AffiliateLiving

I have been a member of the Linkshare Network for a few years now. The user interface during that time hasn’t really changed a great deal and to be honest it isn’t one of my favorite interfaces. Linkshare UK started getting the ball rolling only in the last year. They have started to get some really good merchants on board. We are seeing the likes of Laura Ashley, Figleaves and the LEGO Company to name just three.

So, onto the new interface. All I can say is Wow, what a really vast improvement over the old one. The first thing that you notice is that you are presented with a snapshot of your account in the center of the sceen. This shows a months summary in terms of Clicks, Impressions Orders and Sales etc. Unfortunately this is displayed in US$ even for UK based figures. I hope this can me changed in a later enhancement. Also on the right you have a list of the latest communications from merchants. Just above the message summary you have a new box that displays your ‘Things to do’. This will be a useful feature I’m sure.

Onto the next tab along the top, the Programs tab. In this section you have the standard list of areas within each merchant can be found. There are also sections that show New Advertisers, Premium Advertisers, Advertisers you have already joined and lastly and Private Offers you may be invited to join or are already participating in. All pretty standard stuff really, but nicely and clearly laid out and easy to use.

The Links tab is the next one. Here you find a list of advertisers you are a member of. Hover your mouse pointer over the advertiser name and you get a list of link types available. (Text/email, banners/images, Dynamic Rich Media etc.) Getting the link code is very easy and you’re told when the link is valid from and when it expires. I’m afraid I don’t have tokens for either the data feeds and web services so I can’t use these and so can’t comment on these at this time.

All in all I think this is one of the successful revamps of a network redesign, they haven’t all been an initial success on other networks in the last couple of years. So well done to the team at LinkShare for a job well done.