Convert iTunes / App Store Affiliate Banners For International Use

You’ll be hard pressed to find someone in the music and tech industries who isn’t taking Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories for a spin today. The long awaited studio album from the mysterious French duo dropped this morning after some much built-up hype and anticipation over the past several months.

We’re digging the group’s shift from the EDM genre they once helped define, toward the soul-infused disco funk sound that’s prevalent throughout RAM. Given Daft Punk’s massive international draw, we’re guessing there are also a lot of happy ears around the world today.

Below we’ve written up step-by-step instructions for use in converting affiliate banners for an international audience using Random Access Memories as an example. Although RAM is available worldwide under the same iTunes ID, it’s a good best practice to use GeoRiot links any time you’re routing traffic to the store to ensure proper affiliation in as many clicks as possible and maximum return on your affiliate linking efforts.

As always, let us know if you have questions about any part of this process and be sure to bookmark this post for future reference when creating iTunes / App Store affiliate banners for an international audience!

Step 1. Get your chunk of HTML.

Since I got an email from LinkShare this morning I’ll use that code for the US program.

Step 2. Determine the final URL for the banner.

Copy the URL in the HREF tag and drop it into a browser and hit enter. The browser should do a couple redirects then leave you with the final URL.

Eg: http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=8i/ET44NjHw&offerid=146261.10006080&type=4&subid=0

resolves to: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/random-access-memories/id617154241.

Step 3. Convert this into a GeoRiot link.

There is a number of different ways to do this. I’ll walk you through using the iTunes Link Maker tool’s “Bulk” encoder – but you can also use the “Create a Link” tool to get a georiot.co link or use the “Quick Build” format to manually convert the link.

First, to access the iTunes Link Maker Bulk Tool, log into your GeoRiot dashboard.

From there, navigate to “Links” > select your traffic source > click “iTunes Link Maker” > click “Bulk” on the right hand side above the search button.

Once you’re there, paste in the resolved URL and click “Get Affiliate Links.”

You should now have something like this:

http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?tsid=19&GR_URL=https%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Falbum%252Frandom-access-memories%252Fid617154241%253FpartnerId%253D30

Step 4. Put it back together.

In your original chunk of HTML you can now swap out the URL in the HREF tag with your GeoRiot link. (And if you really want to be a ninja, pull out the IMG tag. It’s used for click impressions and can make for some funky reporting as not all of your clicks are going through LinkShare.)

Feeling lazy…?

… and just want to affiliate links for the four new banners? Use the banners and code we’ve provided below but remember to drop in your TSID value so that GeoRiot can properly affiliate the clicks for your account. To find your TSID, simply navigate to Account > Manage Traffic Sources from your GeoRiot dashboard and the TSID value will be on your left hand side.

Official "Random Access Memories" Banner Art, 300x250 — Official “Random Access Memories” Banner Art, 180×250

Official “Random Access Memories” Banner Art, 300×50

Official “Random Access Memories” Banner Art, 320×50