About Us
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Who is LinkConnector?LinkConnector is an affiliate marketing network helping merchants and affiliates increase online sales and revenue. The company was built from the ground up to address and overcome the limitations that exist in today's market and to better empower online merchants and affiliates. LinkConnector, which launched in 2004, provides all of the standard functionality that you will find among our competition in the industry. However, there are many significant differences between LinkConnector and our competition that we believe give our merchants and affiliates a strong advantage. LinkConnector is breaking the mold. The new technologies that LinkConnector has introduced to the market, and our philosophical differences are changing the expectations of merchants and affiliates and redefining the affiliate marketing industry. We truly are different. Our Philosophical differencesLinkConnector is turning heads with our unique approach to affiliate marketing—an approach that is not readily found in the industry today. Some of LinkConnector's key philosophical differences are provided below. These differences help explain how many of LinkConnector's exclusive technologies came to fruition. SEO and SEM Strategy Integration LinkConnector has developed technologies that integrate its customers' SEM efforts with their affiliate marketing efforts. LinkConnector believes that merchants gain significant value from the inbound, direct links from their many affiliate partners (but also believes that affiliates should be fairly compensated for any benefits they provide to their merchant partners). LinkConnector has developed technologies to make this value transaction possible. Affiliate SEM efforts may also be enhanced using LinkConnector technologies. LinkConnector has developed technologies that enable an affiliate site to appear more editorial in nature to users and search engines, thereby improving their standing as an authority site. LinkConnector believes that by integrating an affiliate or merchant's SEM strategy in with their affiliate program efforts, they are left with the best possible outcome between organic and paid results. Brand Control LinkConnector wants to give control of a merchant's brand back to the merchant. It is unacceptable for this to be a concern of merchants when dealing with affiliates. LinkConnector understands the frustrations merchants face with the inability of affiliate networks to provide them with proper control of their company brand. Zero Tolerance of Fraud There is a noticeable lack of fraud control by most affiliate networks. It is too common an occurrence that the merchant must discover on their own when an affiliate is committing fraud before the network will even investigate. Again, LinkConnector feels this is unacceptable. LinkConnector has zero tolerance for fraud in the LinkConnector Network and employs great effort to find fraud. Quality versus Quantity of Affiliates For any merchant's affiliate program to succeed, they need quality affiliates sending qualified traffic. LinkConnector is taking a much different approach than the competition and is placing a greater significance on attracting top quality affiliates over amassing large volumes of affiliates. LinkConnector fraud technology enables it to screen out affiliates that are deemed to be risky or irrelevant. Affiliate Representation It is typical in this industry for merchants to be treated as the primary customer by networks while affiliates are treated as the secondary customer. LinkConnector acknowledges affiliates as equal partners and has created an Affiliate Relations department that allows LinkConnector to offer its affiliates representation similar to the way LinkConnector's merchants are represented. Our Affiliate Relations department is a significant differentiator between LinkConnector and its competition. Affiliate Technologies LinkConnector understands the importance of providing a method to assist affiliates in finding the right match for their traffic, as this is an area that most networks do little to help. Affiliate technologies that help optimize affiliate efforts benefit both the affiliates and the merchants they promote. Pricing Strategy LinkConnector believes that a merchant's affiliate program should be viewed as a pay-for-performance model. We offer a much different pricing model than our competitors by not charging separate fees for individual services to a merchant for operating their affiliate program. LinkConnector makes money when a merchant makes money. The cost savings from LinkConnector allow a merchant to pay more to affiliates which leads to a more successful program for all. Out-of-the-Box Technologies LinkConnector does not stop with the standard benefits most other networks provide. LinkConnector is a technology company and is continuously developing new functionality to take an affiliate program to the next level for both merchants and affiliates. We take a very hands-on approach and have designed our system in a way that makes it extremely simple to meet special needs some merchants may have with their campaigns. Our Technological DifferencesBelow, are highlighted LinkConnector's exclusive technologies that demonstrate how significantly different we are from other Affiliate Marketing Networks. Naked Link Technology® Pioneered by LinkConnector, our patent-pending Naked Link Technology provides merchants and affiliates with a direct linking method. It is not meant to replace the current standard linking method that exists in LinkConnector and other networks, but instead acts as an alternative linking method. There are numerous benefits merchants and affiliates gain by running a Naked Link campaign. The largest benefit is it allows merchants to complement their search engine optimization efforts while they promote their site on LinkConnector's Network. Naked Link Technology also benefits affiliates by allowing affiliate websites to seem more editorial in nature to users and search engines, thereby improving their standing as an authority site. » Learn more about Naked Link Technology Affiliate Connections™ Most new technologies introduced into affiliate marketing networks consider only direct benefits to the merchant. However, technologies that improve an affiliate's ability to generate revenue will also indirectly benefit the merchants with whom they have relationships. LinkConnector's Affiliate Connections technology does just that. With Affiliate Connections, affiliates will be able to create and establish a connection and then manage that connection from within the LinkConnector interface. They will be able to add multiple promotions to one connection to be randomly (or specifically) served. These promotions could be all from the same merchant or could include multiple merchants at the same time. Over time, LinkConnector will automatically recognize better performing promotions and optimize the views to maximize an affiliate's earnings. In addition to the obvious benefit to affiliates, merchants will also benefit from this technology. Affiliate Connections helps more affiliates find an optimal match for their traffic. This increases the number of top performing affiliates for a merchant. Not only will merchants be matched up with better performing affiliates, but these affiliates will find the merchants quicker. » Learn more about Affiliate Connections FraudFREE™ Protection Affiliate marketing networks have had a significant impact on Internet advertising and marketing, but fraud, in many different forms, continues to become more prevalent in this industry. Most networks do not disclose if or how they protect against fraud and often require the merchant to discover fraudulent activity before the network will investigate. LinkConnector employs a zero-tolerance policy on fraud and is developing and using its FraudFREE protection system to combat fraud. The LinkConnector FraudFREE system is comprised of many components working together to identify and eliminate fraud within the network. This system, responsible for keeping LinkConnector merchants and affiliates honest, currently employs numerous advanced technologies to combat fraud, including Front Door Fraud Protection, Source Checker™, Click Validation, and Data Pattern Matching. In the coming months, LinkConnector plans to make our FraudFREE protection system even more effective by adding Click Verification, Language Matching, and Location Analysis. Since LinkConnector launched the innovative FraudFREE protection system in early 2005, it has eliminated about 2.3% of its existing affiliates due to fraud. Additionally, the Front Door Fraud Protection component of its FraudFREE system launched in the fourth quarter of 2005, and prevents approximately 33% of new, high-risk affiliates from even joining the network. This ensures LinkConnector's network of affiliates is high in quality, not just quantity. » Learn more about FraudFREE Protection Source Checker™ LinkConnector's Source Checker module was developed to give control of the merchant's brand back to the merchant. In traditional affiliate networks, affiliates apply to a merchant's campaign and, once approved, can promote the merchant from almost anywhere online. LinkConnector Affiliates must get each site approved before they will receive credit. This eliminates much of the traditional offline agreements and back-end work merchants are required to do to ensure their brand is protected and affiliates are not recklessly promoting their brand. This also helps to protect merchants from PPC bidding war fares as merchants can elect to not approve affiliate traffic from specific PPC search engine websites. » Learn more about Source Checker Pending Sale Functionality In most affiliate networks, a Pay Per Sale affiliate campaign is only available to merchants who are able to finalize the sale process online while the user is still present on the merchant's site. LinkConnector's Pending Sale functionality opens up Pay Per Sale campaigns to any merchant who begins their sale process online. Merchants now can use a Pay Per Sale affiliate campaign regardless of where and when an online sale transaction is finalized. In the LinkConnector Network, a merchant may classify any sale as a pending sale. Reasons for doing so include processing a credit card offline, order verification, paying for a service without a credit card, as well as other post-sale requirements. Once post-sale requirements have been met, the merchant validates the sale so the affiliate can be compensated. By ensuring a sale is valid and complete before making a payment to an affiliate, a merchant eliminates any risk associated with an affiliate transaction and can afford to pay honest affiliates more for each sale. Affiliates also benefit from this new functionality by having more merchants return to affiliate marketing. » Learn more about Pending Sale Functionality Virtual Affiliate™ Tracking Affiliate networks generally account for no more than 25% of a typical merchant's traffic. The largest percentage of traffic usually comes from the remaining untracked traffic sources. Virtual Affiliate Tracking allows merchants to track and optimize all search traffic. Search engines are treated as Virtual Affiliates and merchants are able to track the effectiveness of different keywords. Virtual Affiliate Tracking pinpoints a merchant's most effective sources of traffic and identifies the most successful landing pages on a merchant's site. It helps to determine the effectiveness (ROI) of SEM campaigns. » Learn more about Virtual Affiliate Tracking Advanced Events LinkConnector has developed unique Advanced Events that go beyond standard event types offered in other affiliate marketing networks. LinkConnector offers traditional event types such as Pay Per Click, Pay Per Lead and Pay Per Sale. But, LinkConnector also developed and now offers two advanced events Pay Per Call and Pay Per Go. Pay Per Call A Pay Per Call event allows affiliates to receive commissions when users request a call from the merchant site. Affiliates place an approved merchant's advertisement banner onto their site with the proper tracking code provided to them in their LinkConnector interface. When a user clicks on the merchant's banner ad, and completes the call form, affiliates will then receive credit. Pay Per Go A Pay Per Go event is similar to a traditional Pay Per Click event; however affiliates receive credit when users go to outbound links from a merchant's page. A Go event can be used on image or text links. The commission amount can vary for each link on a page within one event. Additionally, the link destination can be within the merchant site or outbound from the merchant site to one of their partner sites. |
