Impact Links Not Working? Diagnose and Fix Them
When Impact links stop working, the cause is almost always one of three things: campaign or contract ends; dead deep-link destination; vanity domain confusion. Click the link in an incognito window and note where you land — a network error page, the wrong page, or a browser error each point to a different fix below.
How a working Impact link behaves
A healthy Impact link (pxf.io, sjv.io, evyy.net, goto.walmart.com) resolves through the tracking hop to your intended destination page, usually with the irclickid parameter visible on the merchant URL. Anything else — an error page, a homepage, a browser error — is one of the failure modes below.
Reference anatomy: https://brand-name.pxf.io/c/1234567/8901234/5678
Cause 1: Campaign or contract ends
When a brand pauses its program or removes you as a partner, links show "this offer is no longer available" or redirect to the brand homepage uncredited. The vanity subdomain often still resolves, so the link looks alive.
Cause 2: Dead deep-link destination
The product page behind the tracking link gets removed. Impact redirects successfully — to a 404 or the homepage. Tracking fires, conversions don’t.
Cause 3: Vanity domain confusion
Publishers frequently don’t recognize pxf.io or sjv.io links as Impact links at all, so those links get skipped in manual audits entirely.
The error signals to look for
These are the exact failure fingerprints Afterlink’s validator checks on every Impact link:
- ▸"this offer is no longer available"
- ▸"campaign has ended" / "this campaign is not active"
- ▸"sorry, this link is no longer valid"
- ▸Redirect to brand homepage instead of the deep-linked page
The fix, in order
- ▸Test the link in incognito and note the final URL — check for irclickid.
- ▸If you hit a network error page: log into Impact and check the program status. Closed program = regenerate on the merchant’s current network or replace the merchant.
- ▸If you land on the wrong page (homepage, 404): regenerate the deep link against the product’s current URL.
- ▸If the link doesn’t resolve at all: re-copy it from your dashboard — links get mangled by CMSes, shorteners, and manual edits.
- ▸Fix the link everywhere you published it — then put the whole inventory under automated monitoring so the next failure emails you instead of hiding for months.
Frequently asked questions
Why do my Impact links break without warning?
Because none of the parties involved notify you: merchants change catalogs and network relationships freely, and Impact doesn’t audit your published content. The failure is only visible from the outside — by actually following the link.
How do I check all my Impact links at once?
Afterlink scans your YouTube channel or website, finds every Impact link (it knows all the tracking domains: pxf.io, sjv.io, evyy.net, goto.walmart.com), and validates each one end-to-end in minutes.
More Impact troubleshooting
Check every affiliate link you've ever published
Stop diagnosing Impact links one at a time. Afterlink scans your entire YouTube channel or website, follows every redirect chain, and alerts you the day a link breaks.
Run a free scan