Affiliate marketing is a viable way to plus revenue with a passive income source. Being an affiliate means you get paid on a traffic referral when the prospect becomes a customer. But how do you track that referral, so you get paid?
Get Paid the Commission You Earn and Optimize for External Clicks Easily
You become a commissioned salesperson for the product offered by a third-party. And like salespeople, the product seller can easily miscalculate your commission (even on accident.) With so many programs available, you can quickly test ideas using other people’s products.
One way of getting paid on a referral is to track conversion rates from click to close. Tracking helps you make practical decisions about which affiliate programs are worth promoting too.
A smart and clever affiliate marketer asks …
I need to optimize my landing pages for external clicks.
I am an affiliate marketer and optimizing for external clicks is of high priority.
Is there some way to do this?
Thanks for your help.
Elizabeth G., Affiliate Marketer
Like many marketers, Elizabeth wants to know when a visitor leaves her site using an affiliate link. The external link click is where the affiliate relationship starts.
Done right, you’ll know which landing page on your site contributes to the click of an affiliate link. This page becomes the source of a potential sale.
If using WordPress then several plugins help track links to external content, including affiliate marketing programs. Another solution is using a link redirect tool or shortener.
Measure Landing Page Effectiveness with Link Click and Page Attribution
Both solutions work well to tell you how many times a visitor clicks on a link. AdBriefing Copywriting Tips uses Pretty Links for redirects, including A/B splits and keyword replacement.
You want a solution that feeds external click information to Google Analytics to match page attribution with visitor behavior. Alone it does not connect the landing page to click.
With a link redirect, you will need a different redirect for every page you are testing. If you use the same URL redirect, you wouldn’t know which page was the source.
- https://domain.tld/short1 –> https://www.merchant.tld/product/campaign
- https://domain.tld/short2 –> https://www.merchant.tld/product/campaign
- https://domain.tld/short3 –> https://www.merchant.tld/product/campaign
- https://domain.tld/short4 –> https://www.merchant.tld/product/campaign
Where each “short[n]” represents a different landing page. As you can see, this would be a lot of extra work to know which landing page contributes to the conversion.
Even if you are using different campaign codes at the affiliate merchant, effort multiplies with testing. The ideal solution redirects with fewer links while using click attribution with your analytics package.
A solution that works well is Monster Insights (a WordPress plugin), which can track external clicks to specific URLs patterns in Google Analytics. You get one link redirects with page exit information in Google Analytics.
How to Save Time with A Single Short Link with Automatic Page Attribution
For our standard setup, you would wrap your affiliate link with a redirect plugin like Pretty Links. Setting up Monster Insights, you'd designate a /go/ prefix on outbound redirects as an Affiliate.
- https://domain.tld/go/merchant –> https://merchant.tld/product/campaign
The setup is easy. Because the right information about click attribution feeds to Google Analytics, you’ll know which page contributes to a sale.
Plus, you’ll have a broad conversion focus that saves you time determining which affiliate program pays. You can also trace back the source and medium attributions.
Remember, even if you only use a link shortener, you want to embed advertising tracking codes into the URL for your affiliate program. Source tracking codes simplify measures.
For example, ClickBank uses a Tracking ID Code (TID), and Shareasale has second level tracking. If you’re getting started with coding advertisements, then affiliate marketing is a safe place to practice.
There are times you may want to short link to a specific tracking code on the affiliate program side. However, limit this to postcards and email directly to the affiliate program rather than through a landing page.
Use a landing page to capture a lead or present a specific presale message before a direct affiliate offer referral. That landing page might be a blog post, a landing page receiving pay per click traffic, or the response of an A/B split after an opt-in.
The Pretty Links plugin lets you quickly set up an A/B landing page. Or you can also use a landing page optimization tool with the same outbound redirect to the affiliate offer.
How you link to the affiliate program may be different depending on your setup. Write down what works for your specific configuration to make things easy.
When You Are Working Beyond the Website and Still Want Attribution
If you don’t use WordPress, then your only option to track external clicks on your website at a page level is a unique redirect for every reference. You can track page attribution without WordPress.
I’ve made money with a link redirect tool that will pass along tracking ID codes for the affiliate marketing platform. It was a lot of hard work, sometimes custom coding, and didn’t have the retargeting that Google Analytics provides.
If you are looking for a link coding methodology that shows you which advertisement converts and doesn't contact my office. Over the years, I've developed a non-software system compatible with Google Analytics UTM coding.
Using a tracking ID or Monster Insights gives you enough details to know which marketing effort produces the sale. You will also get event-level information in Google Analytics for the outbound click.
Why You Always Go Back to Google Analytics or A Universal Analytics Package
Google Analytics collects inbound traffic, visitor behavior, and attribution tracking in a single location. With your website reporting page attribution, you get a single picture of what contributes to a sale and what does not.
You can even set the outbound link as a goal. You'll know how many outbound clicks on affiliate links as well as being able to embed link tracking in the Pretty Links redirect.
Overall it works well, plus you can use short links in an email as well. If you use a goal, then the value of that goal is total affiliate sales divided by the number of clicks.
You wouldn't use a FORM element button, instead use an image with a link. Direct linking gives you more control. The link shortening gives you a clean link for your visitor.
Being able to audit your clicks, filter out robots, and audit your affiliate offers is critical to know what converts. If you can’t measure, then you are not using direct response.
This kind of tracking works when offering your products and services too.
Altogether, you can do split testing from landing pages, email messages, and even print mail with your domain tracking everything in Google Analytics. You get one place for conversion tracking reports.
Final Word on Marketing Campaign Measurement and Optimization
As a copywriter, marketer, or business development professional, if you do any website campaign optimization, then practice with affiliate programs. You can build your technical team without being a geek with this basic model.
You will know which offers are worth promoting and which are not. Remember, this is page attribution for clicks to external links. If you are tracking conversion in one place, it doesn’t require as many steps to maintain.
EDIT: Justin Hitt’s experience with website analytics measures back two decades. Including as an affiliate manager with Commission Junction, marketer, and systems administrator for million-dollar advertising sites. If you have specific questions about page attribution, increasing conversion, or marketing measures, partnership opportunities may be available. Write to his office with your questions. – Mark.
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