Smartlink in Affiliate Marketing: What It Is and How to Track It

A smartlink in affiliate marketing is a single link from a CPA network that leads not to a specific offer but to a matching algorithm. The network sends every visitor to whichever offer, by its data, will perform best for their country, device, operating system, carrier and other traits. You send traffic to one link and get paid for conversions on the offers it went to.

That is the two-sentence answer to «what is a smartlink». Below: how exactly a smartlink picks the offer, where it shines, where it loses to a direct offer, and how to track a smartlink so you compare it with your own offers on numbers rather than gut feeling.

What a smartlink is in CPA networks

The usual way of working with an affiliate network: you pick an offer, get an affiliate link and send traffic to it. If you run twenty geos, that is twenty offers, twenty links and twenty decisions.

A smartlink rolls this into one link. Behind it, the network keeps a pool of offers, usually in one or a few verticals: dating, sweepstakes, mobile subscriptions, utilities, gambling where it is allowed. The network decides who goes where and switches traffic itself if an offer stops converting or hits its limit.

Smartlinks are especially common in formats with a hugely diverse audience: push, pop, in-page, native ads. There, an hour brings traffic from dozens of countries and hundreds of placements, and matching an offer to every segment by hand is impossible. More on these formats in push and pop traffic.

How a smartlink picks the offer

Each network has its own algorithm and usually keeps it private. The general mechanics are clear:

1. Collecting visit traits. Country, city, device, OS, browser, language, mobile carrier or connection type.
2. Filtering eligible offers. The pool is narrowed to offers that accept this geo, device and traffic type.
3. Ranking by performance. The network checks which offer earns more per click (EPC) on similar traffic and favors it.
4. Rotation and learning. Part of the traffic goes to other offers to check whether any of them has become better.
5. Respecting constraints. Offer caps, acceptance hours, advertiser requirements.

Why a smartlink needs clean traffic

A smartlink algorithm learns from what you send it. If your stream is full of bots, auto-clickers and repeat hits from the same addresses, the network sees clicks without conversions and draws conclusions about your traffic as a whole: higher-paying offers may stop being served to it, and earnings per click sag. On top of that, many networks monitor traffic quality per partner and cut payouts or disable a source with a high share of fraud. So filtering in front of a smartlink matters just as much as in front of a direct offer; the signs of junk traffic are covered in bot traffic: how to spot it.

In essence, a smartlink is a TDS on the affiliate network's side, except you do not write the routing rules. How such traffic distribution systems work is explained in TDS system.

Smartlink pros and cons

That last row matters more than it seems. Responsibility for the ad always lies with the advertiser, and platforms require the ad to match the page and promote an allowed product. With a smartlink you can send a user to an offer your platform prohibits and find out from a suspension email. Use smartlinks where the offer pool is allowed by your traffic source's rules, and ask the network's manager which verticals are inside.

When a smartlink makes sense and when it does not

A smartlink is a good fit when:

• you are testing a new broad source and do not yet know which geos and devices in it are alive;
• traffic is spread over dozens of countries and none of them has enough volume for a separate offer;
• you need to monetize the tail, everything that did not go to your main offers;
• you are a beginner who cannot pick offers yet, and the smartlink gives you a baseline to compare against.

A direct offer is better when:

• the geo and audience are clear and there is enough volume for a dedicated offer;
• you want control over the landing page and the angle;
• you work with a platform that strictly checks that the ad matches the page.

How to pick a direct offer is covered in how to choose an offer in a CPA network.

How to track a smartlink

A smartlink comes with statistics in the network's dashboard, but that is not enough: the network shows only what reached it and knows neither what you paid for the traffic nor how many bots it contained. To see real profit, you add the smartlink to your tracker as a regular offer.

1. Pass the click ID. Add your click ID to the smartlink in the parameter the network will return in the postback, for example sub1={click_id}; check the parameter name in the network's dashboard.
2. Set up the postback. Enter your tracker's postback URL in the network's dashboard. Each conversion will then come back to its click. The mechanics are explained in postback URL in affiliate marketing.
3. Pass the placement. Put the zone, site or publisher ID from the traffic source's macro into a separate tag, for example sub2={zoneid}. That shows which placements bring conversions and which only burn money.
4. Set the cost per click. Without spend, the tracker shows revenue but not profit and ROI.
5. Account for statuses. Many networks do not confirm conversions right away: some sit on hold, some get rejected. Compare variants by approved conversions, not raw leads.

A sample smartlink URL with tags (parameter names are illustrative):

https://smartlink.network.com/?pid=123&sub1={click_id}&sub2={zoneid}

How to compare a smartlink with your own offers

A comparison is only fair on the same traffic at the same time. Common setups:

• Weighted split. Half of the traffic that passed the filter goes to the smartlink, half to a direct offer. After a few hundred clicks per side, compare EPC and ROI. How not to fool yourself on small volume is covered in split testing offers and landing pages.
• Smartlink for the tail. Main geos go to proven direct offers, everything else to the smartlink. That way you do not lose traffic from countries you have no offer for.
• Smartlink as reconnaissance. For the first days, traffic goes to the smartlink, and the report shows in which geos and on which devices it converts. You then find direct offers for the best segments.

Compare by earnings per click (EPC) and ROI, not by CR: a smartlink and a direct offer pay differently, and a higher conversion rate does not necessarily mean more money. All the formulas are in affiliate marketing metrics.

Tip. Filter out bots first, then compare. If the smartlink and the direct offer receive different shares of junk traffic, you are comparing randomness, not offers.

Example: smartlink vs direct offer

The numbers are made up, purely for illustration. Say that after filtering, 10,000 push clicks at $0.01 each reached the offers, and you split them evenly:

On CR the smartlink looks almost twice as good, yet it loses on profit. Now slice the same clicks by country: it may well turn out that the direct offer is far ahead in the two main geos and barely converts elsewhere, where the smartlink wins. Then the right setup is branches: main geos to the direct offer, the tail to the smartlink. How to calculate ROI and profit is covered in how to calculate ROI.

Common smartlink mistakes

• Comparing by the network's dashboard. The network does not know your spend and does not see the bots you filtered out. Calculate profit in the tracker.
• No click ID in the link. Conversions arrive but do not attach to clicks, and the geo and placement breakdowns are empty.
• Judging by the first days. A smartlink needs time for its distribution to settle, and conversions need time to clear hold.
• Junk placements. On push and pop, some zones are almost entirely bots. Block them in the ad network itself, not only in the filter, so you stop paying for them.
• Unknown offer pool. If you did not ask the manager which verticals are inside, it is easy to break the platform's rules.

Smartlinks in ArtisanClo: branches and split

In ArtisanClo, a smartlink is added to a flow as just another offer, with its own link, affiliate network and the parameter the network uses to receive the click ID. The catalog has about 300 affiliate network templates; if yours is missing, you can add it as your own, with status mapping. See the affiliate networks page.

Then the flow's traffic routing tools take over (in modes with a tracker):

• Weighted rotation, for example 50/50 between the smartlink and a direct offer for a fair comparison (how a link rotator works is covered separately).
• Branches (from the Professional plan): main geos and devices go to direct offers, while the smartlink stays outside any branch and catches everyone who did not match a rule.
• Visitor pinning: a returning visitor sees the same offer, so the comparison does not get blurred.
• Offer link parameters: rules that rename and set tags on the way to the offer, for example setting sub1={click_id} and stripping extra platform tags so they do not leak to the network.

The offer is chosen for each visit after all filter checks, so the smartlink and the direct offers receive equally clean traffic. The «Money by slice» report shows clicks, conversions, CR, revenue, spend, profit and ROI by offer, branch, country, device and tags, for instance by placement ID. All capabilities are on the ArtisanClo features page.

Bottom line

• A smartlink is a CPA network link that matches an offer to each visitor based on their traits and offer performance.
• Strengths: reach, a fast start and monetizing the tail. Weaknesses: no control over the offer, a black box and the risk of breaking platform rules.
• Track a smartlink like a regular offer: click ID in the link, postback, a placement tag, cost per click.
• Compare it with your own offers on the same clean traffic, by EPC and ROI, with a weighted split or branches.