I'm Just Sharing

Linkshare is another affiliate marketing program that’s a lot like Commission Junction and Google Affiliate Networks in that you have the opportunity to market companies and products of either big name or actual businesses that many people know about. For instance, when I first registered, I immediately was accepted for TigerDirect and Fujitsu, but I also got to apply to Ace Hardware, PBS Shop, HBO Store and Nutri Systems.

Signing up was a little more difficult than I care to imagine, though it’s probably because my eyes are getting older. They require you to use the same name that you use to submit your taxes with, which makes me question whether foreign companies would be allowed to market them. Then, after you fill everything out, they use a captcha, which you know I hate, as the final piece, and I ended up having to do that seven times because I had difficulty seeing it. That, plus every time it says you messed up, you have to remember to type in the username and password you created, and click the two boxes below saying you agree to their terms and whatever the other box said, as I don’t remember right now. Oh yeah, for your password, you have to have at least two numbers in it, which is a first for me.

After it finally approves you, then you can go in and select companies you want to market. I probably picked 20 out of the lists, and, as I said, I was approved for only 3 immediately, one of those being an affiliate marketer for Linkshare themselves, hence the banner ad below.

This site also looks like, if you decide you want to market specific products, you can create your own links to those products, something that you know I sometimes like to do on this blog and on some of my websites. You also get a choice of different sized banner ads, and of course they also have some text ads you can use if that’s your game.

It looks like a pretty nice affiliate program, but of course we’ll see how well it performs in comparison with the others. Then again, right now, since I’m not making serious bank with any of them, it’ll probably fit in nicely. Oh, by the way, I know I’ve never mentioned this before, but I hope that, when most of you add your affiliate links and the like, that you’re making sure that, if it’s not already included, you’re adding as part of your “href” code the part “target=”_blank” (don’t forget to add the quotation marks) to the end. By adding that, it means that if anyone clicks on it, it’ll take them to another window or tab while leaving your post still sitting there. I’ve noticed only recently that not all banner or text links add that, which means when people click on your stuff, like Adsense, they’re gone, though hopefully not for good. Unfortunately, you can’t add that to javascript, from what I’ve seen, but if anyone has any extra insight on this, I’d appreciate hearing it.