Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn passive income by promoting other people or company's products. But to make the most out of affiliate marketing, you need to learn how to set up affiliate tracking.
Let's face it, if you want to significantly increase your profits, affiliate marketing is going to be a lot of work. When you first start out, you don't have the money to invest in advertising. And even if you do have the budget, it can sometimes be hard to tell which campaigns are working and which aren't. But with affiliate tracking – the technology that allows e-commerce stores to track their customers' purchases – you can make smarter decisions about where to spend your money (and where not to). This guide will walk you through exactly what affiliate tracking is and how it works, so that by the end of this article, you'll know how to use this technology for the benefit of your business
Basic info about affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a form of performance-based marketing in which a company rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought in by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Most of the affiliate programs are available in a form of “cost per lead” (CPL), where you only get paid for qualified leads, such as those who purchase your product or service. Another popular type is “cost per action” (CPA), when a partner gets profit from various types of actions (registrations, downloads, purchase) that are done by obtained traffic.
Affiliates can be in any industry and have access to thousands of products and services on any given day through affiliate networks. Networks connect advertisers with publishers who promote their products online through blogs, social media posts, emails, infographics, and more. Affiliate networks help match businesses with affiliates based on demographics like location or gender. Advertisers can effectively reach their target audience while only paying when someone clicks through from an ad and buys something from them directly through their website, instead of going through an intermediary like Amazon before buying something there.
What is affiliate tracking?
Affiliate tracking is the process of monitoring and measuring the performance of your affiliate marketing campaigns. It allows you to track the number of clicks, conversions, and sales generated by each of your affiliates, enabling you to identify which of your affiliates are delivering the best results and which ones are not.
How affiliate tracking works?
In simple words, affiliate tracking is a special system that allows you to track the performance of your affiliate marketing campaigns. This can be done through Google Analytics or another third-party service. As an example, if you have a website with an online store, and you want to promote products sold by another company on that website (for example, Amazon), then you will need to set up affiliate tracking. Thus, the purchase made through one of their links gets credited back to both parties: yourself and the manufacturer/seller.
Benefits of affiliate tracking
As we have already said, affiliate tracking is the process of assigning a unique identifier to each visitor who comes to your site from an affiliate. This allows you to see where those visitors came from, which marketing campaigns are working for you and which aren't.
It's important because it helps you understand how well your marketing efforts are working, so you can adjust accordingly. For example:
- If a particular campaign isn't driving traffic as well as another one, change up the message or content on that page until it works better!
- You might notice that most customers come in through organic search and few come in via paid ads – try boosting those keywords with various SEO methods.
Affiliate tracking is essential because it allows you to monitor and measure the performance of your affiliate marketing campaigns. By tracking the number of clicks, conversions, and sales generated by each of your affiliates, you can identify which of your affiliates are delivering the best results and which ones are not. This enables you to make changes to your program to optimize its performance and maximize your earnings from affiliate marketing.
How do I set up an affiliate tracking program?
In short, you have to go through several stages:
- Choose a tracking program and sign up.
- Install the tracking code on your website(s).
- Set up conversion tracking, so you can see how many sales are being generated by each affiliate link, as well as which products are being purchased most often.
If you are experienced enough in affiliate marketing, this instruction will be enough for understanding the essentials. But for those who just start their way, let's go through affiliate tracking process step-by-step!
Setting up affiliate tracking for your campaign, a step-by-step instruction
1. Choose an affiliate tracking platform
There are many affiliate tracking platforms on the market. Such platforms are easy to find and use, they provide partners with detailed manuals and tutorials. Select a platform that suits your needs and budget.
Or you can use a free version of Google Analytics – an extremely powerful but hard to master system with a lot of tools. The only problem of Google Analytics is that it is not focused only on affiliate marketing, so you have to deal with some extra difficulties while setting it up, spending more time and investing more efforts.
When choosing an affiliate tracking platform, consider the platform's features, pricing, and reputation. You want to pick a system that gives you the tools you need to run your affiliate program effectively and has a good reputation in the industry.
2. Install Tracking Code
To track the performance of your affiliate program, you'll need to install tracking code on your website. This code allows you to track clicks, conversions, and sales generated by each affiliate.
Installing tracking code is easy. Most affiliate tracking platforms provide you with a piece of code that you can copy and paste into your website. Once you've installed the code, you'll be able to track your affiliates' performance and identify which ones are performing well and which ones are not.
3. Monitor and Optimize
Once your affiliate campaign is up and running, it's important to monitor and optimize it regularly. This involves analyzing your data, making changes to your program, and testing different strategies to improve performance.
Monitoring your affiliate campaign is crucial. You want to keep track of each source of content performance and identify which ones are delivering the best results. This will help you identify areas where you can improve your program and make changes to optimize your program's performance.
Optimizing your campaign involves testing different strategies to improve performance. This could involve tweaking your commission rates, creating new promotional materials, or targeting new visitors. By continually testing and optimizing your campaign, you'll be able to maximize your earnings and make the most out of your affiliate marketing efforts.
Extra step for advertisers: create your own Affiliate Program
If you have a company of your own, you'll need to create an affiliate campaign. This includes setting up commission rates, creating promotional materials, and creating a landing page for your affiliates.
When creating your affiliate campaign, think about the commission rates you'll offer your affiliates. You want to offer a commission rate that's attractive enough to get affiliates interested in promoting your products, but not so high that it eats into your profits.
Creating promotional materials is also important. You want to make it as easy as possible for your affiliates to promote your products. Providing them with high quality banners, text links and other promotional materials will make it easier for them to promote your products effectively.
Creating a landing page for your affiliates is also crucial. Affiliates need a place to send their traffic, and having a landing page designed specifically for your affiliates will help you track their performance more effectively.
After creating your affiliate program, you'll need to generate affiliate links. These links are unique to each affiliate and allow you to track their performance.
Generating affiliate links is easy. All you need to do is provide your affiliates with a unique link that they can use to promote your products.
Conclusion
Affiliate tracking is a great way to keep track of your customers and their purchasing habits. It's also useful for determining what products sell best in which areas, so you can focus on those when marketing your brand. If this sounds like something that might benefit your business, then we encourage you to consider getting set up with an affiliate program today!
