How do I get more clicks on my affiliate links?

Instagram says you can customise the text on the link sticker. Use it to say what’s behind the link, such as “Jacket in olive*”, and put the explanation for the asterisk right next to it on the slide. If you can’t find the field for the sticker text, write the same line next to the sticker.

According to Instagram, Stories disappear after 24 hours. Saved as a Highlight, a Story stays visible on your profile until you remove it, and Instagram suggests giving each Highlight a clear name and its own cover. Those pages don’t say if the link sticker stays tappable inside a Highlight. So tap it yourself once before you point to it in new Stories.

YouTube Help says URLs in Shorts descriptions and comments aren’t clickable, but the related videos link in a Short is. On a phone, people only see a pinned comment once they open the comments. So the most important link belongs in the first lines of the description. What you need to switch on for clickable external links is covered in the overview of YouTube links.

The survey counts people, not clicks, and says nothing about your own community. Bitkom itself describes trust in influencers as comparatively low. That is a good reason to show first that you really use the product and to say clearly where the link goes. And since online shoppers use smartphones more than any other device, test every link on yours.

1. Show the product in use, not just in your hand: the jacket on the way to work, the serum as you apply it, the lamp in your room at night.
2. Put “Werbung” (German for advertising) clearly on every slide that promotes the product, starting with the first, where neither stickers nor the progress bar cover it. The German media authorities’ guidelines say every Story slide in an advertising context needs a label, and a general note on your profile is not enough.
3. Say in a sentence why you use it, and what you don’t love about it. One honest drawback belongs in there.
4. Give the details people would otherwise ask about in messages: size and fit, shade, dimensions or material.
5. Flag the link early, for example with “The link is on the next slide”, instead of saving it for the end of a long Story.
6. Put the link sticker on a slide where the product is clearly visible again, not at the edge where text or other stickers cover it.
7. Customise the sticker text and put the explanation right next to it, for example the sticker “Jacket in olive*”, then “I’m wearing an M” and “*Affiliate link: I earn a commission if you buy.”
8. Tap the link on your phone before posting: does it open the product in the colour you showed, rather than the shop’s homepage? Afterwards, add the Story to a matching Highlight.

• A sticker on a slide with no product, where neither the sticker text nor a line next to it says what’s behind it.
• “Link in my bio”, but once people get there they have to hunt for the product among lots of links.
• A URL in a Short’s description. According to YouTube, it isn’t clickable.
• The sticker only comes on the last slide of a long Story. Anyone who taps away before then doesn’t see it.
• The link only appears in one Story that disappears after 24 hours, and nowhere after that.
• Ten products on one slide and one sticker for all of them: anyone looking for that one item will struggle to find it.

Replace everything in square brackets, or delete it if it isn’t true for you. The templates start with “Werbung” (German for advertising) when a post shows a product out of commercial interest, and the asterisk with its explanation sits at the link. That is what the German media authorities’ guidelines set out, and abbreviations like “ad” are not enough there, so the English templates keep the German word for an audience in Germany. If the product is the focus of a video, the guidelines also call for a permanent “Werbung” overlay in the video.

The explanation should match how you are paid. If a shop pays per click, “if you buy” no longer tells the whole story, so use the version that mentions clicks or sales. Only write “the price stays the same for you” if that is true for the shops you link to. Other cases, such as brand deals and discount codes, are covered in the disclosure templates.

On wyrld, one link in your bio on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube leads to your storefront. There you sort products into collections, such as “Autumn looks” or “Bathroom”, so people don’t have to hunt after “link in my bio”, and show each one with up to five of your own images, the way it appears in your post. Your storefront has its own address straight after sign-up, and it works in a link sticker or a video description too.

Your dashboard shows clicks and commission live, and what each product earns you. That way you can see, for example, if a Story that flagged the link early gets more clicks than one that didn’t.

wyrld creates the affiliate links, so you don’t sign up with any network yourself. You earn per click (CPC), per sale (CPA) or both, depending on the shop. If wyrld finds a product in several of its more than 90,000 partner shops, your community sees the offers with prices side by side and buys directly from the shop at no extra cost. wyrld is free for creators.