Mobile Evolution - Thoughts, insight, and experiences related to the mobile software industry

If you are not signed up as an iTunes affiliate for links to your software from your website, then you are throwing an additional 5% in revenue out the door. The iTunes Affiliate program rewards you 5% for each sale through your link. The program is also makes sense for any news site who commonly links to iPhone apps. Affiliate programs should not be new to these sites, but it might be something a developer has not considered.

So, how do you do it? For starters, you need to sign up for a LinkShare account. You can do this via this link here:

Once you are signed up for the LinkShare account, then you apply for iTunes. Once you are accepted as an iTunes affiliate, you can create links to specific products. To do this:

1) Login.
2) Select "Create Links".
3) From the drop down menu 'Generate links for:' select "Apple iTunes".
4) You will see an iTunes frame and graphic. Click on the "Link Maker Tool" button, which takes you to the iTunes Link Maker page.
5) Select the country (You may have to apply for other programs prior to creating links, such as iTunes UK.), the name of your app (under Search), and "Applications" under "Media Type".
6) Click 'search'.
7) The App will show up in the search list. Click on the arrow button to generate the link.
8) Copy the link and paste into your website. Here's an example of a link to a great solitaire game (Acid Solitaire Collection) by one of our developer friends, Red Mercury:

This link is the default provided, but you can add your own graphics:

or a generic AppStore link:

Alternately, you can just use text: Acid Solitaire Collection

Using affiliate links also gives you some auxiliary benefits. Since LinkShare provides you with click data, you can see how many people are clicking thru to your apps from your website. You can also get a good breakdown for sales coming from your site as well. If you want to know if an advertising campaign is going well, you can provide your LinkShare link with your press releases or your online advertising. Of course, you only get one link, so if you use the link everywhere, you won't be able to break out what is working, but if you use the link selectively to do some market testing, you can get some good indications. Alternately, direct your marketing to landing pages on your website that include the LinkShare affiliate link. You can see what proportion of hits you get to that webpage and can glean an idea of how successful your campaigns are.

Another idea is to include this link within your apps. You can link to your other programs for cross-sells, or link to all your programs by creating a developer link (click on the arrow by the dev name "Artist" instead of the product "Name".) On the iPhone, the link will open on-phone the AppStore.

No matter how you use the iTunes affiliate program, you are missing out on potential income if you are not using it. So why not get started today and sign up for an account?

UPDATE: Mobile Orchard just posted a new article that explains how to take the Linkshare links and use them to track your marketing efforts. It's a good expansion of the topic of our post and well worth the effort. The process is a bit complex, but Mobile Orchard does a good job explaining the process.

Here are some links to some of our favorite programs and developers:

Crosswords:

Acid Solitaire Collection:

eWallet:

Frenzic:

Trism:

Enigmo:

WordPop!:

Shake & Spell:

Preschool Adventure: