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Find / Replace |
Quick Build |
Search |
Tracking |
Testing |
What's My Base GeoRiot URL?
What GRID Should I Use? |
Skip Affiliate Redirect |
glob.ly
There are three GeoRiot link styles: Find/Replace, Quick Build, and Search. Why more than one? Depending on your website or app’s links when you start integrating with GeoRiot, one of these linking/ link conversion styles will be the easiest way for you get the job done. See Getting Started: Create GeoRiot Enabled Links for guidance on what linking format is right for you.
Whichever linking format or linking tool you choose to build your GeoRiot link, ALL GeoRiot links work internationally.
Find/Replace - This style of link is best when your website or app has existing affiliate links. This link style gets its name from the conversion process—using find/replace. Doing a find and replace is all that’s needed to convert your affiliate links into GeoRiot links.
Quick Build - This style of link is best when you already have a library of raw landing page links and are looking for a programmatic way to convert the links to GeoRiot links. This is also the format outputted when using our custom link building tools, such as the Link Maker, Encoder, RSS, and Widget tools. If you are pulling data from iTunes via their API, or plan on storing raw iTunes links in your system, this will also be the best link format to use.
Search (New!)- This style of link is best when you don't have an existing link for the landing page, but rather have a list of attributes. For example, if you want an affiliate link to iTunes for the band "Pearl Jam" and the song "Jeremy" from the album "Ten" you would use a Search style GeoRiot link.
Tracking- Sometimes called "user level tracking" this additional parameter can be very important in improving conversion rates, tracking individual marketing channels, optimizing link placements, or to even track individual user's purchases. Tracking can be added to any GeoRiot link.
Skip Affiliate Redirect - An additional parameter that will allow GeoRiot to build affiliate links that avoid going through the affiliate redirects.
Glob.ly - A short link service built on top of GeoRiot's geo-target, translate, and encode service.
The Find/Replace method of integrating GeoRiot links is easiest if you have hardcoded affiliate links in your website or app. This link style gets its name from the conversion process—using find/replace, since a find and replace is all that’s needed to convert your current affiliate links into GeoRiot links. We also offer a Javascript Snippet which leverages the Find/Replace as well as Quick Build formats to automate the process. If you have many pages in your site, with either direct iTunes or existing affiliate links, it may simplify your conversion.
The first step is to get your GeoRiot base URL. See What's My Base GeoRiot URL?. Your base URL will look something like:
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64& (replace 64 with your GRID)
Next, you will do a find/replace on existing affiliate links replacing the affiliate network's base URL with your GeoRiot base URL. The following table shows the base URL text corresponding to each affiliate program. Depending on the affiliate program used, you should replace the corresponding text with the GeoRiot base URL.
| Affiliate Program | Text to Replace |
| LinkShare (US, MX, CA, JP) | http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat? http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click? |
| TradeDoubler (EU, BR) | http://clk.tradedoubler.com/click? http://clkuk.tradedoubler.com/click? |
| DGM Pro (AU, NZ) | http://www.s2d6.com/x/? |
The EPI and Signature tracking you may have initially used with your original affiliate links can be left alone. GeoRiot will also translate these tracking strings when it translates the links. More information about tracking with GeoRiot can be found in the documentation below.
An iTunes affiliate link for the US program managed by LinkShare, prior to integrating with GeoRiot, looks like:
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=CBIMl*gYY/8&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1 =http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Falbum%252Fblack %252Fid331012810%253Fi%253D331013723%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30
To convert the iTunes affiliate US/LinkShare link from the above example you simply replace the base section of the affiliate URL (http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?) with your GeoRiot base URL. The converted URL will look like this example:
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&id=CBIMl*gYY/8&offerid=146261 &type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252F album%252Fblack%252Fid331012810%253Fi%253D331013723%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30
Again, you simply replaced "http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?" with “http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&” (inserting your own GRID value) to convert the link. It’s really that easy!
The Quick Build link style is best if you want a programmatic way to build GeoRiot links from a catalog of raw landing page links.
This approach is best if any of the following are true:
The Quick Build style uses your base GeoRiot URL, example, http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&, then adds "GR_URL=" with a URL Encoded raw landing page URL attached to the end.
For example, if your target raw landing page URL is:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/once/id331012810?i=331013504
That is URL encoded (see url encoding aka percent encoding) to:
http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Falbum%2Fonce%2Fid331012810%3Fi%3D331013504
Given your base GeoRiot URL (see What's My Base GeoRiot URL?), that will look similar to the link below: http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&
Add GR_URL=, followed by the encoded version of the raw landing page URL in the previous step to yield the Quick Build style GeoRiot link:
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&GR_URL= http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Falbum%2Fonce%2Fid331012810%3Fi%3D331013504
The Search link style is typically the best route for your GeoRiot integration when you:
In addition to being an easy link to build, this linking style offers another significant benefit: if iTunes changes the ID of the item you link to, your link will not break and you will not have to update it.
The currently supported parameters include:
| Parameter | Accepted Values |
| vendor | iTunes |
| type | Music |
| ArtistName | URL encoded text |
| AlbumName | URL encoded text |
| TrackName | URL encoded text |
For each of the examples below, you would replace the "{GRID}" string below with your own GRID value. See What GRID Should I Use? for directions to find your GRID value.
1: A link for a user to download the Pearl Jam song “Jeremy,” from the album “Ten" from iTunes:
http://target.georiot.com/Search.ashx?grid={GRID}&vendor=iTunes& type=Music&ArtistName=Pearl+Jam&AlbumName=Ten&TrackName=Jeremy
2: A link for a user to go to the artist page for "Lady Gaga" in iTunes:
http://target.georiot.com/Search.ashx?grid={GRID}&vendor=iTunes&type=Music&ArtistName=Lady+GaGa
Certain affiliate networks allow for the addition of a tracking parameter to be added to their URLs. Sometimes called "user level tracking" this additional parameter can be very important in improving conversion rates, tracking individual marketing channels, optimizing link placements, or to even track individual user's purchases. Note: we are working on options to report this data from within your GeoRiot account.
Each affiliate network uses their own parameter to provide this extra level of tracking. The GeoRiot service is able to translate tracking parameters from your GeoRiot URLs and correctly add them to each of your outgoing URLs so that they are recognized by the appropriate affiliate network.
Please Note:
When using a Find/Replace style link you can added the user level tracking directly to the URL following the guidance provided by the relevant affiliate networks. If your links were built for LinkShare, see LinkShare Signature tracking, and if your links were built for TradeDoubler, see TradeDoubler's EPI.
For example:
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&id=CBIMl*gYY/8& offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&u1=website-banner5-user-1234567&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Falbum%252Fblack%252Fid331012810%253Fi%253D331013723%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30
When using the Quick Build or Search formatted links you can simply add "&TRACK=" with your relevant tracking info concatenated to the end. If your tracking code has any characters which aren’t allowed in URL’s, you’ll want to URL encode them before attaching.
For example:
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&GR_URL=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Falbum%2Fone%2Fid14771942%3Fi%3D14771950&TRACK=website-banner5-user-12345670
When testing, you can force the system to translate and encode for another country by appending “&targetiso2=XX” to the end
of any GeoRiot link, where XX is a valid ISO2 country code. See a list of country codes.
For example:
Regular GeoRiot link, which if clicked will resolved to the store matching your geographic location:
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&GR_URL=http%3a%2f%2fitunes.apple.com%2fus%2falbum%2fbackspacer%2fid428382233
Same GeoRiot link forced to resolve as it would for a Japanese user:
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64&GR_URL=http%3a%2f%2fitunes.apple.com%2fus%2falbum%2fbackspacer%2fid428382233&targetiso2=jp
Because the redirects happen very quickly the easiest way to verify that a link was forced to resolve for another country is to look for the flag button on the bottom right of the preview page that is loaded. On a computer, you can also see the final storefront by looking at the landing page url in your web browser. If you see a /JP/ in the url, it indicates Japan, based on the ISO2 code. If you see /US/, or no two character ISO2 code, it indicates the United States storefront.
Please note that this is purely for testing. The GeoRiot service detects where the click is coming from automagically and translates and encodes the link appropriately. You should not, except for special circumstance, leave the &targetiso2=XX value on the end of your production urls. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
When formatting a GeoRiot link, you need your GeoRiot base URL to start. You can build one for any country supported by an affiliate program in your GeoRiot account. Note: currently we do not offer a way to build a GeoRiot link based on a non-affiliate supported country in your account.
First, you will need your GRID value. Read more here on how to find your GRID.
Build your base URL by replacing the GRID in the link below (64) with your GRID.
http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=64& (replace 64 with your GRID)
A GRID, or GeoRiot ID, identifies your clicking traffic as yours, along with identifying which of your traffic sources and affiliate program set it should be tracked under.
To find the appropriate GRID value for a link, log into the GeoRiot dashboard and navigate to Account > ManageTraffic Sources > Manage Affiliate Program set. Find the GRID value to the left of your base country. Note that your base country corresponds to the storefront that your iTunes URL was built for, and doesn't limit the countries that your final link will work in. All GeoRiot links work internationally.
Add this flag to your GeoRiot-enabled links when you require the fastest possible link resolution times (as it cuts out one to three hops, depending on affiliate network). However, by skipping the affiliate redirect you will sacrifice the click and user level tracking provided within the affiliate networks. Click tracking is still available from GeoRiot when affiliate redirects are skipped.
A GeoRiot link built to skip affiliate redirects will resolve directly to an iTunes link with affiliate parameters attached during the "encode" phase rather than resolving to a traditional affiliate link. A traditional affiliate link first goes to the affiliate network where clicks are recorded and user level tracking information (Signature/U1 or EPI) is processed. A link that has been flagged to skip affiliate redirects goes directly to the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore or Mac App Store with the proper affiliate tracking parameters attached to the end. Apple defines this format of affiliate links as a "Short Link."
In order to skip the affiliate network redirects, special parameters are necessary for GeoRiot to automagically build the "short link." These tracking values (outlined below) will need to be added to your account via the GeoRiot dashboard under Account > Traffic Sources > Manage Affiliate Program Set, for each country, similar to the traditional tracking parameters, before a short link will work.
Any GeoRiot enabled link can be flagged to skip the affiliate redirect when it resolves. To do this, attach the parameter "&DIRECT=1" at the end of your link.
The Encoder tool, found at the GeoRiot dashboard under Account > Traffic Sources > Manage Affiliate Program Set, builds links, as well as glob.ly links, that can skip the affiliate redirect.
Glob.ly is a a short link service built on top of GeoRiot's geo-target, translate, and encode service.
While a click on a glob.ly link will resolve to the same landing page, with the same affiliate tracking, as a standard GeoRiot link, they are significantly shorter (26 characters or fewer) and less cumbersome than a traditional affiliate link or GeoRiot link (potentially 260+ characters). Glob.ly was built to simplify posting geographically-aware links to social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, but can be used anywhere.
Using a glob.ly link instead of encoding a GeoRiot link with a shortening service (eg. bit.ly, ow.ly, tinyurl.com) will reduce the number of hops, minimizing the time necessary to resolve the URL to it's final destination.
Currently, glob.ly based links can be built with the the Encoder tool found in the GeoRiot dashboard under Account > Traffic Sources > Manage Affiliate Program Set. Note: glob.ly links can also be built to skip affiliate redirects.
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