Can someone please explain in depth about smart links and the best way to use them
hello eneal45,
Smartlink is a rotator. It rotates many offers inside one link. It works with an algorithm that detects user’s origin (geo, OS, device, Connection type, etc) and analyse these metrics in detail before serving the best available offer to that user - which means all of your traffic becomes valuable.
This ensures that you as an affiliate will serve most relevant offer to your visitors and increase your EPC. Affiliates run them usually because it saves them time - no need to search for offers, test offers, etc and trust the algorithm to do the optimisation in real-time.
You can use them as a fallback offer for your remnant traffic (for offers reaching caps or budget, exit traffic, etc), as well as untargeted traffic (unsupported geo, OS, carriers, devices). There are also some networks that provide some ad units (pop up scripts, back-click code, etc) that you can add to your landing pages/sites to monetise exiting or untargeted traffic.
You can run it as a front-end offer for some traffic sources too that allows rotators like Zeropark. Checkout this thread from vortex: https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...utorial-Part-1
Tip: Split test several smartlinks from networks - different networks could perform a lot better for certain geo-OS-device-3G/Wifi traffic combination.
Hey!
Agree with everything that Machix said. Just to add - in some networks there are Smartlinks created for each verical, for instance we have 4 of them - one for Adult, one for Mainstream CPA, another CPI and Incent traffic. Also, don't forget that different affiliate networks have different algorithm systems, there are different offers inside of the link, and rules of traffic allocation, so it is normal that the Smartlink for a certain segment will perform better than in another network.
Therefore it is really important to speak with your account manager every time you are creating a campaign with the Smartlink - ask for the top countries, operators, and their average stats (as eCPM/EPC and CR). All account managers can provide this information and give you their valuable opinion about it too.
Also - some traffic sources don't allow rotators (like Facebook and Google Ads), so there is no whitehat way to promote the Smartlink in these sources.
We usually recommend the Smartlink to webmasters, that have a website, or a blog, especially with mixed traffic (different segments). Although there are some Media buyers that make really good money, running Smartlinks only, and changing the targeting.
As a beginner you can try to work with it, this is a matter of testing the networks, and setting the correct targeting, always contacting your account manager to know the most profitable segments. But doesn't mean you should refuse using single offers too.
Hope it helps!
You already have great info from colleagues! If you want more details on how a smartlink works and how to set it up the best way, you can visit our thread : Smart links
...or on "Mind The ROI"