ThirstyAffiliates Plugin – Josh Kohlbach Interview

A while back Josh Kahlbach got in touch to show me the ThirstyAffiliates WordPress plugin. I’m using it on one of my sites now so I sent Josh back some questions and here are his answers…

Tell us a bit about yourself?

Hi, I’m Josh Kohlbach, I’m a programmer from Brisbane, Australia. I’m the creator of ThirstyAffiliates affiliate link management plugin for WordPress as well as a handful of other non-premium plugins.

A bit about me?… Hrm, I’ve been into programming since I was about 13 years old (now 26), I have a degree in IT, and I’ve been studying business and marketing in my spare time for about the past 3 or 4 years.

What’s the idea behind this plugin?

The idea behind ThirstyAffiliates is quite simple and I’ve designed it to be a helpful and un-intrusive part of your affiliate marketing workflow.

I came up with the idea of an affiliate link manager after getting frustrated with having to create reviews for a computer hardware review site I was making and not being able to really track where my affiliate links were being used.

After a few times of needing to change one of my affiliate links and tracking down where I used that link in the past I finally did something about it.

Why your plugin and not others which have similar functions?

When I created ThirstyAffiliates I was actually looking for a plugin similar to mine to purchase. But everything in the industry was just so focused on cloaking and being deceptive by keyword link generation all over your blog. It just seemed like there was no tool that really focused on managing the links like assets.

My tool puts the focus on managing affiliate links in one place and providing a really great interface for getting those links into your posts and pages.

I’ve actually crafted a specialised link picker tool just for that. Most other plugins just give you a list of your links to insert or a nasty shortcode to remember which is absolutely useless once you have 100+ links. You really need a proper tool once you’re getting serious about affiliate marketing with more than the odd link here and there.

My plugin also does importing and exporting using the WordPress importer tool which means that you can setup your links once and import them to new websites you’re creating, saving hours of setup.

What other wordpress plugins do you recommend for affiliate marketing?

There are some really great review website plugins out there. If I was making a dedicated reviews website again I’d definitely look into purchasing a premium review plugin. Especially one that gets the social side of things going with user reviews.

Also, not really a plugin, but there’s heaps of great integrations with mailing list providers like MailChimp and Aweber. Drop in their plugin and activate a widget – building a mailing list doesn’t need to be difficult, but it’s something every affiliate should be doing as the engagement on that platform is a lot higher.

Thanks Josh