Affiliate programs are generally brokered by
intermediaries known as affiliate
networks. Some companies manage their
own affiliate program. In both cases, on signing into your account
online, you can access your affiliate program statistics to determine:
- How many clicks you are getting on your affiliate
links
- How many sales have occured
- Whether these sales are yet confirmed by the merchant
- The status of billing (of the mercahant) and payments
(to you)
Such information tells you your conversion
rate and when coupled with Webmaster
analytics, allows you to determine your maximum cost per click
if you are using pay per click (ppc),
and which keywords are resulting
in completed sales.
Such information can be used to determine appropriate keyword campaigns
and assist with website content considerations, especially relative
prominence of your affiliate products.
It is advisable to check affiliate program performance daily and more
often if you are using relatively expensive ppc campaigns. Google can
help with conversion tracking, all of which is free.
To find out more about affiliate
marketing, you can consult our ebook, Successful Affiliates Guide, the
complete guide to affiliate marketing.
Remember to save copies of your site statistics to help you to monitor
trends and modify your campaigns accordingly. Affiliate networks allow
you to save documents in various forms (eg Excel spreadsheet), simply
by clicking on approriate icons on your statistics pages.
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