When an international visitor lands on your website, you could miss out on an affiliate sale. Why would they pay more for shipping when they can just buy local?
So they bypass your affiliate link and you end up losing commission. How much you lose depends on your amount of traffic, but in the world of affiliate sales is any loss really acceptable?
This post will help you stop that loss – and show you exactly how to monetize your international traffic.
OneTag, OneLink – What’s What?
Amazon’s website seems to use OneLink and OneTag interchangeably. But there is a difference. OneLink is the name of the service. OneTag is the actual script you’ll place on your website.
Easy enough, right?
How Does OneLink Work?
The premise is simple. When a buyer lands on your website and follows your link, they’ll end up at Amazon.com. They find the shipping costs too high, and search for an alternative on their local Amazon. They buy there and you lose money.
With OneLink installed and working, a visitor from another country will immediately be taken to their local Amazon, so you’ll end up still getting commission on the sale.
How To Set Up OneLink
Here’s where things can get a little complicated. And time-consuming. But if you’re getting plenty of international visitors, it’s worth the effort.
Your first step would be to create an associate account for each country you’d like to monetize traffic from. Here’s an easy list (click the links to set up your associate account now):
Once created, log into your associate account. Go to tools and click OneLink. The OneLink home page will open, where you’ll click on “Click here to link”. The next screen will open, where you’ll enter your account details for the country you’d like to target.
Now just head back to the OneLink home page and click on “get the code here”. Copy the script and paste it in the footer of your web page.
That’s it. You’re all set up.
Just one more step.
How “Close Match” And “Exact Match” Work
The final step is to select one of the above options. Close match will redirect your visitor to a similar product, but not necessarily the same product, on their home country’s Amazon.
Exact match will redirect them only if the same product can be found.
You can use the “Check Matching Products” feature to see which products your link will redirect customers to in their home country. Simply paste the Amazon.com link in and it’ll show you the products buyers will be redirected to.
You can do this with up to 20 links at a time.
The benefit of exact match is that you run zero risk of disappointing a customer. With close match, you’ll make more commission with more matches.
Should I Link My Account?
If you’re running analytics on your site, you’ll be able to see which countries most of your traffic comes from.
If you have very little to no traffic from Japan, for example, there’s no real benefit in linking your account. But if 20% of your traffic comes from Canada, it’s probably worth linking it.
It’s up to you, in the end.
All Set To Monetize International Traffic
That’s it, you’re ready to monetize international traffic. Which could help mop up a lot of lost commission.
Got any questions, concerns or additional tips? Drop us a comment below. We’d love to hear from you.
