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Skimlinks Launches Skimwords Auto Product Linking
London-based Skimlinks announced today the beta release of their latest service, Skimwords.
We’ve covered SkimLinks several times before but if you are new to the service, here’s a simple description from my earlier post. Skimlinks provides a way to instantly turn all of your product links into affiliate links with no changes to individual content. You add one line of Javascript to your template and then, where Skimlinks has a relationship, the links automatically become affiliate links.
Skimwords is a bit different than the main Skimlinks product. The Skimwords service looks at the content on the page and creates links on-the-fly for products listed within the content. The goal is to drive additional affiliate sales through the newly-found product links. The service is similar to other in-text programs including Kontera and Intellitxt.
Skimlinks is looking for sites in the following categories to join their Skimwords beta: technology/electronics, sport/lifestyle, automotive and fashion.
Amazon ran a similar program several years ago — one line of Javascript allowed Amazon to automatically create affiliate product links from the text on a page. The Amazon service was closed about a year ago.
Check out our interview with Skimlinks CEO Alicia Navarro from earlier this year.
Hi Allen,
This is Jonathan from Kontera. Without being too familiar with their product, I just checked out the forum Ms. Navarro linked to, and actually Kontera is a significantly different network from Skimwords.
What Skimwords seems to do is place links related to a few specific topics in the text of webpage. Kontera, thanks to our Contextual Technology, an algorithm that can actually read your webpages for meaning, not just scan for keywords, understands what your writing about and finds relevant ads for your content, regardless of what topic you’re writing about. This added level of targeting is how we deliver the highest CTR and best CPC ads.
Additionally, Kontera ads are In-Text ads, not just text links; which are much more attention grabbing to your site visitors. Our exclusive ad inventory includes globally recognized brands such as Microsoft, L’Oreal, National Geographic, Toyota, AT&T, Kmart, Dove, and more. These premium, often Rich-Media ads are the most visually pleasing, offer the best possible CPC, and can only be seen on the Kontera Network.
For anyone interested in joining the Kontera Network, we’re currently offering new publishers a 70% revenue share, which is the best rate in the industry. We’re also offering a $50 bonus to any new publisher who gets at least 25,000 U.S. page views during their first 30 days on the network. Additionally, we recently lowered our minimum payout threshold from $100 to $50, across all payment methods.
You can learn even more about Kontera In-Text links by visiting our Publishers Page: http://www.kontera.com/publishers
Thanks,
- Jonathan Cohen
Kontera Community Manager
Jonathanc@kontera.com
I can see what you are trying to do but if you take the link to Apple’s Finance page added by the editor but monetised by you, that could be tricky. The publisher is going to be paid for introducing people to credit but is not authorised by the OFT as a credit broker. Do you think that is legal in the UK? I don’t.
The article makes no mention that it is only about the price of the handset. Most people buying the handset will need to pay for calls so they might be misled into thinking the monthly costs in the article are the actual cost they will pay. I realise you have not written the article and yours is a new product, but it does highlight maybe where it needs to be fine tuned. No dislcosure either in this piece.
Good luck though. Disclosure on your shopping links is brilliant.
Hey Romo,
So, that link is an example of a link added naturally by the editor of the site, and monetized on-click by the normal SkimLinks product, ie. our main and original service that monetizes editorially added links on-click.
The goal is to help publishers make money from their content without it affecting their content. The editor writes their content independently and objectively, and then it is monetized after the fact without their involvement by either SkimLinks or SkimWords. Publishers love it, and it means less intrusive pop-up or banner ads.
Thanks so much for your interest!
Alicia
http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/6/25/exclusive-get-iphone-4-1610-month/
The link to Apple’s Finance Your Mac page – it says redirecting and loads a Tradedoubler cookie, is that an affiliate link?
Hi Romo,
AVForums has some server maintenance at the moment, unrelated to us, check back in a bit.
On the ITProPortal page, no, that link is not added by us. Try this page:
http://www.itproportal.com/www/news/article/2010/3/19/orange-o2-sell-android-based-xperia-x10/?fbc_channel=1
You can tell we are the ones that added the link if the browser tooltip on the link says ‘Shopping link added by Skimlinks’ – we want to be transparent as to what links are added by us rather than by users/editors.
Forum owners use this as a means of monetizing the service they offer their community. You can read a great example of disclosure (and the community’s response) at: http://www.avforums.com/forums/forum-feedback-news-archive/1268920-automatically-linked-words-posts.html
Thanks for your thoughts, Romo!
Alicia
CEO – Skimlinks
Avforums link not working for me but this story looks like a Skimword redirect on Virgin Media
http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/6/25/ofcom-study-shows-net-neutrality-already-unavoidable/
Are the forum members having the conversation paid?
Reduces to zero the value of a conversation about anything non-commercial – how do you make money off talking about the BBC for example?
Hi Romo and Dean,
I’m the CEO of Skimlinks, I’d love to respond to both of you.
Its a great question about Amazon pulling out of something similar. Although I don’t know for sure, my guess is that publishers might not have wanted to be seen as driving all their clients to one merchant. Our differentiator is we drive traffic to hundreds of retailers, and give a higher weighting to what converts best on particular publisher’s sites.
While what you suggest might happen with forum owners is possible, a vast majority of the content in forums is driven by community members, and they will not tolerate excessive product seeding by forum owners if its not in the best interests of the community.
You can see it working on http://www.avforums.com/forums/headphones-headphone-amps/779623-best-closed-headphones-100-a.html
Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated!
Alicia Navarro
Anyone know of some sites where this is working? would be interesting to see working.
Interesting but why did Amazon pull out? Was it liability for misleading claims or sales tax? How does the advertiser control where its affiliate ads are used if they can be inserted anywhere that a product is mentioned?
I suspect this will lead to forum owners introducing conversations plugging high earning product links in order to earn off sales. Seems quite creepy to me.
This sounds like a great add to their proposition and my personal hope is that Skimwords will provide useful links rather than the dodgy ones provided by other services. And by the look of it, it should! Look forward to seeing it working then.