UK start-up Skimlinks has developed a new tool to help US and UK publishers make better use of affiliate marketing on their websites.

The new desktop application powered by Adobe Air, SkimKit, will provide publishers and bloggers with a searchable database of products with an affiliate link and image that they can include as part of an article about that item. The tool will be free to existing Skimlinks customers.

The development is intended to make adding affiliate marketing links more efficient, as Skimlinks' existing service requires publishers to search for links to relevant products and retrieve links and images from the merchant's site.

Publishers installing affiliate links using the SkimKit will receive 75 per cent of a commission paid by the merchant site upon sale on an item to a user who has clicked through to their site via one of the links.

"We believe it's not really about being more savvy about affiliate marketing opportunities but about finding the right balance for their site or blog and providing relevant links for their customers. Skimlinks opens up the world of affiliate marketing to many publishers who have dismissed it as too time consuming and difficult to manage. We provide them with an easy way and the choice for being rewarded for the links they are placing on their site," Alicia Navarro, co-founder and CEO of Skimlinks, told Journalism.co.uk.

Better use of affiliate marketing could help publishers build "a sustainable revenue source" online, and there should be no blurring of editorial and commercial lines if publishers rather than advertisers are in control of where the links are placed, said Navarro.

Publishers already using Skimlinks include Mirror.co.uk (see left), Future Publishing and Hachette Filipacchi.

"In the offline world, for many years editors have been deluged by PR's trying to promote their wares and although it is true that bloggers may write more favourably about an item they are reviewing if they know they can make money if someone buys it, in reality this isn't always the case," Navarro explained.

"In our discussions with bloggers and editors, they care passionately about the content they write and their readers, it is the reason they got into that job in the first place. And the consensus is that they will always write in a way that is true to their voice, their sentiments and their readers. What Skimlinks does is separate them from having to think about adding commercial links to their site, as they just add links to where users can buy what they just reviewed, and Skimlinks takes care of the monetisation after the fact, agnostic to the blogger or editor."

The company also encourages publishers and bloggers using Skimlinks' service to disclose the nature of the link and the benefits that they will receive from the user clicking on it, she added.