LinkTrust ® Full Review

  • Approximate Price: Several payment plans. Starting from $249/month

 

 

 

Running a successful online business today requires merchants to constantly adapt and use new marketing strategies to drive new customers to their websites. Staying competitive is getting harder each day. One of the highly efficient online marketing strategies that not all merchants might be aware of is the affiliate marketing. This is a great marketing model that is especially suited for those merchants that are selling products online.

LinkTrust is a company that brings us an affiliate marketing software solution, which makes running and managing an affiliate program easy and efficient. This is a software that provides a merchant with all the tools and technology he will need to get started with affiliate marketing.

 

So How Does it Work?

Affiliate marketing has been around for more than a decade now. This type of marketing can be very efficient as it is based on the famous “word of mouth” strategy. People are more inclined to buy products they hear good things about from their friends. Affiliate marketing functions in a similar way. First of all there are merchants (advertisers) on one side and affiliates (marketers) on the other side. Merchants upload information about their online products, as well as affiliate program details. Affiliates can then choose to join a certain affiliate program in order to promote certain products on their own. If an affiliate drives a sale through his own promotion, then he is eligible for an affiliate commission which is usually a small percentage of the sales price. This commission percentage is set by a merchant when setting up campaigns in his affiliate program.

The idea of an affiliate program is to connect merchants and affiliates in a joint marketing effort, all with the goal of boosting sales. What makes an affiliate marketing model interesting to merchants is the fact that this is a performance based marketing model. This means that merchant only pays for actual results – product sales. There is no additional marketing budget needed, as all the commissions are justified through actual sales. This means that merchant does not pay for marketing efforts his affiliate make, rather only for the conversions (sales) they generate. Of course, this kind of model has a lot of benefits such as increased brand awareness, booster website traffic, 3rd party promotions and similar – all for free. Usually online advertising is charged by impressions or clicks which does not guarantee any viable return of investment (conversions or sales).

1. The Admin Center

Merchant interface – When you sign up with LinkTrust, you will get access to a merchant interface. This is the place where you will be spending your time managing the affiliate program.

Dashboard

The first page you land on when you login is the dashboard. This page shows the most important stats in the center of the screen and there is a left sidebar menu with reports links as well as “My domains” listing and user account information. This page also has a main header links menu, that lead you to different options for tweaking and managing your affiliate program.


Account section

This is where a merchant enters information about his company. Username, as well as contact information, can be updated here. Left sidebar menu has the following options listed: user accounts, email settings, domains, APIs, logs, affiliate center, affiliate application filter, merchant center, 3rd party integrators. In user accounts menu we get to tweak all the settings related to users and their permissions. Next, there is an email settings feature. Here we can setup all sort of email templates that are sent to our affiliates during the process of joining an affiliate program (application submitted/approved/denied and similar templates). In the affiliate center menu we have options for setting up payment methods. It is possible to fully customize the page where payment details and terms and conditions will be shown to the affiliates looking to join your program.

Campaigns section

This page by default shows a search engine at the center of the page with all the options to search through your campaigns. In the left sidebar on this page we can find the following links: create campaign, manage categories, manage groups, site optimizer (beta). To create a new campaign, click on the create campaign button. You need to enter information about your campaign here, it is possible to setup a type of campaign, enter a landing page URL, details such as category, tracking pixel and all important commission structures. Once the campaign is created, a new page will be shown with a multitude of advanced options for further customizing everything and tracking results.

 

Affiliates section

This page offers options for searching through affiliates based on advanced search criteria and filters. There is left sidebar menu on this page with the following options: create affiliate, pending apps, denied apps, campaign requests, record payments, view payments, send a message, mass action, manage groups, test affiliate, login to affiliate center. As the name of this section implies, this page of the merchant interface is used for managing your affiliates. You can find and edit all their details here, approve or deny new applications and manage affiliate payments. It is possible to send messages to specific affiliates from the list, to perform group actions or send mass messages.

 

Reports section

This is the homepage for analyzing all the intricate metrics of your affiliate program. It is impressive how deep the data goes and it is truly possible to find any kind of performance metric you might be looking for. The metrics include: campaign performance, affiliate performance, campaigns by affiliate, affiliates by campaigns, daily breakout, sub ID breakout, creative breakout, campaign ratings, affiliate commissions, affiliate Mgr Performance, merchant performance, campaigns by merchant, adjustments, transaction search. Use these metrics to adjust and optimize your affiliate program for optimum results and best conversions rate.

2. The Affiliate Control Panel:

Affiliate interface – Affiliates who join your program also get to access a similar interface where they can see all the details about the affiliate program, commissions, messages as well as all sorts of statistics. Affiliate interface is the place where affiliates manage their activity and where they obtain all the promotional materials, tracking links and other important resources.

 

 

Plans and Pricing

LinkTrust offers several payment plans, depending on the merchant requirements.

Basic plan costs $249 per month.

Features:

  • No activation fee
  • 10 campaigns
  • 3 users
  • Limited views per month
  • 50,000 clicks per month
  • Limited sales per month
  • Unlimited affiliates
  • 10 Advertisers
  • Email support only
  • Complete features set
  • Fraud controls
  • Affiliate center
  • Generic tracking links

Premium plan costs $575 per month and it includes all the features of the basic plan plus the following upgrades:

  • $600 activation fee
  • 50 campaigns
  • Unlimited users
  • Unlimited views per month
  • 250,000 clicks per month
  • 100,000 sales per month
  • Unlimited affiliates
  • Unlimited advertisers
  • Email, phone and chat support
  • Custom tracking links
  • Personal training
  • Advertiser center

Lead Management plan costs $999 per month and includes all the features of the premium plan with additional upgrades:

  • 30,000 leads per month
  • Lead management
  • Custom lead validation
  • Lead distribution
  • Ping-tree

Finally, there is a custom plan which is fully customizable for enterprise customers. Get in touch with LinkTrust to get a quote.

 

How To Get Started?

In order to get started, go to the LinkTrust’s company website and click on the “Start Your FREE Trial” button on the homepage. There are a few steps needed to complete the sign up process.

Once you have signed up, you will gain access to the merchant interface where you will be able to start setting up your affiliate program. Initial setup of the affiliate program takes time due to certain technical details, but once you get yourself familiar with the software and all the features, subsequent program management will go smoothly.

 

The Benefits

Predictable costs, charged on monthly basis. This is the benefit of using affiliate software in comparison to joining one of affiliate networks where merchants pay additionally for each transaction.
Cloud-based software with 99.999% uptime
Rich features set that will satisfy needs of any type of business
Flexibility and level of customization incorporated
Training videos and support availability

 

Down-Sides

Merchants need to invest into marketing their affiliate program on their own to gain traction. Those who are looking to get a quick start and attract a number of potential affiliates quickly should look into joining one of affiliate networks out there.
Even the basic payment plan is more expensive in comparison to the competition
The software might not be suited for small businesses
No phone or chat support for basic plan subscribers
Limit caps on clicks, sales or views in payment plans

 

Frequently Asked Questions

“Is LinkTrust compatible with my shopping cart?”

Yes, LinkTrust can be integrated with any shopping cart to provide real time tracking and reporting.

“Which 3rd party software and platforms work with LinkTrust?”

All the common 3rd party services work out of the box with LinkTrust (Payoneer, PayPal, QuickBooks, Invoca, Salesforce, InfusionSoft etc.)

“Do I need to install LinkTrust software on my own web-server?”

No need for installation, LinkTrust is cloud-based software.

“How can I get support?”

Depending on the plan of your choice, support is available through email, chat or phone.

“Can I customize the look of different pages related to my affiliate program?”

Yes, this software is fully customizable and it is recommended that you customize the pages to match your brand styling.

“Is there a web interface for both merchants and affiliates?”

Yes, both merchants and affiliates get access to an affiliate program management interface.

“How can I contact LinkTrust?”

Call 1.877.287.7822 or send an email to sales@linktrust.com to get in touch with the company.

“Are there tutorials and installation guides available on the website?”

Yes, there is a whole section of the site dedicated to providing guides and manuals. This section is called LinkTrust University.

 

 

About The Company

LinkTrust is a company providing a software platform for affiliate program tracking and management. This company from Utah has been around since 2002. Customers can contact LinkTrust via following phone number +1 877-287-7822 or by sending an email to sales@linktrust.com

 

 

The Bottom Line

LinkTrust brings an advanced platform for managing an affiliate program. This cloud-based software allows merchants and business owners to start up their affiliate program and to track online sales. This software has all the features you would need and then some more with highly advanced technical solutions already built-in. Use this software to manage your campaigns, affiliate marketing promotions, and to increase sales and conversions.


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