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Giacomo Balli
The Mobile Guy

Over a decade of mobile experience at your service.
I help business owners leverage mobile technology.

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iTunes affiliate tools

itunes-affiliate-toolsThis is a section of the main tutorial on iTunes affiliate links.
Everyone loves making money from iTunes affiliate links but it is often a pain to be on top of creating them. This is a collection of iTunes affiliate tools that will make your life easier.

iTunes Affiliate Link Generator

Each on of the iTunes affiliate networks provides its own link generator to be used whenever creating a new link. This is definitely a nice thing if you will create few links which will be reused. If you plan creating many different links, perhaps with different networks and tracking codes, you might prefer to build your own. It's pretty straightforward if you know some basic javascript. You can check out the one I made for my self which includes some other goodies here. georiot-logoWhen searching the web you might find some tools here and there but most of them do a very specific, limited, function and I don't find them to be very useful. However, there is one that I believe is truly amazing. It's called GeoRiot. I was lucky enough to discover this iTunes affiliate tool when they were still in beta years ago and have been using it the whole time. The concept is extremely simple: they do all the legwork of figuring out the correct iTunes affiliate network to use (based on the user's location) and also give you reporting tools. Also, you don't need to pay them! They will only take a a small percentage of your clicks as payment, starting from unaffiliated users (therefore ones you wouldn't make anyways). I think it's as genius and easy to use.

iTunes Affiliate Auto Link Maker

At the same time that Apple announced PHG, they also introduced a new auto link maker which implements the same concept as SkimLinks. You include Apple's javascript snippet, and after the web page has loaded it will scan the embedded links and replace them with the appropriate iTunes affiliate links. Very handy and definitely recommended trying it but unfortunately it currently only supports PHG.

iTunes Affiliate Widget Builder

Apple also provides an easy way to embed iTunes Store widgets within your website by simply pasting a code snippet. These are live elements that always retrieve fresh information from the store based on your specifications, just like the one on the right for Jay-Z's latest album Magna Carta.

iTunes Affiliate tracking mobile apps

Both PHG and TradeDoubler currently have their own apps in the App Store. These allow you to always keep at hand performance reports for your iTunes affiliate links.
phg-mobile-app tradedoubler-mobile-app

iTunes Affiliate links on Wordpress blogs

If you maintain a website or blog, odds are it's running wordpress.
Just like for pretty much anything, you can already find plugins which will help you when creating iTunes affiliate link. I tried a couple but was not satisfied. They all seem to have a very specific purpose in mind and therefore do not leave much space for customization. I would advise creating the iTunes affiliate links manually (or use your own link generator) and then including them on your website.
The above is the most comprehensive guide when it comes to iTunes affiliate tools. Feel free to try them and make sure to let me know what you think or at least say hi after you make your first $1000. :)

#iTunes affiliate tools
Published: Sun, Sep 22 2013 @ 10:07:22
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