Linkkit Team
Building the future of link management and analytics.
James makes video content about personal finance. He posts on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. He sends a weekly newsletter to about 8,000 subscribers. He has affiliate partnerships with three financial tools he genuinely recommends.
For two years, he had no idea which platform was actually driving traffic to his affiliate links.
The problem with affiliate links
Affiliate links are already long and ugly — not the kind you put in a YouTube description and hope people type out. And even if you shorten them with a generic tool, you lose the ability to track which platform the click came from.
James was using TinyURL for his affiliate links. He had shorter links. He had no data.
The switch to Linkkit
James created four versions of each affiliate link — one per platform:
james.finance/youtube-tool1 — for YouTube video descriptions
james.finance/instagram-tool1 — for Instagram bio
james.finance/tiktok-tool1 — for TikTok bio
james.finance/newsletter-tool1 — for his weekly email
Each link pointed to the same affiliate URL. Each tracked separately in Linkkit.
What he found after 60 days
Platform | % of affiliate clicks | Expectation vs reality |
|---|---|---|
Newsletter (8k subscribers) | 58% | Massively underestimated |
YouTube | 27% | Roughly as expected |
11% | Lower than expected | |
TikTok (largest following) | 4% | Biggest surprise |
"I was spending roughly equal time on all four platforms because I assumed they were equally valuable. They're not. My newsletter audience is worth significantly more per person. I only knew that because of the data."
— James, Personal Finance Creator
What changed
Newsletter: Added second affiliate mention per issue — revenue increased significantly
YouTube: Added affiliate links earlier in descriptions — click-through improved
Instagram: Reduced time spent on content creation — effort-to-result ratio wasn't there
TikTok: Kept posting for growth but stopped prioritising affiliate placement
The takeaway
If you share links across multiple platforms, using a single link across all channels is leaving insight on the table. Create one link per channel. Track them separately. Let the data tell you where to focus.
Linkkit is FREE to start, TRACK your 500 clicks today.
