's easy to find and remember. Click Create League.

Now, click Manage Leagues and you should see a list of all your Leagues. I have quite a few 😆



You will need to add your Evadav Postback URL. We copied the original one from Evadav, but you need to replace the clickid and payout variables:

👆this is the updated postback with the {clickID} and {amount} that Monetizer uses. Copy/paste that into the Postback URL box. Monetizer saves this in the background so there's no need to click a save button or anything. You're all set!

The last step is to create your Monetizer URL. I'm assuming at this point you know what you want to promote from Monetizer. If not, you can use this guide to learn how to research offers:


Click Create Link on Monetizer and then fill in the form similar to how I did here:



Here is a breakdown of the steps:

1. Where you go to create your link :)
2. Select the correct vertical for the offers you want to rotate. For less aggressive LPs/offers, choose Mainstream.
3. This is SUPER IMPORTANT. Make sure you select Evadav or whatever League you have setup for the traffic source you are using! Your tracking will not work if you choose the wrong League and you cannot change it afterward so you will need to just create a new link.
4/5. I name my campaign and link the same thing and use the same campaign name as I use on the traffic source so there's no confusion.
6. Make sure to check the box to do the bounce/popunder to self.
7. This is where you add your click and tracking variables. The Click ID is determined by the traffic source. Evadav uses {CLICKID} so that's why I put that there. You can add 5 different keywords you want to track. These also come fro your traffic source. Evadav has sources and zones so I added those. You can then see the breakdown of your stats in your League stats (will show below).
8. Offer Targeting is optional, but this is where you can create a whitelist or blacklist of offers from Monetizer you want to rotate. This is done after optimization in most cases.

Click the button to create your link and then add that link as your Campaign URL in your traffic source and you're all set!

If you have done everything correctly, you should start to see clicks in your Monetizer League stats once you start getting traffic from your traffic source. You should also see any conversions show up in your traffic source reports as well as Monetizer.

Here are the keywords reports for my League (Sources and Zones we setup in our link above):



and the one report I really need to focus on today, my offers:



It looks like I can probably double my ROI with just a few optimizations :)

So, that's how it's done! No tracker involved. Just direct linking my traffic source and my affiliate network. Monetizer is an exceptional affiliate network for doing this because they give you the ability to rotate the offers and whitelist/blacklist specific offers. This is also why they're one of my favorite smartlinks.

Let me know if you have any questions 👍
 
Last edited:
RollerAds
BTW, if you have not tested Evdav pop traffic, it's definitely worth a test. A lot of GEOs I am testing have lower volume, but as you can see from my results above, it's converting pretty well! And, it's VERY cheap :D

Get a $50 bonus on your first $500 deposit using this link:
👉 https://afflift.link/evadav

and of course if you are not already working with Monetizer, you should sign up here:
👉 https://afflift.link/monetizer

I appreciate it! 👍
 
One important thing if you are going to direct link without using a tracker is to make sure your traffic source and/or affiliate network provides great reporting. Without a tracker, you are going to depend on their reports to do your optimizations. The reason I decided to do this with Monetizer and Evadav is because they do both have great reports.
This is a good observation. Monetizer is an exceptional network for providing data about the campaigns you're running and they're very newbie friendly (with good payout terms).

In terms of traffic networks, Evadav are definitely good and PropellerAds and ZeroPark also have excellent native optimization dashboards.

Otherwise on the affiliate network side, Golden Goose have good offers, AMs and terms for newbies and excellent dashboard reports (reporting can go 3 levels deep on a lot of different parameters, including a couple of macros).

 
This is a good observation. Monetizer is an exceptional network for providing data about the campaigns you're running and they're very newbie friendly (with good payout terms).

In terms of traffic networks, Evadav are definitely good and PropellerAds and ZeroPark also have excellent native optimization dashboards.

Otherwise on the affiliate network side, Golden Goose have good offers, AMs and terms for newbies and excellent dashboard reports (reporting can go 3 levels deep on a lot of different parameters, including a couple of macros).

Yeah, Golden Goose is definitely another good option 👍
 
In case someone doesn't want to pay for tracker in the beginning, I think Mobidea offers a free tracker when you promote their offers:


Could be a interesting topic to test that setup.
 
In case someone doesn't want to pay for tracker in the beginning, I think Mobidea offers a free tracker when you promote their offers:


Could be a interesting topic to test that setup.
Would love to see it :D
 
This is how I started 7 years ago. It helps you understand tracking before moving to a tracker, for sure.
In this case, I think it's better to maximize the subid tokens available at the network to send as much data as possible from the traffic source while you're learning.

Yes, you will share all of your data with the aff network, but at this point, if you can't afford a tracker yet, you probably don't have to worry about networks getting your data.
 
Since the topic of various affiliate networks was brought up I think it important that you consider how much data you hand over to them when you don’t use a tracker… especially when they have internal media buying teams.
This is a good point. Privacy should be listed under Tracker Benefits (will update).
 
Nice guide - Though honestly I think if you don't have budget to pay for tracker - You currently are not in position to enter paid affiliate marketing. Maybe try something organic - seo or something, get a job or work at Mc Donalds.
 
Nice guide - Though honestly I think if you don't have budget to pay for tracker - You currently are not in position to enter paid affiliate marketing. Maybe try something organic - seo or something, get a job or work at Mc Donalds.
In the case I experienced earlier this week, it was more that they had been using a tracker and had run out of free credits. I don't blame someone for wanting to put their budget into a campaign rather than a tracker. Especially if it's just a short term case flow issue.

But, we can agree that it's important to have a good budget and the tools necessary to be successful.
 
In the case I experienced earlier this week, it was more that they had been using a tracker and had run out of free credits. I don't blame someone for wanting to put their budget into a campaign rather than a tracker. Especially if it's just a short term case flow issue.

But, we can agree that it's important to have a good budget and the tools necessary to be successful.
Ohh yes - If you have a profitable campaign + cashflow issue - then it would make perfect sense.
 
Nice guide - Though honestly I think if you don't have budget to pay for tracker - You currently are not in position to enter paid affiliate marketing. Maybe try something organic - seo or something, get a job or work at Mc Donalds.
Everyone’s gotta start somewhere. I used free tracker for months and so did you!
 
I'm happy to see my competition is all of the sudden rising on Evadav in Italy. Bid jumped $0.10 :D

Good luck stealing this one guys! 🚀
 
I'm happy to see my competition is all of the sudden rising on Evadav in Italy. Bid jumped $0.10 :D

Good luck stealing this one guys! 🚀
I personally ain't gonna benefit from this offer because I am grateful for this amazing guide! 🙏🙏I am gonna test all again and learn more hopefully!
 
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