Links
If you have a single site, or multiple sites, they should EACH have their own FIRST PARTY, LOCAL links for managing outbound clicks.
Inbound links (links we control, directing traffic to content / property we own. Ex: Links to a landing page)
Outbound links (links from our site / content / property out to a merchant or advertiser.)
A/B testing of DESTINATION of links. (External A/B)
A/B Testing of LINK TEXT (or “buy now” text) — sending traffic to the same landing page. (Internal A/B)
A/B Testing of purchased media. (Buying traffic: A/B Testing Source options like ad copy, displayed URL, etc.)
When sending traffic to a Merchant, assuming it’s to a specific brand / product that the consumer expects, then you can’t test different destination. Therefore, at WCG we wouldn’t benefit much from this. (Excluding WSJ example)
When buying traffic, we may do more A/B testing.
Our link management solution starts simple.
Start with a Pretty Link replacement we can control.
ReBrandly and other URL Shorteners or Link Managers are direct competitors
Link Network
Using a central link management system to track and manage links, like WebCID.com. However, all these links are EXTERNAL redirects.
We should replicate all webcid.com links across all my WP sites to ensure that any time we want to link to a merchant, we can do so with consistent naming conventions, but locally.
So, instead of webcid.com/link1 we can have also:
wcg.com/link1
giftclubguide.com/link1
awesomegifts.com/link1
giftreviews.com/link1