Commission Junction link question

I see this message when trying to get an affiliate link for products "Copy and paste the following HTML code into your web pages.
You must include all the above html in your links. Any missing html, including the image source, will prevent the link from tracking properly and result in a loss of commissions.". Is there anyway I can just extract a basic affiliate link without the img src etc? Probably a stupid question.

I have the same question as you. I think cj ask you to place all the html code to prevent unacceptable activities(sth like fraud, unaccetable traffic)

for banners ? yes you have to use the full html code ... elsewhere your tracks will not work . Another reason is , most of merchants will not let you to use another graphics for their banners so you have to use provided graphics from them

That's a pain. I want to use their images, I just want to pin them to pinterest with affiliate link. I wish I knew more about HTML and could figure work out a way around it.

For Commission Junction text links you are absolutely fine to remove the image tag. This is only used to track impressions, by calling a location on the CJ servers for the image.

In a Commission Junction banner link, the calling of the banner itself will be used to track the image. You can just download the image or host it yourself and just keep the CJ tracking portion (HREF part of the html). This will track fine - but without impressions.

Rarely you will come across a merchant who doesn't like you doing this but it is no biggie. The main problem you will face is that CJ doesn't allow you to post links on blogs or forums owned by third parties, meaning that technically you are not allowed to post affiliate links on Pinterest. Whether you get pulled up on this is another question, I have noticed quite a few affiliate links within Facebook apps for example which don't seem to have been taken down.

Thanks for sharing! I learned it now.