Affiliate disclosure

Last updated: May 2026

Guitar Composers Toolbox is partly supported by affiliate programs from music retailers and online learning platforms. This page explains exactly how it works, what data is shared and how you can opt out.

What affiliate links are

Some links on this site (clearly tagged with an "Ad" badge) point to online stores. If you click and end up buying, we may earn a small commission from the merchant. The price you pay is the same — the commission is paid by the retailer, not by you.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Programs we work with

  • Thomann (via Awin) — European music retailer, shown mainly to European visitors.
  • Sweetwater (via Impact) — US music retailer, shown to US/Canada visitors.
  • Amazon Associates — multi-country program.
  • MercadoLibre — Latin-American marketplace.
  • Reverb — used-instrument marketplace (mainly US and UK).
  • TrueFire, JamPlay, Pickup Music — online music course platforms.

How we choose what to show you

We tailor affiliate links to your region so we show you stores that can reasonably ship to your country. To do this we use:

  • Your approximate country, inferred from the geolocation headers our host (Netlify) adds based on your IP.
  • A cookie called gctb-region so pages can be served quickly from cache.
  • The URL language prefix (/es/ means Spanish).
  • If you are signed in, your saved profile preference.

We do not use your IP to personally identify you. Only the country code (e.g. "US", "ES") is stored in the cookie and, optionally, in your profile if you are signed in.

Click tracking

When you click an affiliate link we log the event in our database to learn which recommendations are useful. The data we store is:

  • Partner, creative and banner slot.
  • Resolved country, region and language.
  • The page the click came from.
  • An anonymous hash of your IP + user-agent (non-reversible).
  • Your user id, only if you are signed in.

This data is used only to improve what we show. We do not share it with third parties other than the affiliate networks needed to credit your purchase.

Consent and opt-out

On your first visit our cookie banner asks for consent. If you decline ad_storage:

  • Affiliate links keep working (they are site content, not third-party ads).
  • Impression events are not sent to Google Analytics.
  • The gctb-region cookie still works because it is for content selection, not personalized advertising.

You can change your mind any time by clearing site data in your browser or using the country picker in the menu.

Override your region manually

The main menu and the footer include a country picker. Any manual choice overrides automatic geolocation and is remembered indefinitely.

Contact

Questions? Email us at gus@bekamedia.es. If you spot a partner that doesn't ship to your country, let us know and we'll fix the routing.