Chapter 28
They Give You the Code

When you choose an affil­i­ate adver­tis­er out of a affil­i­ate adver­tis­ing cat­a­log, you will get the link (code) that the adver­tis­er pro­vides to you use to reach the adver­tis­er’s web­site (ad). Because you are a mem­ber of the affil­i­ate adver­tis­ing orga­ni­za­tion, the code indi­cates that the link came from your web­site. In oth­er words, the link includes code that will give you cred­it for one of your users click­ing on the link. Your job is mere­ly to put the link in your webpage.

The affil­i­ate adver­tis­er might require you to han­dle the link in a cer­tain way. Oth­er­wise you’re free to do what­ev­er you want to do with the link. Here are some of the possibilities:

• The link may put a graph­ic in your web­page auto­mat­i­cal­ly pro­vid­ed by the affil­i­ate adver­tis­er. The graph­ic might actu­al­ly be some­thing use­ful to read­ers such as a cal­cu­la­tor. Or the graph­ic might be just a typ­i­cal adver­tis­ing image.
• In many cas­es you can pro­vide your own graph­ic. The graph­ic could be an adver­tis­ing image, such as a ban­ner ad, an icon with a cap­tion, or a text block. In such cas­es, you pro­vide the image, icon and cap­tion, or text block.
• You can use an affil­i­ate adver­tis­er’s link sim­ply as a word or phrase link in the text. In such a case, the word or phrase is, in effect, your ad.
• There may be some oth­er clever way that you can include the affil­i­ate adver­tis­ers’ links.

If the affil­i­ate adver­tis­er has no restric­tions, you have com­plete con­trol over how the adver­tis­ing looks your web­page. Oth­er­wise you are stuck with what the affil­i­ate adver­tis­er requires you to do. Read Chap­ter 26 on some thoughts about what’s appro­pri­ate to do and what’s not appro­pri­ate to do.