Getting Started

The GeoRiot service enables your website or app to utillize multiple iTunes Affiliate program accounts simultaneously, to capitalize on your international audience, and create truly international URLs to items in the iTunes and App Store to provide a positive user experience to all of your clicking traffic.

Integrating with the GeoRiot service takes a few simple steps, outlined below. If you have questions along the way, feel free to contact us! You may also find our FAQ helpful.

Step 0. Can the GeoRiot Service Help My Business?

Not sure if the GeoRiot service is for you? Our clients range from app developers and music labels to app cross-promotion platforms and content discovery. If you are sending international clicking traffic to the App Store or iTunes, the GeoRiot service can help your business.

Whether your primary goal is collecting commissions internationally through a single link, ensuring an optimal user experience for every user world wide, or gathering more stats on your clicking traffic, you have come to the right place!

Step 1. Get a GeoRiot Account

To request a GeoRiot account, fill out the form on our Get Started page, and include an example affiliate tracking deep link URL generated from the iTunes Link Maker tool. Read Getting an Example Affiliate Link below for directions. We will create your account and send you a user name/ password for the GeoRiot dashboard and reporting engine. You will log in

Getting an Example Affiliate Link

To create an example link referenced above, log into your affiliate network (LinkShare, TradeDoubler, LinkShare Japan or DGM), select the iTunes Affiliate Program to which you have been accepted, and click on the Link Maker tool button. The tool, hosted by Apple, should open in a new window. Type in your favorite musician, click search, and select any one of the results. A box will pop up and the example URL is given in the "Direct Link" area.

 

Step 2. Identify your Traffic Source(s)

This may be your website, app, advertising campaign, tweets, Facebook posts, etc. You can create multiple traffic sources in your GeoRiot account. Adding multiple traffic sources to your account allows you to take advantage of reporting by traffic source. For example, you may want compare click rates on your website vs. in-app traffic, or Facebook vs. Twitter social links. GeoRiot also enables you to use different affiliate program accounts by source, should you need that capability.

Step 3. Add your Traffic Source(s)

Login to the GeoRiot dashboard with the credentials listed above. Add a traffic source by selecting: Account > Manage My Traffic Sources > Add a new Traffic Source

Step 4. Add your Affiliate Programs

After creating your first traffic source, select "Manage Affiliate Program Set" beside your new traffic source. Next, click "Add a new Affiliate Program" and add the affiliate program account(s) to be used for this traffic source. Use the values in the example link generated for each affiliate network/ country pair in Step 1, Get an Example Affiliate Link. TradeDoubler allows you to use a single affiliate program for all European countries and a single affiliate program for 9 of 10 Latin American countries. Select the option to populate all unconfigured European or Latin American countries if you wish to do so. The remaining Latin American program, Brazil, cannot be combined with your catch-all Latin American program.

Step 5. Create GeoRiot Enabled Links

Get Your First GeoRiot Enabled Link

You can use the Link Maker tool to create your first GeoRiot enabled link. First, log into the GeoRiot dashbaord then navigate to Account > Manage Traffic Sources > Manage Affiliate Program Set. Select the "Link Maker" link beside the country corresponding to your base country, which is typically the US.

In the Link Maker tool, enter your search terms in the text box.

Select one of the results to view and copy/paste your new GeoRiot enabled links-- available in a variety of formats.

More Options For Building GeoRiot Enabled Links

You are free to generate links programmatically (see Linking Formats), or if you are working with a smaller set of links, we provide tools in the GeoRiot dashbaord that will create GeoRiot links for you (see Linking Tools). The easiest way for you to integrate with GeoRiot depends on how you are using the affiliate networks currently. To assist you in determining this, read through the questions below and choose the solution(s) that work best for you and your app, website, and/or social posts.

Do you currently have a link to a landing page in iTunes or the App Store?

No.  (Are you going to link to music? Yes.  Search Link No.  Link Maker tool)

Yes.  (Is it an affiliate link? Yes. Consider Find/ Replace link formatting method and/ or our JavaScript snippet solution No. (Do you have a lot of links? No. Consider JavaScript snippet solution and/or the Encoder tool Yes. To integrate programmatically, consider JavaScript snippet solution and/ or Quick Build link formatting))

RSS feed or Widget

See our Widget and RSS feed generator tools to generate new GeoRiot-enabled RSS feeds and Widgets. To modify your existing code, consider the Quick Build and Find/Replace link formatting methods.

Step 6. Swap Your Old Links with GeoRiot Links

Now that you have your new GeoRiot enabled links, you are ready to go live!

By replacing your old affiliate links with GeoRiot links, you will send your click traffic first to the GeoRiot service, where the link will be created for the consumer's local storefront and affiliated. As soon as your affiliate links have been updated to GeoRiot enabled links, you will immediately provide a better user experience to international users of your site, app, and/ or social posts. You can continue to add iTunes Affiliate Programs to the traffic source(s) in your GeoRiot account as you go.

Testing Your Links

For testing purposes, you can pretend you are coming from another country by appending “&targetiso2=XX” to the end of any GeoRiot link, where XX is a valid ISO2 country code. See Testing for more information.

Tracking

Both TradeDoubler and LinkShare accept a tracking value to allow you to differentiate traffic sources within the same affiliate program account. If you are using multiple traffic sources, it is recommended that you include the TRACK variable. See Tracking for more details.

Note for iOS Apps

Placing any affiliate link in an iOS app causes Safari to launch before loading the the store. Please see Affiliate Links Inside iOS Apps for more info and a link to Apple's suggested work-around.

Free Trial

Our standard click share requirement is 15% and will go into effect after your one month trial. Please see Compensation for all the details and several click share examples. We offer a reduced click share rate in exchange for clients placing GeoRiot promotional links on all their web pages containing GeoRiot enabled links. Let us know if you are interested!

Step 7. Continue Adding Affiliate Programs

After integrating your site with the GeoRiot service, your next step is to apply for additional iTunes affiliate program accounts in other countries. Use the GeoRiot reporting engine to view statistics for your clicking traffic, and see which countries generate the most traffic for you. Using that information, you can direct your effors to apply to the appropriate affiliate networks and programs. Remember: LinkShare administers programs in the US, Mexico and Canada. TradeDoubler manages all programs in Europe and Latin America. LinkShare Japan administers Japan, and DGM Pro manages programs in Australia and New Zealand. Click here for all iTunes storefronts and affiliate supported countries. If you need any help with the application process, we are more than happy to point you in the right direction. Please note that access in to the Japan program has several additional requirements.

After getting accepted into each new program, repeat the directions in step 2 to add the new affiliate network information to your account in the GeoRiot dashboard. Your GeoRiot account will automatically begin utillizing your new affiliate program information for clicks from the newly supported country.

A list of frequently asked questions about the GeoRiot service and the iTunes Affiliate Program are also available. If you have further questions or need help please don't hesitate to contact us.