Originally Posted by thommy

agree !

a smartlink might have some advantages but makes optimizing at the source nearly impossible.
so i would say smartlink is good when you send blind traffic, pops or skimmed traffic but as soon there is a professional media buyer or traffic optimizer in the game he will not like it.

the points what are speaking FOR smartlinks are:

1. the final target will be done at the end of the chain. means that there are no different information sources with possibly different information is in the game (IPs, ISPs, device or model detection etc.)

2. a user can expect that the smartlink will go always to the best available offer - even when offers are going offline.

and these arguments speaking against smartlinks:

1. optimization at the source - i.e banners or textlinks what should say something about the product. on a smartlink I usually do not even know if the traffic goes to a videopage, a dating offer or penis enlargement - that makes it hard to choose the right advertising material.

2. if the smartlink provider does not have an offer for particular traffic it happens in 99% of all cases that this traffic ends up in offerchains and getting forwarded from one to the next. in many of these case they are ending up on browser locker or tech support or phishing sites. the idiot in such a case is the publisher who can lose his search engine positions.


i have seen a few nice solutions for smartlinks what gives me the ability to decide what can be done with the offer and in case it can not be done the traffic gets redirected to my own solution where i can decide what the next steps are.