ViralURL Review: Link Cloaking, Traffic, Credits & More

A closer look at one of the older and more unusual marketing platforms online — and why ViralURL is much more than a simple link cloaker.

ViralURL is one of the older and more unusual marketing platforms in the online advertising space. Rather than being simply a safelist mailer or traffic exchange, ViralURL combines link cloaking, URL tracking, email marketing, banner and text advertising, viral list building, and a downline system into one platform.

📋 ViralURL at a Glance

🌐 What Makes ViralURL Different?

The service has been online since 2007, making it one of the longer-running programs in this particular corner of internet marketing. ViralURL is currently associated with Add2it.com Marketing Pty Ltd, and the current site identifies Colin Klinkert and Frank Bauer as the executives behind the business.

What makes ViralURL particularly interesting is that the same visitor can potentially create several different forms of value. A marketer can use a ViralURL link to protect an affiliate URL, track the visitor, build a ViralURL downline, and potentially generate advertising credits and additional traffic from that activity.

🔗 What Is ViralURL?

At its most basic level, ViralURL is a link cloaking and tracking service.

Affiliate marketers can cloak their affiliate links so that the underlying affiliate URL is not displayed directly. ViralURL’s own explanation focuses heavily on protecting affiliate commissions from what it calls “link stripping,” where someone sees an affiliate URL and replaces the affiliate ID with their own.

But link protection is only one part of the system.

ViralURL also uses its own Viral Widgets and viral marketing structure to turn visitors into additional opportunities. When someone visits a cloaked URL, the system can expose them to ViralURL and potentially bring them into the referring member’s downline.

The current membership structure allows members to email their downline at different depths depending on membership level, with higher levels increasing both the depth and frequency of those mailings.

⚙️ How ViralURL Works

There are several interconnected components that make the system work.

👥 Viral List Building & Downline Access

One of ViralURL’s more interesting features is its ability to build a downline through the links you promote.

This is an important distinction from a normal safelist: ViralURL isn’t simply giving you access to somebody else’s mailing list. Its system is designed to help you build your own ViralURL-connected marketing audience over time.

ViralURL Membership Levels

ViralURL currently offers six primary membership levels. Here’s how the major features and pricing break down.

🆓 Free

The Free account provides the basic ViralURL infrastructure without a monthly membership fee.

Free members receive:

• Unlimited URL cloaking
• 5 Viral Widget types
• 10 referring URLs per cloaked URL
• Downline email once every 7 days
• 5-level downline email depth
• 50 Mailing Credit login rewards
• 100 Mailing Credit traffic rewards
• 1,000 Mailing Credit referral rewards
• Matching Mailing Credit rewards
• Up to 60% commissions on upgrades
• 1 banner and 1 text ad displayed on other members’ Viral Widgets/site

🥈 Silver

Silver costs $7 per month for members upgrading from Free.

Other payment options:

• $17 every 3 months
• $27 every 6 months
• $47 annually

Silver retains the basic features of the Free membership while adding 2,000 text-ad credits and 2,000 banner-ad credits each month.

Silver also allows members to stop receiving emails from other members.

Interestingly, Silver still has the same five-level downline email depth and seven-day mailing interval as Free.

🥇 Gold

Gold is where ViralURL’s mailing capabilities take a significant step upward.

Gold members can:

• Email their downline every 5 days
• Reach 7 levels
• Show up to 100 referring URLs per cloaked URL
• Receive random members in their downline
• Save 5 previous mailing templates
• Display 5 text ads and 5 banners on other members’ Viral Widgets/site
• Make text ads bold, italic, underlined and/or colored
• Advertise on top of emails sent to downline members

💠 Platinum

Platinum costs $29 per month for a Free member, with lower upgrade costs depending on the membership path.

Platinum retains the seven-level downline structure and five-day mailing interval.

It also provides:

• 10 saved mailing templates
• 5 banner ad displays
• 5 text ad displays
• 2,100 monthly banner credits
• 2,100 monthly text-ad credits
• 0.2 credits for banner/text ads shown through Viral Widgets
• 0.4 credits for text ads shown on member sites
• 0.4 credits for banners shown
• Random downline members
• Advertising on top of downline emails

💎 Diamond

Diamond is available as an upgrade from Gold.

Diamond provides many of the same core features as Platinum but adds more saved mailing templates and extensive email tracking statistics.

👑 Elite

Elite is the highest primary membership level.

It is available as an upgrade from Platinum or Diamond.

Elite increases saved mailing templates to 50 and provides extensive email tracking statistics.

The upgrade structure is unusual because ViralURL uses different upgrade paths. The site specifically notes that the total cost of reaching each membership level is the same regardless of which permitted upgrade route is used.

The Credit Mailer Upgrade

One of the more interesting additions to ViralURL is the optional Credit Mailer upgrade.

This is separate from the six primary membership levels and can be added by members at any level.

There is an important exception for Gold and higher members. Instead of receiving their normal random-member mailings every three days, Gold and higher members receive the corresponding daily Mailing Credit allowance.

📣 ViralURL Advertising Credits

ViralURL also operates banner and text-ad exchanges.

Members can earn credits when ads are displayed through their sites or Viral Widgets and then use those credits to display their own advertising.

For example, the current membership table shows:

• Banner ads displayed on ViralURL’s site use 1 credit
• Banner ads displayed on another member’s site use 0.5 credits
• Free members receive 0.2 credits for banner ads shown
• Gold and higher members receive 0.4 credits for banner ads shown

Text advertising follows a similar structure.

Members can also install ViralURL advertising code on their own websites and earn additional credits by displaying other members’ advertisements. ViralURL’s documentation specifically describes this as an exchange: displaying other members’ banner ads earns credits that can then be used to display your own banners.

Why the Credit System Is Interesting

That feature is particularly interesting when ViralURL is viewed as part of a larger traffic-recycling strategy.

Instead of simply buying traffic and watching it disappear, the idea is to create a cycle where traffic can help generate advertising resources that can then be used to generate additional exposure.

How We Use ViralURL

This is where ViralURL gets particularly interesting for our overall traffic strategy.

We don’t look at ViralURL simply as another place to send traffic.

Brad Stephens’ approach to ViralURL was essentially to keep it working behind the scenes rather than making it the centerpiece of the strategy. Traffic could be sent through pages containing ViralURL banner and text advertising, allowing those displays to generate credits. Those credits could then be recycled into additional advertising and traffic throughout the system.

That’s an important distinction.

ViralURL doesn’t necessarily have to be the destination of every visitor. It can be part of the machinery that turns traffic from one source into additional advertising inventory elsewhere.

Brad also pointed out that free ViralURL accounts can be relatively slow to build credits initially. His philosophy was that the effort required to earn credits gives those credits additional value, while downline and pass-up leverage can increase the overall effect.

The key is to look at the entire chain rather than judging a single click in isolation.

💳 Is ViralURL Worth Upgrading?

That depends heavily on how you intend to use it.

The Free account is useful for testing the basic system, particularly the URL cloaking and tracking features.

However, the major marketing advantages begin appearing at the paid levels.

Platinum, Diamond and Elite are aimed more toward members who intend to make ViralURL a significant part of their ongoing marketing operation.

The Credit Mailer upgrade is also worth considering separately because it changes the way mailing resources are supplied.

The important thing is not to assume that paying for a higher membership automatically produces more leads or sales. The additional tools give you more ways to generate, distribute and recycle traffic, but the results still depend on what you promote and how the system is incorporated into your overall strategy.

🖥️ One thing to know: The dated-looking interface has also been noted by some current users, although the underlying feature set remains extensive. Community reviews generally highlight the combination of cloaking, tracking, mailing and viral list building as ViralURL’s major strengths.

❓ ViralURL Frequently Asked Questions

Final Verdict: ViralURL

ViralURL is difficult to categorize because it does several jobs at once.

It is a link cloaker. It is a tracker. It is a mailer. It is a viral downline builder. It is an advertising-credit exchange. And, when used correctly, it can become another component in a larger traffic-recycling system.

That’s what makes ViralURL particularly interesting to us.

Rather than judging it solely by how many visitors a single advertising campaign produces, we can look at what happens to the value of a visitor as that visitor moves through the system.

That is the kind of leverage that makes ViralURL worth studying.

It isn’t necessarily the easiest program on this list to understand, and it isn’t something I’d recommend judging after five minutes of playing around with a Free account.

But for someone willing to learn how the different pieces fit together, ViralURL can function as a powerful piece of traffic and list-building infrastructure.

Want ViralURL Promo Codes?

We regularly find and share promotional opportunities for the traffic programs we use and review. If you’d like to get notified when promo codes and other advertising opportunities become available, join our email list and we’ll send them directly to you.

See How ViralURL Fits Into the Bigger Picture

ViralURL makes the most sense when you understand how it fits together with the other traffic sources, mailers, and credit-building tools in the overall system.