Blink: An App for “Better Affiliate Links”

 

Words on the Word is barely monetized. I’ve said before that I write the blog for love of the game, i.e., because:

• it’s a creative outlet for me
• I enjoy writing
• I want to help resource others with the best books, biblical commentaries, apps, workflows, music, toys, and so on… whether it be for their parenting, pastoring, or personal enjoyment of life
• other reasons, probably

In the monetization department, I participate in a couple of affiliate programs, most recently the one through iTunes, where I receive a tiny commision from Apple on any apps or tunes you readers purchase through affiliate links. I think I’m up to $0.70 now!

It’s not impossible to just go and fetch an affiliate link through a Web browser, but John and Owen Voorhees of Squibner LLC have a first-rate app, Blink, that allows you to effortlessly make affiliate links. It works for the App Store (iOS), the Mac App Store (OS X), the iTunes Store (music, videos, etc.), and the iBooks store.

Here’s what it looks like:

 

 

I find that I mostly use the plain text links, and then copy them over to a writing app (I’m writing this blog post in 1Writer, and yes, that hyperlink was generated via Blink in about two seconds). But Markdown formats are also available.

You can use Blink’s extension to a create a link with your affiliate ID from the App Store itself. In other words, you don’t have to go into Blink and look up the app you’re already viewing in the App Store:

 

 

They’ve just updated the app, too, to 2.0. Here are the highlights of what’s new:

• Blink now requires iOS 9
• iPad split screen multitasking on supported devices
• External keyboard shortcuts
• Multiple affiliate token support with nicknaming for easy management
• Ability to change geo linking and music settings from Blink’s extension
• Edit links within Blink’s extension
• For apps, view app type and price information within Blink and its extension
• Also view pricing information for music and books in Blink and its extension
• Podcast app support

I don’t use campaign tokens, but those who do will find it easy to manage specific campaign tokens via Blink. Also cool is the App Store view, which you can access from within Blink:

 

 

The attention to detail is evident in the app, as shown here, for example, when a music search differentiates between Song and Album before you have to click through:

 

 

You can use multiple affiliate IDs, if you need to.

My sole negative/constructive critique of this app is that I wish there were a way in-app to save searches and/or links you create. This is not insurmountalbe, though, since link generation is so fast.

Pay for Blink once, and you get it for both iPad and iPhone. You’ll probably earn back the $4.99 cost of the app in affiliate links anyway, which will now be quite hassle-free.

Five stars and two emoji thumbs up for this simple, focused, and perfectly executed app. Which, by the way, you can find here.

 

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Thanks to the good folks at Squibner for the app download for the purposes of review.