Tip of the Week-the Link

TIP OF THE MONTH | NOVEMBER 2008

Flex Links – Best Practices and Implementation Guidelines

Leading Advertisers are always on the lookout for new ways to stand out among the crowd with creative content that captures an audience while generating higher rates of interaction and conversion to sale. Increasingly, Advertisers are using rich media to engage their customers with product information widgets, video, and Flash. Using LinkShare’s Flex Links, Advertisers can deploy more interactive and dynamic content leading to higher rates of interaction and conversion to sale. When an Advertiser makes Flex Links available as a link type within their program, publishers can copy and paste them onto their site just like any other link.

Here are two popular uses of Flex Links:

Flash Video Content
Many affiliate marketing programs cannot support the distribution of Advertiser links that contain rich content because links need to meet certain requirements in order to successfully track a sale or action. As a LinkShare Advertiser, however, you can now use Flex Links to enable your rich content with tracking capability. When customers click on rich content the underlying code can be programmed in a way to send the user to a landing page or another area of your Web site to continue the purchase or lead capture process.

Flash/Java Script Widgets
Flash Widgets are small pieces of code on Web sites that drive interactivity with consumers or target audience. Widgets can not only make a Web site more interesting but more importantly they engage the user for longer periods of time and lead to higher sales or conversion rates. Widgets can now be pushed out to publishers in your program as Flex Links.

To enable Flex Link content for tracking, you must modify the underlying code with a few simple changes that include a parameter called LSNTRACK. Publishers looking for new or additional links to place on their site will see Flex Links as an additional link type available in your program. They can then pick Flex Links just as they would any other type of links.

If you’re an Advertiser with existing rich content (or considering a marketing investment in the production of rich content) such as Flash product tours, product information widgets, or video, you can leverage that investment within your affiliate marketing program to help drive higher sales and conversion rates with Flex Links.

For more information about LinkShare’s innovative online marketing solutions or to join the LinkShare Network please contact your LinkShare representative.

Implementation Guidelines
There are two sets of Implementation Guidelines for Flex Links; one designed for you, our Advertiser and a second designed for Third-Party providers. Please use these guidelines to ensure your Flex Links are designed to work properly in the LinkShare system. These Implementation Guidelines, which contain several examples of various Flex Link coding guides, can be accessed in the Merchant Resource Center.