Your tracking link
How your referral link name works, where to use it, and how to change it.
Your account link name is your referral link identity, shared across campaigns. It's your identity as an affiliate (the industry calls this a slug); make it your name or brand. You add it to any link to a brand you promote, and clicks that convert get credited to you. On sale-model campaigns, you can also create extra product and page links; see Deep links below.
The URL pattern
Most brands use ?via={your-name} appended to a link to the brand:
https://thebrand.com/?via=your-nameThe same link name works for every brand you partner with; you don't get a different one per campaign. A few brands use a different parameter name (for example ?ref=); Rekomi recognizes the common industry parameters plus whatever the brand configures, and your campaign page always shows the exact ready-to-copy link for that brand. When a visitor lands on the brand's site with your link name in the URL, Rekomi's tracking attributes the click to you.
If you're already in two campaigns and join a third, you keep the same link name, nothing to set up.
Where to find your link name
- Settings (
/a/settings) shows your link name and lets you change it (see below). - Each campaign page (
/a/campaigns/{campaign-id}) shows the full ready-to-copy link for that brand, built with the right parameter and your link name, with a copy button.
Product and page links
On campaigns that pay per sale, you are not limited to your one referral link. From the campaign page you can create product & page links (the industry calls these deep links): direct links to a specific product or page on the brand's site, each carrying its own code so its clicks and sales are tracked separately from your referral link. You can hold up to 20 links per campaign, including your referral link. If the brand connected Shopify, you can pick the product from a picker instead of pasting a URL. Your account link name still stays your referral link identity across every campaign; product & page links are extra links for a specific product or page, not a replacement for it. See Product & page links for how to create and use them.
Sub-IDs
You do not need a separate link for every place you share. Add a tag to the end of your one link and Rekomi splits your results by that tag:
https://thebrand.com/?via=your-name&sub=yt
https://thebrand.com/?via=your-name&sub=newsletter
https://thebrand.com/?via=your-name&sub=bioThe tag is called a sub-ID, the same idea as a sub ID on the large affiliate networks. Rekomi records it with the click and carries it onto the sale whichever way the sale arrives: the visitor's click, a signup captured with the tag, the brand's checkout when it stamps rekomi_sub, or the customer's earlier tagged purchase for renewals and repeat orders. Your campaign page has a Sub-IDs section with clicks, leads, sales, commission and earnings per click for each tag, your Insights page has the same breakdown across campaigns, and the brand sees the same table on their side.
A tag is lowercase letters, numbers, dots, hyphens and underscores, up to 64 characters; other characters are dropped, and YT and yt count as one tag. subid and sub_id work the same as sub. On a rekomi.link tracking link the tag rides along to the brand's site. A sale Rekomi cannot tie to a tagged visit shows no tag rather than a guessed one.
Choosing and changing your link name
When you first join a campaign, Rekomi sets your link name automatically: either the custom alias you picked when applying (if the brand allowed it), or a short generated one like x7y9z2. Some brands set their campaign to build a new affiliate's link name from their first name instead, so it reads like ?via=olivia; if that name is already taken it gets your last initial, then a number. You can still change it afterwards in the same way.
You can change it once from Settings. Pick something memorable and on-brand for your audience (3-64 letters, numbers, or hyphens, with no leading or trailing hyphen), like jane-recommends.
On a campaign's own page, you can also make a custom link for that campaign once, separately from your shared link name: look for Your referral link and "Make a custom link." It replaces your shared link name only in that campaign's links, so your other campaigns keep using your account link name.
Important: after a link name change, links you've already shared with the old link name may stop crediting you on some campaigns, so update them wherever you've posted them. Because you can only change it once, choose carefully. (Your coupon codes are separate and are not affected by a link name change.) If you need it changed again after that, contact support.
Where to use your link
- Your social profile bios
- Your video descriptions
- Your blog posts and tutorials
- Your newsletter
- Email signatures
- Your community Slack or Discord (if allowed)
- Paid placements you do (sponsored tweets, sponsored newsletter ads)
Where NOT to use your link
- Paid search ads on the brand's name. Most brand affiliate terms ban this; it siphons their own paid traffic and gets you banned.
- Coupon code sites unless the brand explicitly allows. Same logic.
- Audiences you do not actually own. Buying email lists, spamming, etc., gets you removed.
- Pre-rolled links to wallpaper your audience. If you are not adding value with your own content, you are not building the long-term relationship.
Always read the brand's terms, linked from the brand's public campaign page. Each brand has slightly different rules.
How attribution works
When a visitor clicks a link carrying your link name:
- The click registers a first-party cookie on the brand's site. Your link name is the affiliate ID stored in the cookie.
- If that visitor signs up and pays the brand within the cookie window (default 60 days; brand-configurable), the conversion gets credited to you.
- New commissions sit in a hold window (default 30 days, set by the brand). Once a commission clears the window, it becomes payable in the brand's next payout run. Brands can also approve or deny a commission manually.
- Refunds reverse the commission automatically, whenever they occur.
Some brands also attribute server-side via the S2S API; same result, the brand's backend tells Rekomi which link name to credit. See Earnings for what each status means.
Multiple affiliates and one customer
If the same customer clicks two affiliate links within the cookie window, attribution depends on the campaign's attribution model:
- Last touch (the default): the most recent affiliate who drove a click wins.
- First touch: the first affiliate who drove a click wins.
The attribution model is listed on the brand's public campaign page; ask the brand if you are unsure which applies.
Tracking your own analytics
Want to know how many of your clicks turn into conversions in real time? The brand controls this. If they've wired their payment processor webhook (or the S2S API) into Rekomi, conversion attribution happens automatically and you see it on your Performance page. If they haven't, ask them to wire it up (point them at the S2S tracking API docs).