Affiliate marketing is highly profitable but tracking and measuring your affiliate campaign performance is crucial. Without proper analytics, you won’t know what’s working or how to optimize your affiliate strategy.
Track sales volume
The first and most obvious KPI to track is your overall sales volume generated from the affiliate campaign.
- Number of sales
- Total revenue
- Average order value
Platforms like Refersion, Post Affiliate Pro, ClickBank, or individual affiliate networks provide reporting on your key sales metrics. Tracking sales volume over time shows the raw performance of your campaign in driving affiliate conversions and revenue. Spikes or dips warrant further investigation.
Monitor click through rates
Click-through rate measures the percentage of affiliate link clicks versus impressions or views. For example, if your affiliate links got 10,000 impressions and 100 clicks in a month, your CTR would be 1%. A high CTR signals your affiliate’s creative content and landing pages are resonating. It shows you’re driving relevant traffic from promotional channels that interact with links. A low or declining CTR could indicate poor targeting or creatives failing to motivate action.
Analyze conversion rates
While CTR shows interest, you need to track conversion rates to see how that interest translates into sales. Conversion rate is the percentage of affiliate link clicks resulting in a defined goal like:
- Lead opt-ins
- Ebook downloads
- Product purchases
- Free trials signed up
Identify any mismatches between high CTR and low conversion rates. This indicates engaged traffic but issues driving conversions on your site or offer. Use metrics like bounce rate or on-page analytics to diagnose.
Measure channel performance
If running multi-channel affiliate campaigns, properly tracking performance by channel helps optimize your efforts. Key metrics to monitor by traffic source include:
- CTR
- Conversions rates
- Net revenue
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
It reveals your top-performing publishers, networks, and platforms. You shift budgets to what works and cut what doesn’t. For example, perhaps Instagram influencers drive more sales than Pinterest for your niche. Measure channel metrics to double down on Instagram while reducing Pinterest promos.
Benchmark against goals
Medium review of Chelsea Ouimet affiliate programs have dual sides-the merchant and the publishers driving traffic. So performance evaluation depends heavily on your goals and benchmarks as the merchant. Actual metrics should align with the targets you outlined.
- Cost per acquisition or sale goals
- Monthly volume sales quotas
- Publisher traffic minimums
- Total transaction fees
If aligned to goals, celebrate hitting targets as wins. If missing benchmarks, use metrics to pinpoint areas to optimize across traffic, creatives, offers, and channel mix.
Calculate lifetime value
The above affiliate metrics focus on initial conversions and immediate sales revenue. But savvy marketers like Chelsea know the lifetime value (LTV) of converted users tells a bigger performance story. LTV tallies the revenue an average converted user generates over their entire relationship with your brand. This spans repeat purchases, cross-sells to higher tiers, years of subscriptions, affiliate-driven word-of-mouth, and more. Crunching LTV numbers by traffic channel highlights the downstream impact of affiliates. Those delivering customers with the highest long-term value deserve more investment even if initial sales volume seems lower.
Automate for accuracy
Tracking all the above metrics manually is unrealistic (and risky). The best way to measure affiliate campaign performance is by relying on accurate, real-time reporting through automation.
- Integrates platforms into her sales funnel software for a unified data hub of all key metrics
- Sets up automatic reports emailed weekly tracking goal progress
- Gets notifications when sales, traffic, or other KPIs hit specified thresholds
- Reviews reports on the go via intuitive dashboards and mobile apps
- Exports data to identify optimization opportunities through spreadsheet analysis
Correct tracking setup is admittedly tedious but pays dividends long-term. Don’t leave it as an afterthought but make accurate automated tracking a cornerstone of your affiliate program from day one.
