Building Monetized URLs

It’s sometimes useful to create Commerce Anywhere URLs programmatically. The URL format and behavior are documented below.

Request

URL: http://redirect.viglink.com
Method: GET

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
key	string	Your Commerce API key, found on your account page. *Required
u	string	The URL to monetize. URL must be properly encoded. *Required
cuid	string	An ID of your choosing that identifies the clicker, the page the link is on, a campaign or the click itself. **32 alphanumeric character limit.
utm_source	string	Used to identify the site, location, etc. of where your link is posted. Example: mysite, newsletter, twitter
utm_medium	string	Marketing method or medium used. Example: banner, social, homepage, email
utm_campaign	string	Individual campaign name, slogan, promo code, etc. for a product. Example: black_friday_2022, fathers_day_2023
utm_term	string	Identify paid search keywords.
utm_content	string	Differentiate similar links on same page. Example: top, footer
opt	boolean(false)	By default, Commerce will not modify the destination url to help you earn more money. Enable this to send the visitor to the same product at a higher paying retailer.
fbu	string	Fallback Url to go if "u" url cannot beat the bid floor provided.
bf	double	Bid floor for the fallback url

Note: Most browsers will only accept URLs with up to 2056 characters.

Response

The server will respond with one of these HTTP status codes:

302
The request was successful. The client should be redirected.

If the input URL (specified by the u parameter) could be monetized, the client is redirected to the monetized version of that URL. If there is no monetized version, the client is redirected to the original URL, unmodified.

400
Required parameters are missing, or their values are not valid.

403
The specified URL is unsafe.

To protect users from malicious web sites, URLs are checked against a list of “bad” sites before redirecting. If the URL is found to be unsafe, a warning page is displayed. For more information visit stopbadware.org.

Example

You’d like to get an affiliate link for the following URL: https://www.macys.com/shop/product/?ID=9792476

Your URL must be encoded first, the resulting encoded URL should look like:
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.macys.com%2Fshop%2Fproduct%2F%3FID%3D9792476
Make a GET request to the API including your API key and the newly encoded URL.
The API response will include a URL similar to:
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.macys.com%2Fshop%2Fproduct%2F%3FID%3D9792476&key=88ac2a40e081e283ac504d1789d398ac

When someone clicks on the Commerce URL, they’ll be redirected to the monetized version of your original URL:

$ curl -D - 'http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.macys.com%2Fshop%2Fproduct%2F%3FID%3D9792476&key=88ac2a40e081e283ac504d1789d398ac'
        
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 0
Location: https://www.macys.com/shop/product/?ID=9792476