Unless you use an iframe, the affiliated URL will be in the user's address bar at the end of the exercise either way. If you do try to trick that away, there'll still be an HTTP request to the URL unless you proxy the entire page. Someone interested or sufficiently bored will be able to see what is going on.
"Effective" masking of links is relative. To some members of the HN community saying that it is impossible to mask the links is the only empirically correct statement. But my aunt and her pinned collection of knitting crap isn't going to break out an HTTP sniffer to see what is going on behind the scenes, the masking of overt monetization so users continue to labor under the delusion that they aren't being marketed to could be all that is needed to be "effective".
Camouflage doesn't render a soldier invisible but that doesn't mean it's not effective.
It'll only be effective until a well-placed, shrill-toned media story exposes it to everyone. Be upfront about it and you'll be less likely to find yourself on the wrong end of "deception" charges, however trifle and ultimately meaningless the deception is.
