The Problem: Direct Traffic Doesn't Earn
You've set up your Amazon affiliate tag. Your gear list is live. You share your short link in a YouTube description. Some viewers click it — great. But some viewers see the product in your video and just go directly to Amazon and search for it. Those sales don't get attributed to you even though your content drove them.
Forwarding addresses are a partial solution to this problem.
What Forwarding Addresses Do
MakerManifest's Forwarding Addresses feature (Premium) lets you set up custom URLs that redirect visitors through your short link system — so your affiliate tag is applied even when someone navigates to a brand's site in a roundabout way.
The specific use case: if someone on your website or in your content clicks a link like mkr.ms/amazon, it forwards them to Amazon with your affiliate tag applied. You define what mkr.ms/amazon points to, and it applies all your affiliate rules at redirect time.
Setting Up a Forwarding Address
● Go to Dashboard → Affiliate Links
● Scroll to the Forwarding Addresses section (Premium feature)
● Add a forwarding address — a label, the destination URL, and a short code
● Share that short link in your content instead of a direct brand URL
Combined With Affiliate Rules
Forwarding addresses work best when combined with Affiliate Rules. Your rules automatically inject affiliate tags — so when you forward someone to amazon.com, your Associates tag gets added at the redirect. You don't need to manually construct tagged URLs.
See the full Forwarding Addresses feature page or compare plans to see what's included. Create your account to get started.