There have been a few articles popping up discussing Pinterest’s use of Skimlinks, so we wanted to dive in and talk about what they are doing, as it’s not a secret or sneaky or covert, but a very popular, mainstream, and valuable approach to content monetization.
First off, Pinterest’s use of Skimlinks technology is nothing new, nor is it secretive. Skimlinks has been around for almost 4 years now, we are established and relatively well-known, and a large proportion of our customers are blogs, forums and social discovery sites. Pinterest and many other social discovery sites have been working with us for a long time, and although they are fabulously popular now, we like to think we helped them get the revenues and insights that helped them grow. (more…)
So… you are thinking about using SkimLinks & SkimWords on your forum, great! We know that forums are tight knit communities that are built on trust, and that readers are understandably sensitive to advertising. We’ve put together a presentation on the ‘Best Practices for Monetizing Forums Using Skimlinks’ that provides a step by step guide on how you can customize SkimLinks (automatic link affiliation) and SkimWords (link insertion based on relevant products) to provide the best user experience possible.
When you sign up with Skimlinks you’re automatically registered as an affiliate marketer for 17,500+ Merchant Programs. Just like that! No separate networks, no multiple logins, just one account and tens of thousands of Merchants to choose from. We love our publishers and are dedicated to bringing on new Merchants to inspire your posts, working with our Merchants to get the best rewards for you, and providing you with the latest offers and deals from our Merchants in The Scoop.
17,500+ Merchants Worldwide (and growing!)
Skimlinks belongs to over 17,500 Merchant programs around the world, and we join more every day. That’s a lot of online stores and services for you to pick from! From the big names like Amazon and eBayto the niche stores with unique products you can’t find anywhere else (like Invitation in a Bottle or The Popes Cologne), we make it easy to get rewarded for the variety of product sales you drive. Check out all of our merchants in the Merchant Look-up in your Skimlinks Publisher interface.
As we all know, the November-December holiday shopping season is the biggest of the year, by far. And it continues to grow. This year, it’s estimated that people in the U.S. will spend 3% more than the previous year at department stores, a whopping $250 Billion. While that growth is impressive, e-commerce growth is staggering. E-marketer predicts e-commerce spending to grow 16.8% in the U.S. to $47 Billion! $1.2 Billion on Cyber Monday alone!
That’s a ton of money. As online publishers, forum owners, writers and advertisers, we’d all love to earn our slice of the pie for the role we play in generating purchase intent. So to drive home just how crazy the holiday spending spree is, and to help you in the quest to capitalize, we’ve put together a beautiful wintery infographic with our top five suggestions on how to monetize your content.
