Residual Victory Blog

The Importance of Click Tracking to the Successful Affiliate should not be undervalued.  Click Tracking is necessary to monitor the success, efficiency, security and accuracy of your Affiliate program.  It is invaluable in developing and evaluating sales, marketing and advertising strategies.  Click Tracking is necessary for strategic development and revenue enhancement.  Don’t ignore your Click Tracking monitoring because you have a Successful Affiliate program.  After confirming that your click tracking statistics are accurate, you should plan to be more successful.  By analyzing your Click Tracking data, you know your customers’ web experience.  You can apply that knowledge to all aspects of your Affiliate strategic growth plans.

Two useful methods of developing a successful Click-Tracking Plan for your affiliate program are using web log files or search engine conversion counters.  Software is available to analyze your web logs and provide an output of organic and Pay-per-Click (PPC) visitors.  Many programs offer “time trends” which monitors the time of day the clicking occurs, and “click path” analysis, which monitors the path of the clicking.

If based on your anticipated revenue and cost, purchasing a software program doesn’t provide you with a return on investment (ROI), look at Google and Yahoo.  They provide conversion counters that will give you conversion rates and also details on Clicks, Click through Rates (CTR), Cost per Click (CPC) and the total cost of your advertising campaign when you are evaluating their advertising.  Free click tracking methods for affiliates include appending links to URLs that show up in server logs, creating custom landing pages, creating shopping carts or confirmation pages, analyzing server logs, and adding free web counters to your site. Most Click Track tools offer online reporting, scheduling, and the ability to export reports into other formats.

Once you have a web analytics or other program in place to monitor the results of your click throughs in your successful affiliate program, it’s time to interpret the data and to do something with it.  With a good web analytics program, you will see the keywords that pulled your customers in.  You can then optimize your keyword strategy to increase search engine traffic.  You will be able to evaluate any promotions to see if they are responsible for significant increases in revenue, or if they can be better positioned.  With a good program, you’ll see how much you sold, to how many people, how much you made, and your Return on Investment (ROI).  You’ll also know where your visitors go and don’t go, and be able to increase usability and customer satisfaction.  You can determine if any sales were lost due to slow responses, and you’ll have the opportunity to resolve the matter.

The Importance of Click Tracking to the Successful Affiliate cannot be overstressed.  Every aspect of your Successful Affiliate Program relies on it for optimal sales potential.  Investigate Click Tracking programs and methods, and build a Click Tracking monitoring strategy.  Don’t wait for your customers to stop clicking.  Assess your customers’ needs before they click, and keep the clicks coming.  The success of your Affiliate Program depends on it.

Tips for successful affiliate marketing can be found throughout a network of Affiliate Blogs, Forums and websites.  Banners, Emails and Pop-ups are out:  Blogs, Social Networks and Pay-per-Click ads are in.  Fireflick, (http://index.fireclick.com/), a web analytics benchmark index, reports current conversion rates for affiliates are up 18% in the last week (August 2007).  Forrester Research reported back in 2003 that affiliate marketing drove an annual $14 billion dollars in online sales, and online conversion rates rose 120% between 2001 and 2002.  Spam exploded in affiliate marketing the following years, and became a serious concern, but that didn’t stop the players in the affiliate marketing networks.

Dedicated affiliate managers began to get concerned about their branding efforts, and started weeding out the complacent affiliates from the dedicated affiliates.  Avon shaved off 9,000 affiliates in 2004, and found their results from affiliates improved when focused on a core group of key players.  Big companies now focus on developing relationships with the dedicated few rather than the many stagnant.  Today, the majority of web retailers have less than 250 affiliates, and affiliate sales account for 20% or less of their total sales. 

Being responsible for 20% of sales should not be taken lightly.  According to Internet Retailer (www.internetretailer.com), 65% of affiliate managers offer higher commissions for higher results, and Consumer Brand Electronics pay the highest commissions.  High commissions don’t come without hard work in the affiliate marketing industry.  Affiliate Marketing is for those who are capable of devoting time and investment to become a successful (paid) vehicle for a sales lead.  Here’s some tips to help you succeed in the professional world of Affiliate Marketing.

First, find a quality company to work for.  Your affiliate marketing success will depend on your commitment, and your manager’s.  Believe in the company.  It’s easier to sell something you believe in. Many affiliates realized too late they should have investigated their company, and struggled to be paid.

Second, start with a business plan.  Explore methods of affiliate marketing and the latest fads.  Stay current, but start small to keep losses to a minimum.  Don’t use methods proven not to work.  Everyone experiences a learning curve.  Planning prevents loss.  Learn the lingo, study the web, and do the math.

Third, have plans to expand and diversify.  Affiliate programs die if left unattended.

Fourth, register a separate domain name for your affiliate link.  Have it open in a separate window so the visitor’s surfing is not interrupted.  Let the customer know they are leaving the current site.  Keep their interests in mind.

Fifth, develop quality content in the vehicles of your Affiliate Sales Strategy.  Your content is your reputation.  Add new and relevant information to keep visitors coming.  Include information on consumer protection to brand yourself as trustworthy. Quality and Trust affects revenue.

Starting with these Tips, you’ll be on your way to a meaningful and profitable affiliate marketing sales campaign.  By becoming one of the driven few, you will reap the benefits of your sales, and keep yourself positioned as a key player in the world of Affiliate Marketing.

Choosing the best affiliate program is a critical part of website development.  Income and page rank are two reasons to participate in a legitimate affiliate program.  Multiple irrelevant links on a website may result in a demotion rather than a promotion of page rank and income.  Search engines and surfers crawl the web for quality content.  There are literally thousands of affiliate programs and review sites.  The safest way to decide the best program to use is to have a clear understanding of the goals, content and visitors to your website, a realistic view of your monitoring abilities, including cost and time, and a realistic view of your potential income and projected income.  By first having a clear business plan, you can easily eliminate the affiliate programs that are counter-productive to your needs and avoid being dropped from the primary search providers.

Google search engine algorithms pay attention to the amount of visits to your site, the amount of time the visitors spend on your site, and the relevancy of your website and the websites from your links to the input search terms.  Participating in “link farms” is one of the fastest ways to be demoted from rankings.  Knowing your customer is one of the fundamental steps to obtaining success.  Your website content must be tailored to the interest of your potential visitors, and that includes links to any affiliate or associate program for information, advertising or sales.  You don’t want a link to a steakhouse on a site for vegetarians.  The visitors will notice, and Google will notice.  You won’t make the sale and you will be dropped from search engine rankings.  Instead of developing sales, you will be redoing your website.

To keep visitors returning to your site, you must have a reputable site.  The reputation of your affiliate will reflect on the reputation of your site.  Make sure the links are related to your content and are not redirected.  Check for java script code and the HTML source for “rel=nofollow,” which gives the link a command not to count the link in rankings.

To use the best affiliate sites to your fullest advantage, make sure they enhance your site and don’t deter from the content or the aesthetics.  Choosing affiliate sites that offer products or information complimentary to yours builds satisfaction in the customers and the search engines.  Visit potential sites and evaluate them with the point of view your visitors have.

Have a realistic view of your income potential and monitoring ability.  Payment schedules affect your cash flow.  Compare payment arrangements to user data to get clear income projections.  Make sure you monitor affiliate program data.  Fix broken links, evaluate the profitable links, and discard unvisited links.  Many software programs are available to do this. 

Choosing the best affiliate program is a matter of having a clear business plan and thoroughly researching all of your opportunities.  If you build quality content focused on visitor satisfaction with a clear financial plan, the best affiliate program will fall into place by meeting the requirements of your business plan.