|
"Are You Tracking Your Affiliate Results?" Copyright © 2001 By Gauher Chaudhry, All Rights Reserved. One of the most important parts of being successful on the Internet is tracking your promotional efforts. This is equally important when promoting various affiliate programs. Tracking your affiliate promotional efforts will help you use your time more wisely and pick only the true winners. Conversion Ratios It is very important that you keep track of the conversion ratio of affiliate programs that you promote. You want to promote the affiliate programs that have the highest conversion ratios. For example, if you generate 400 targeted visitors to affiliate program "A" and get 30 sales, the conversion ratio is 7.5%. If you generate 500 targeted visitors to affiliate program "B" and get 10 sales, the conversion ratio is only 2%. If there is *no* significant difference in the commissions between each affiliate program, you should be promoting affiliate program "A." Most affiliate programs should give you reporting features that tell you the number of clicks you have generated along with the sales numbers. If an affiliate program does not provide you with the click information, you can still keep track of this by using a tracking service such as Adminder (http://www.adminder.com) or ROIBOT (http://www.roibot.com). There are also CGI scripts that you can install on your web site to keep track of the number of visitors you generate (http://www.cgi-resources.com). These tracking services work by creating a redirect URL to your affiliate URL. If you use a tracking service, simply take the number of sales you have made and divide it by the number of clicks you have sent to the affiliate program to get your conversion ratio. Affiliate Commissions The amount of commissions an affiliate program pays you should play a major factor in which programs you choose to promote. Let's assume in the previous example you put the same amount of time and money into promoting affiliate program "A" and affiliate program "B". It may seem like affiliate program "A" is the easy choice because it has a conversion ratio that is more than triple affiliate program "B", but this is not necessarily true. If affiliate program "A" was paying a commission of $30 on each sale, you would have made 30 x $30 = $900 in commissions from your efforts. If affiliate program "B" was paying $100 in commissions, you would have made 10 x $100 = $1000. Although the conversion ratio was less, the commission level compensated for this. For this example, affiliate program "B" would be the obvious choice to promote based on the assumption that the same time and money was spent promoting each program. Time How much time are you spending promoting a particular affiliate program? You may have spent hours creating a mini-site to promote an affiliate program. You may spent countless hours submitting ads to free classified sites for a particular affiliate program. Keep track of all this! Value your time at $10 an hour and see whether the commissions you are generating are all worth it in the end! Money Spending money promoting affiliate programs should be monitored for each particular program. Let me give you an example. Michael Jackson spends $1000 promoting five different affiliate programs and only generates $800 in affiliate commissions. This results in a $200 loss to Michael. Michael decides that affiliate programs are useless to promote and decides to go back to his singing career. But had Michael properly tracked *each* affiliate program separately, he may have came to a different conclusion. Why? Let me show you... These were Michael's final results: Affiliate Program #1 - $ 50 spent - $80
commissions
TOTAL - $1000 spent - $800 commissions If Michael had tracked closely, he would have realized that affiliate program #1 and #3 actually made him money. By taking factors of conversion ratios, commissions, time and money into consideration, you can make your affiliate programs make money for you! Start a simple spreadsheet in a program like Microsoft Excel and start tracking. I know a lot of you maybe moaning and groaning, "I don't have time to do all that!." The choice is yours. We are at an age where scientific marketing is a key component in the success of many businesses. If you truly want to make it on the Internet, you have to go that extra step to see where you are losing *your* money and where you are making money. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|