There's a lot of “get-paid-to-do something” apps and programs out there, but Wildlink may be a game changer. You'll also run into a lot of scams if you're looking for ways to make money online and it’s great that you’re doing your research first.
In this Wildlink review I’ll share my own thoughts on this app, and discuss in detail the following topics…
- What Is WildLink?
- How Does It Work?
- WildLink Pay
- How Much Money Can You Make?
- Is WildLink a Scam?
- WildLink Tips
- WildLink Reviews
- What I Like
- What I Don’t Like
- Final Thoughts
Disclaimer:
Please note, I am not a member or an affiliate for Wildlink. This review has been researched with information and/or testimonials that are available online in the public domain. Any recommendations and/or conclusions are strictly opinions and may not to apply to, or agree with, all persons or situations. See full disclaimer for more info
What Is Wildlink?
In a sentence… Wildlink allows you to earn money when you recommend products to others, also known as affiliate marketing.
If you’ve never heard of affiliate marketing I’ll explain it in detail below, but the quick version is that Wildlink enables you to earn a small commission when someone makes a purchase using a link you've shared.
For example…
Let’s say your Mom is planning a trip and sends you a text asking you to recommend a good hotel. Using Wildlink, you can respond to her and earn a commission when she books it.
As Wildlink puts it… they are monetizing word of mouth recommendations.
Founded in 2017 by Jordan Glazier and located in Solana Beach California, Wildlink is bringing affiliate marketing to the masses.
In 2018 they made the list of San Diego Venture Group's Cool Companies…
How Does It Work?
From a user’s perspective, Wildlink is easy.
Really easy…
You can visit their website or download the Wildfire App on Android or iOS and sign up using your phone number.
Wildlink will send you a verification code and once you sign in you’ll have access to your “back office” which includes four tabs; Stores, Stats, Community Activity, and Settings.
Important Note: After reading the review please check the comments section below for important updates as Ian Miller (head of products at Wildlink's parent company Wildfire Systems) has kindly taken the time to answer questions and share some new improvements that have been made to the Wildlink Platform.
Requirements
Wildlink works on PC, Mac, Android and iOS and since you’re reading this review I’m guessing you have access to at least one of them. 🙂
13-year-olds can join if they have consent from a parent or legal guardian… otherwise the minimum age is 18.
A PayPal account is also required and you can connect your account inside your Wildlink settings tab using your PayPal email.
Products and Services You Can Recommend
Wildlink is currently affiliated with more than 20,000 e-Retailers including Expedia, Ticketmaster, Walmart, Target, Sephora, Samsung and Microsoft among others…
When you’re logged into the Wildlink marketplace (the Stores tab) you can scroll through categories such as Travel, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, etc. Or, you can search for a store by name.
Below each store you’ll see an icon that indicates how well that store pays. It would be nice if they provided actual percentages but unfortunately they don’t.
Sharing Your Wildlink
When you see a store that you’d like to recommend you can either click the share button, or click on the store itself, which takes you to the corresponding website.
For example… if you click on Walmart, you’ll be taken to Walmart’s website.
And this is the brilliance of Wildlink…
They take you to that retailer’s website using a link that’s unique to you.
That link… your wildlink, is also referred to as an affiliate link. Any purchase made using your unique link will be credited to you.
That in itself is not the “brilliant” part.
The brilliance is that Wildlink makes you an instant affiliate for more than 20,000 stores within minutes.
Affiliate marketing has been around since 1994 and although it has evolved, this app is a massive leap…
Partnering with a lot of these companies can be an extensive application process requiring things like tax forms, a website, a minimum number of followers or clicks per month, and so on…
Wildlink has created a way for you to join not just one, but tens of thousands of affiliate programs with just a few clicks.
Anyone can now share their affiliate links in places like social media posts, text messages, chat windows, emails, blogs, and forums.
Affiliate Marketing
If you spend any time online, you have probably run into an affiliate marketer.
Most online “influencers” (Instagram celebrities for example) are affiliate marketers and earn commissions by recommending products to their followers.
YouTube stars usually have a bunch of affiliate links listed underneath their videos.
If you’ve you ever read a review, tutorial or blog post, there’s a good chance you’ve scrolled over an affiliate link.
In general though, affiliate marketers are those with knowledge of online marketing. They may have a website or a popular YouTube channel. They may even pay for advertising on these platforms.
But, although anyone can do it… affiliate marketing in many ways is still a secret to most.
Wildlink is kicking down the doors and handing it to everyone. With a few clicks you can become an affiliate marketer.
Wildlink Pay
Payments are made via PayPal which you can request using the payout button inside your settings tab. The minimum payout threshold is $20.
How Much Money Can You Make?
In theory, your earnings are unlimited. But, as every affiliate marketer knows… it’s a lot easier said than done.
In most cases you’ll only be recommending products to your family, friends and co-workers.
For some though, I can see the wheels turning. If you’re wondering if you can turn Wildlink into a side hustle and retire with stacks of cash… there are a couple challenges you’ll be up against…
Shared Commission
The first is that Wildlink (or Wildfire Systems Inc) is the primary affiliate for those 20,000 stores and all the commissions actually belong to them.
What they are effectively doing is using their affiliate link and giving it a unique identifier (which becomes your link). So… your sales are actually their sales and they are simply sharing a portion of their commission with you.
There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s actually a great idea (and I’m sure a lot of programmers and marketers are kicking themselves for not coming up with the idea first).
As an affiliate marketer I can tell you it’s a challenge to sign up with multiple affiliate programs, track them, monitor your clicks, earnings and so on…
It's a worthwhile challenge for good paying affiliate programs that you can drive a lot of traffic to…
…but Wildlink makes this process extremely easy. In fact, they do it all for you. In addition to connecting you to all of those affiliate programs, they consolidate all of your stats within a single dashboard.
The catch? It’s not free. You must share your commission with them which makes it difficult to become profitable if you are treating it as a business.
Wildlink Affiliate Program or Refer-a-Friend
It's still early to tell if Wildlink will be a success, but starting out there was a missed opportunity here. It's strange that a company who sees the benefits of promoting other businesses through the use of affiliate marketing… didn't have their own affiliate program.
You could earn money by promoting any one of the 20,000 stores they partner with… but you couldn't earn money promoting them.
I've been keeping an eye on the number of downloads and reviews Wildlink has been getting and at this stage they seem to be off to a slow start… that's not to say they won't be big. And, maybe they're still fine-tuning the system.
If they had had an affiliate program of their own though early on… or a refer-a-friend incentive of some kind, there's a good possibility that Wildlink (owned by Wildfire Systems) would have spread like… well…
It would have spread like wildfire (sorry… I just had to say it).:-D
When you look at other make-money sites like Swagbucks or Opinion Outpost for example… their refer-a-friend programs are a big reason for their success.
And that's why Wildlink has now implemented one. So not only can you earn money promoting their partner stores, you can also make money promoting them.
Traffic and Clicks
The second problem is getting people to click on your wildlink. It’s is not as easy as it sounds.
This is how a lot of scams work. They say you can get rich by posting links everywhere, but that’s simply not true. It may have worked in the year 2000 but people are pretty resistant to clicking links today.
Again, most who join Wildlink will only be recommending products to the people they know, but for those who want a lot of money, you’re going to need a lot of clicks, and that means a lot of traffic.
Even experienced marketers can struggle to get just one or two clicks for every hundred impressions (the number of times your link appears on someone’s screen).
If you’re doing the math, that means you’re looking at a thousand impressions (give or take) just to get ten clicks. But that’s not all…
If you're marketing without a strategy to people you don’t know… you’ll need hundreds of clicks for every sale. Before long you’re looking at hundreds of thousands of impressions to make real money. That’s a lot of traffic.
Will It Work?
There are ways to get a lot of traffic…
The most common strategies are to build a website (like this one), develop a social media audience, or pay for Ads. Some marketers also have large email lists and they can sell by promoting links to their subscribers… sending them directly to an offer or more commonly to a sales funnel using software such as ClickFunnels.
Others might be well known speakers, podcasters or influencers in their industry.
Then it becomes an ROI (return on investment) formula; how much time and money are you investing per sale. In a lot of cases it’s just not profitable, and since you’re sharing your commission with Wildlink, it’ll be a lot harder.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It can work… yes. But, you will need to know how to build an audience, drive traffic, and convert clicks into sales.
Is Wildlink a Scam?
I mentioned earlier that a lot of scams claim you can get rich by posting links.
To be clear… Wildlink is not one of them. They don’t make any ridiculous claims and they do NOT say you can get rich. They simply say you can earn cash for recommending products… and that’s 100% true.
Having said that… you can count on someone who will inevitably hear the word “cash” or “money”, they’ll install the app and start plastering their social media feeds with wildlinks.
When the only thing they succeed at is annoying their friends and family with product recommendations, they’ll say Wildlink is a scam and that it doesn’t work.
But that’s not what it is and it’s not supposed to work that way.
The other reason people might wonder if it’s a scam is because all make-money-online systems, programs and apps are scams… right?
No, not at all of them. There are a lot of people who still think that way though.
There are actually hundreds of legitimate ways to make money online and Wildlink is one of the good ones. They are definitely not a scam.
Wildlink Tips
Full Disclosure – The FTC requires that affiliate links be disclosed. If you have the potential to earn money from a link, you should mention that when you share it publicly.
Don’t Modify Your Links – Your link is uniquely identified to you and if it gets changed, it either won’t work or if it does, Wildlink won’t be able to assign the sale to you.
Track Your Links – There is one exception to the previous tip. You can change your link for tracking purposes using software like Bit.ly or other free link trackers which record things like number of clicks and where those clicks are coming from. You’re not actually modifying your links here, but you are using a link shortening service that redirects your wildlink and provides you with data.
Avoid Dormant Access Fees – Accounts with a balance below the minimum payout threshold ($20) that show no activity within 90 days will be assigned a dormant access fee. This fee is $3/month until there is new activity, or your balance reaches zero. Your account will never go below zero and you will never owe Wildlink money.
Buy Your Own Products Using Wildlink – A big advantage with Wildlink is that you can run all of your own online purchases through your account and earn cash back. Direct affiliate’s cannot do this… but using Wildlink you can.
Test Different Affiliate Programs – Experienced affiliate marketers can test different affiliate programs without having to sign up for them first. If you’re making a lot of sales with one you can join directly as you normally would, but for the others you don’t have to waste your time.
Wildlink Reviews
WildLink is still relatively new so negative feedback is not only expected, but it’s going to be necessary for them to make improvements.
Some of the current complaints you’ll run into are…
- Technical issues with the app, which I’m sure are being worked out daily.
- Not making any money. As discussed earlier… making money at this is not automatic. It’s a lot harder than many people realize.
- The app turns every link you share into a wildlink, even when you’re not using the app.
I haven’t experienced this myself, but it may be happening. Whether it’s a glitch or by design I don’t know…
Update: I experienced this yesterday and it's extremely annoying. I was sharing a tutorial to help someone set up a blog and Wildlink kept changing my regular link into an affiliate link. There are times this may be useful, but not here. It was a spam free forum for one (no affiliate links), and two… the reason we use this forum is to help and to get help, not to sell or be sold to. - People are suspicious that sales are being made, but that they’re not being paid. This is an issue with all “get-paid-to-do-something” apps and programs. Wildlink could use a pop-up in the app somewhere reminding people that most affiliate programs do not pay out immediately. Things like warranties and returns can also affect your earnings.
I read quite a few positive reviews as well. There are people earning money and using Wildlink for their own online purchases… and they’re happy with it.
Again… it’s a young company and I would assume (although I don’t know) that a lot of these issues will be worked out over time.
What I Like
- Having access to thousands of affiliate programs with a single sign-up.
- Earning cash back on my own online purchases.
- Easy to use app and interface.
- Getting paid when I recommend a product, service, concert, etc. As an affiliate marketer I am directly partnered with a few programs… but not 20,000.
What I Don’t Like
- No transparency when it comes to commission rates and share percentages (although this is being looked at as Ian Miller mentions in the comments section below).
- Signing up with my phone number (within the first couple hours I received a spam offer).
Update: Spam hasn't really been a problem. I had 3 spam text messages over the following weeks and other than first one (unless it was a just coincidence) I can't confirm they had anything to do with Wildlink. In fact, it's now been months since I installed the app and I can't remember the last time I received spam via text. - You are granting them the rights to any and all content you share (text, data, messages, images, audio, video).
- The app automatically changes every link I share into an affiliate link. There needs to be a way to turn this feature off (again, see comments section below for an update on this and an explanation from Ian Miller).
Final Thoughts
Wildlink is one of those ideas that seems obvious in hindsight. Whether it takes off or not I don’t know… but there is a ton of potential here.
Even if you’re just using it for your own purchases online it’s worth signing up.
I hope my Wildlink review was helpful and if you have any comments or questions, please share them in the comments section below.
Also, please check the comments section for important updates as Ian Miller (head of products at Wildfire Systems) has kindly taken the time to answer questions you may have and share some new improvements to the Wildlink Platform.
hi my name Hassan Burhannudin and i several times sent a link to the media here asking why with static I can’t show up??? I beg you to help
What do you mean by” they have the rights to everything you share”. This is a deal breaker for me unless I totaly understand this.
Hi Sonya, great question. In the Wildlink’s terms of use document (https://www.wildlink.me/terms), section 4 (Content) states the following…
a. You grant to us (and our successors and assigns), solely for the purpose of providing the Services to you, a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, perpetual, fully-paid, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, analyze, process, store, adapt, edit, transfer (including, without limitation, to third party services and individuals), modify, truncate, aggregate, prepare derivative works of, display, publish, translate and distribute your Content in any existing or future media, including after termination of your account or the Services. You also grant to us the right to sub-license and transfer these rights, and the right to bring an action for infringement of these rights.
To be fair, I do believe this is consistent with any (and probably all) of the social media platforms out there. And I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t want to interpret this incorrectly. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s more of way for them to protect themselves and not have be the gatekeepers of every piece of content that gets shared on their platform. For example, if you share something using their platform and that content gets shared/modified by other members (and then shared again, and so on…) you can’t hold them accountable for that. Which again, is consistent with other social media platforms because it would be next to impossible to track content in that way.
To be clear though, that’s only my interpretation of that section. I put the link to the terms of use above (and it’s at the bottom of their homepage) if you’d like to read it yourself.
Thanks for reaching out 🙂
Jay
Thank you so much for writing a review that sounds honest- explaining the pros and cons and not over-exaggerating your thoughts.
I am definitely interested and will research more, but I have a question. It may have been answered and I just missed it, but is this just linking specific companies? Or can we link to specific products?
Again, thanks for writing what seems to be a genuine review! Also appreciate WildLink taking the time to respond above as well.
I’m the head of product at Wildfire Systems (the team that makes Wildlink) and this is the best article I’ve seen both describing how our product works and how affiliate marketing works in general. Thank you SO much for such a thorough review! A couple updates:
1. We recently added commission rates on our featured store list so you can get a sense for how much you can earn on each merchant. There are a lot of programs that have complex category rules, and we try to summarize these. The data is dirty, so please know that making this clear is a work in progress.
2. We don’t sell or do anything with users’ phone numbers. We use it for authentication only (it allows us to more effectively shut down abuse vs. email registration). We also don’t sell email addresses associated with user accounts.
3. We have an “undo” option for those times when you don’t want Wildlink to swap the URL you copy. Hitting undo will revert your clipboard to the original URL. We realize that if you’re doing a lot of copying and pasting from one of our partner stores/sites that even an undo option can be a hassle. We’ve turned off some of our partners for this reason. If you have feedback for sites you think should be disabled (because they have more content than commerce on their site) just drop me a note at support@wildlink.me.
4. We have a Chrome extension now! We just added the clipboard monitor to this product so it’s a good replacement for our desktop app. We’ve decided to discontinue the native desktop apps for Mac and PC because the Chrome extension has the same main capabilities but it’s much easier to maintain (we found people don’t like installing desktop software and there are all sorts of problems with AV software on Windows getting in the way of our product functionality).
5. We have an affiliate program for key partners. If you’d like to participate in the Wildlink affiliate program (i.e. to get paid for helping us spread Wildlink) please hit me up at support@wildlink.me.
I’ll try to respond to some of the questions now in comments for this post, too! If anyone has any other feedback for me or needs help with anything related to Wildlink, please contact me at support@wildlink.me. Thanks again for a seriously awesome article!
Thanks Ian, I really appreciate you taking the time to read and share your input here. It’s a huge help to those looking into Wildlink and rarely do we get to hear from someone involved with a product at a significant level. I’ll make sure to add a note in the review so readers know to check here in the comments for updates and answers to some of the questions they may have.
Kindest Regards,
Jay
Great articles! Just discovered it on Google Play and seems a good light version of Affiliate marketing. So i can place the link anywhere? For instance my stories on Instagram? Is It banned to get paid traffic through social Ads? As you mentioned the ROI
thnks
The Wildlink app just swaps your clipboard for any eligible link. So, you can paste a wild.link anywhere you can post a regular link. Instagram can be difficult to insert links. Last time I checked, you can put them in your profile and on Stories, but not on comments or regular posts.
HI!
Thanks for sharing this review of Wildlink. I had never actually heard of it before so your article was very information. It sounds like a great way to earn a little bit of money for making the recommendations that you already make to family and friends. I’m from Australia so I’m going to check out whether they plan on coming here…
Do you know if they will be launching an affiliate program for Wildlink?
We have an affiliate program for our Android app for partners. We just don’t advertise this on our website (we really should… I’m making a note of this now). In the meantime, hit me up at support@wildlink.me and I’ll set you up with an affiliate relationship so you can get paid for helping us spread WIldlink. Thanks!
Yep, the wheels are turning. You do a great job in making sure would be affiliates understand how this works. It seems so good in many ways but very trying in other ways. I know I am definitely going to take a look at it. Whether or not I actually pull the trigger will be the next question. Thank you for the great article.
Thanks for this info! I had never heard of Wildlink but it seems like a great idea. The one thing that would make me hesitate to use it is the inactivity fee. Although you don’t go below zero in your account, I don’t like the principle. It seems to me that this platform would be best for someone who already has a website with a lot of traffic. When I get my blog to that point I may consider this because I would be generating enough activity to not have to think about the inactivity fee. But for folks who shop a lot online I can definitely see the advantage. I will archive this for possible future use. Thanks again.
Hi Melo Ann,
Yeah, the inactivity fee isn’t ideal that’s for sure.
One reply I’ve seen from Wildlink to an affiliate marketer is that they built the app for casual users, not necessarily people who are selling or running a lot of traffic to them.
My suggestion would be, when your blog reaches a point where you’re getting a lot of visitors, any programs you’re specifically recommending should have dedicated accounts so you earn full commissions and can build a relationship with that vendor. If you have something you’re just casually talking about on your blog, and it just happens you have a good place to add an affiliate to something you wouldn’t normally recommend… Wildlink might be a good option.
Thanks for stopping by and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion 🙂
Jay
Jay, I couldn’t have written a better response myself! Yes, we built Wildlink for casual recommendations/mentions of products between people. We think it could be useful for publishers/influencers who are testing new merchant relationships without having to go through the whole hassle of applying to the merchant’s affiliate program. Once you get some traction with your audience with a new merchant in Wildlink, you should ABSOLUTELY connect directly with the merchant so you can get the full credit for the commission. We know we’re not the right fit for large publishers as they have the time and staff size to go and apply to these merchants and maintain a direct affiliate relationship. The problem we’re trying to address is for all those little guys who don’t have time for all that. We would more love stories where people started by using Wildlink and then outgrew us!
Thanks Ian for adding your thoughts 🙂 As I work with new affiliate marketers, it’s important that their time is spent creating content and testing offers rather than going through the application process with multiple affiliate partners before they have significant traffic or know if their audience is even interested. Wildlink is a perfect solution for them and I wish it was available when I started. In fact, that might be a unique audience worth marketing to 😉
Thanks again for stopping by to answer questions and share your input, it’s much appreciated.
Jay
I never heard of this wildlink before. It is hard for me to trust it. Even before I have the thought of scam or not. It seems like it is not popular in the internet. All the search engines does not say much about this Wildlink. This is certainly a bounce away for me.
They are relatively new. I think they did some beta testing over the last year but have only really pushed the platform out over the last few months. The Google Play store shows 10K downloads, I’m not sure about Apple. One thing I did notice though is that Wildlink has been active in responding to people’s reviews which is a good sign.
Thanks for stopping by to read my review,
Jay
Another solid response, Jay. I get it, there’s new apps all the time. I’ll give you one peek behind the curtain though: we’re not spending much on marketing Wildlink, which is part of why we’re growing very slowly. Behind the scenes, we’re working hard on partnership deals so that our same features are available in partner apps for Android, Chrome extensions, etc. We’ll always have a consumer application that users can use, but we think the bigger win is providing our tech in the products people are already using. We can’t share specific partnerships at this time, but you should see some news very soon related to this.
Hello,
We as your online audience are really fortunate to people who are able to write honest review of products given that there are so many scams out there. In your opinion, whats are some of the advantages for signing up for this service as apposed to a large affiliate program such as Amazon other than to run your own personal purchases through it?
It is a little be annoying if not concerning not to be able to see their fee structure as this does not enable you to set targets or evaluate milestones achieved. Lets hope they improve on this point.
Thanks for a great article.
Rich
Hi Rich, thanks for reading 🙂 The big advantage I think for affiliate marketers is being able to test different affiliate programs without having to set up a dedicated account first. You wouldn’t want to use Wildlink for a program that you regularly promote.
However… if for example you write an article and there’s an opportunity to recommend a product or service you wouldn’t normally write about, Wildlink might be good option.
Let’s say you have a niche website about weight loss but in one of your articles you mention the vacation you were just on… you could recommend your travel agency (a recommendation you wouldn’t normally write about) and instead of going through the entire process of setting up an affiliate account (filling out tax forms etc.) for an article that might not get many visitors, or a link that rarely get’s clicked… you could just add your Wildlink link instead.
If you notice your article and recommendation getting some traction, then you can set up your dedicated affiliate account with that vendor.
I do agree as well it’s not ideal that you can’t see specific commission rates.
Thanks again for checking out my review though, and I appreciate your insight.
Jay
Very precise and informative. You hit spot on in this review of Wildlink. I’ve been in the clicking business for income online with no capital from my side. Somehow, it’s not worth the time if your income isn’t big enough to support even your internet monthly fees. I guess Wildlink is good for those who have no means of income and are in countries wherein the worth of dollars have greater value compared to their own currency, like my country, but to rely in this is not wise. Thanks for this honest review.
Hi Eli, you make a great point about earnings in countries where your money may go further. Thanks for your comment and insight 🙂
Jay