An affiliate landing page is a page you own that sits between your ad and the offer you promote. It gets a cold visitor ready to buy, then sends the click to the network's link with your tracking ID on it, so the sale comes back to you and to the ad that earned it.
The five common kinds are the bridge page, the presell, the advertorial, the quiz and the listicle. All of them end the same way: a button that opens the offer link with the visit's click ID in it.
If that button doesn't carry the ID, you can't tell which ad made the money, so I'd build the button before the copy.
Most affiliate pages I see fail in one of two places. Either the page reads like an ad for an ad, or it's a good page whose sales can't be traced back to the campaign that paid for them. The first costs you conversions. The second is worse, because you keep paying for the campaigns that don't sell and pause the ones that do. This post covers both: what goes on the page, and how the click gets from your page to the network with the ID that ties the sale to the ad.
What an affiliate landing page is
A landing page is any page a visitor lands on from an ad. An affiliate landing page is the one an affiliate runs before someone else's offer. You don't own the product or the sales page, so this page is the one part of the funnel you control.
Here are the five page types by the job each one does. They overlap: an advertorial is a long presell, and a quiz can sit in front of either.
| Page type | What it looks like | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Bridge page | A headline, a few lines, sometimes a short video, one button | Search and warm social traffic that only needs a nudge |
| Presell | A short article or letter that sets up the problem and the offer | Offers whose sales page assumes the reader already cares |
| Advertorial | A long story in an editorial layout, labelled as an ad | Cold native ad traffic |
| Quiz | Three to six questions, then a matched result and a button | Offers with several versions, or readers who need to self-select |
| Listicle | "5 reasons" or a ranked list of products, each with a button | Readers comparing options, or one offer told as a list |
If you're new to the advertorial format, what an advertorial is covers its structure and how it differs from a sales page. Here I'll stay on the affiliate side: when to use one, what the networks allow, and how to build and track it.
Affiliate landing page or direct linking?
Direct linking means the ad sends people straight to the offer's link with no page of yours in between. It's cheaper to set up and there's one less page to load. Whether it works depends on how ready the click is to buy.
- Direct link when the click already wants the product, typically a search for it by name, and the network and ad platform both allow it. ClickBank hoplinks go straight to the seller's page, so this is allowed there as long as nothing hides or skips that page (the rules are below).
- A page first for cold traffic. Someone scrolling a news site or a feed didn't ask for a supplement or a pillow. A presell or advertorial gives them the reason, and the vendor's sales page does the selling.
- A page first whenever you want to test. You can't change the vendor's page, but you can change yours as often as you like.
On paid traffic I'd almost always use a page, even when direct linking is allowed. The page is where your edge is, and it's the only place you can see what the visitor did before they clicked.
What goes on a landing page for affiliate marketing
An advertorial has the most parts, so it's the clearest example. A bridge page keeps the label, the headline and the button and drops most of the rest.
- An ad label at the top. "Advertisement" or "Advertorial", where the reader sees it before the story starts.
- A headline that continues the ad. The reader clicked a promise. The first line on the page should pick it up, in the same words if possible.
- One story or one argument. A presell that tries to make four points usually makes none.
- Proof the reader can check. Reviews, specifics, how the product works. Nothing the offer's own page doesn't claim.
- Several buttons, one link. Long pages repeat the call to action, and every repeat must open the same tracked link. A forgotten button with a bare link is a sale you can't attribute.
Network rules for affiliate landing pages
Each network writes its own rules, so read the ones for the offer you run. ClickBank's are a good baseline because they're spelled out, and most networks ask for something similar.
| ClickBank rule | What it means for your page |
|---|---|
| The hoplink opens in the top-level window (HopLinks guide) | No offer page inside a frame or iframe on your page. A pop-up or exit window is allowed. |
| No bypassing seller pitch pages (prohibited activities) | Your button opens the hoplink, which leads to the seller's page. Never link to the order form directly. |
| No cookie stuffing, no trademark bidding (same page) | No hidden hoplink loads, and no bidding on the product or brand name unless the seller allows it. |
| Don't copy the "look and feel" of a third-party website (client contract) | An editorial layout is fine. A copy of a real newspaper's masthead or of the vendor's site is not. |
| Clear and conspicuous disclosures, per the FTC (same contract) | Label the page as an ad, and say you may earn a commission. |
The FTC's own guidance says affiliate links count as paid endorsements, and that a label such as "Advertisement" is likely to work if readers can't miss it (FTC, Endorsement Guides FAQ). The advertorial post has the disclosure rules in more detail.
One more rule matters for tracking. ClickBank's tid takes up to 100 letters, numbers and underscores, and a dash breaks it (HopLinks guide). That's worth checking before you put any tracker's ID in it.
Build an affiliate landing page from a template
Here's an advertorial built in ElasticFunnels from an affiliate page template, edited in the Visual builder. The clips are the real app on a demo brand, and they run about a minute and a half end to end.
1. Pick the template
Open Pages → Create page → Choose Template, filter by Affiliate, and pick a template. Here it's the sleep pillow story advertorial. Use shows what gets added. Leave Visual builder selected, click Create page, then open the new page.
2. Read it in the builder
The page opens in the Visual builder looking the way it will look live: the images, the comment thread, the reviews and the buttons. Read it once top to bottom before changing anything, the way a cold visitor would.
3. Write your headline
Click the headline, then type over it. The headline should continue the ad that sends the traffic, so write it last if your ads aren't final.
4. Swap the hero image
Select the image, click Pick or Upload Image and use the Insert URL tab, or upload a file from the same window.
5. Point the buttons at the offer, with the click ID
Select a button. Its Link URL holds the template's placeholder. Replace it with your hoplink, with tid={click_id} at the end:
https://hop.clickbank.net/?affiliate=yourname&vendor=offer&tid={click_id}
The builder sees the other links that shared the old URL and offers Apply changes to N links total, so every button and in-text link on the page opens the same hoplink.
6. Publish
Click Publish. The status under the page name changes to Published.
7. Check it on a phone
Most native and social traffic arrives on a phone, so that's where to check it. The clip ends on the button's real link: the hoplink with this visit's click ID in place of the placeholder.
If you'd rather start from a blank page, how to make a landing page builds one from empty sections in the same builder.
Send the click to the offer with the tracking ID
The button in step 5 is the part that makes the page measurable. The network only knows which visit a sale came from if your link tells it.
| Network | Add to the offer link | Then |
|---|---|---|
| ClickBank | tid={click_id} on the hoplink | Add the ClickBank affiliate postback in ClickBank (every screen) |
| BuyGoods | subid2={click_id}, or the sub ID slot you chose | Add the BuyGoods affiliate postback URLs in BuyGoods |
{click_id}is filled in on every page view. ElasticFunnels replaces it with the visit's own ID when it serves the page. ClickBank's postback then returns thattidwith the sale, and ElasticFunnels matches the sale to the visit, its page and its ad.- Add it by hand. ElasticFunnels doesn't write anything into affiliate hoplinks on its own, so a link without
tidstays without it. - BuyGoods has five sub ID slots. SUBID2 is the integration's default; if you use SUBID2 for something else, pick another slot in the integration and use the same one on the link.
If a tracker such as RedTrack sends the traffic, the visit also keeps the tracker's click ID, and the network sale goes on to the tracker as well. What a postback URL is walks through that round trip with a full RedTrack example.
Test your affiliate landing page
Test with one real visit before you buy traffic. It takes five minutes.
- Open the live page the way the ad will, with your tracker's link if you use one.
- Check a button's link. Long-press it on a phone, or hover it on desktop. The
tidshould hold a short run of letters and numbers, with no leftover{click_id}. - Check every button. Scroll the whole page. One button with a bare hoplink is enough to lose a share of your sales.
- Click through. The hoplink should open the seller's page in the same window. If it opens inside a frame, fix that before any traffic.
- Watch the first sale come back. It should land on the page and the visit that sent it. If it doesn't, the
tidor the postback is the place to look.
Split-test your affiliate landing page
Once the page tracks, test it. The page is the one thing in the funnel you control, so it's where the gains are.
- Keep the URL. In ElasticFunnels a split test runs up to 5 variants under the page's one URL, so the ad never changes and the campaign doesn't start learning again.
- Judge on sales. A variant that gets more clicks to the hoplink can still sell less. Network sales come back to the variant that sent the buyer, so compare those.
- Test big things first: the angle of the story, the headline, a quiz in front of the advertorial, the page type itself.
How to split test landing pages covers sample sizes and how long to run a test, and the split test tutorial sets one up step by step.
- Write the page for the ad you run. Readers judge the first screen by whether it matches what they clicked, and the vendor's sales page already explains the product.
- Never rely on one button with the right link. Use the builder's apply-to-all, and check every button on the live page after each edit.
- Don't borrow a news brand's look to make an advertorial feel real. It breaks ClickBank's contract and it reads as a trick to the readers who notice.
- Keep at least two angles running against each other. An affiliate page that isn't being tested is slowly getting worse, because the offer and the traffic keep changing under it.
The page itself is the easy part: a template, a headline, an image and a link, and you're live in minutes. The part that pays is the link. When every button carries the click ID and the network's postback brings each sale back to the visit, you know which ad, which page and which angle made the money, and then you can spend on the ones that do.
