Tracking (The Lifeline Of Affiliate Marketing)

Tracking (The Lifeline Of Affiliate Marketing)

The key to affiliate marketing is being able to track the whole process from

potential customers being sent to a website through to a completed action,

so that the merchant is able to award the correct affiliate with the correct

commission.

Specialised affiliate tracking software is used to track affiliate campaigns,

and this is usually supplied and supported by an affiliate network. Often, the

merchant and the affiliate will also use their own tracking software to make

sure that there are no major discrepancies.

Affiliates send traffic to merchants through links or URLs, and the tracking

software allows each affiliate to have a unique identifier in the URL. These

links set a cookie on the customer’s computer, which allows the software to

track the sale.

For example, here is the URL of a product on a retailer’s website:

http://www.firebox.com/product/1201

Here is the URL for the same product, but with affiliate tracking:

http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?affiliateID=238

&merchantID=214&programmeID=3897&mediaID=0&tra c k i

ng=cube_world&url=http://www.firebox.com/index.html?dir

= f i rebox&action=product&pid=1201&usg=AFQjCNGdHpzAas

CefzDnyUBPxnagxqzvTA

You can see some of the information being recorded. It has been shown in bold

in the URL:

• The affiliate network – Affiliate Future

• The ID of the affiliate (238)

• The ID of the merchant (214)

• The ID of the programme (3897) (a merchant might have more than

one programme on a network)

• The media used (0)

• The destination of the click

Can you spot the original URL in the one with the tracking?

When the customer completes the required action on the merchant’s website,

the cookie will allow the tracking software to collect the information needed

to award the commission. For example, if a customer was to use an affiliate

link to purchase a gift from a merchant (using the same URL as before as an

example), the following information would be collected:

• Referring URL and affiliate

• Total sale amount for commission

• Date and time of sale

• Unique order number of sale

All this information will allow the merchant to confirm that the sale is valid, as

well as the amount of commission that is due, without ever releasing any of the

customer’s personal information.

Affiliate tracking software collects information even if no action is completed.

This is vital to the affiliates and to the merchants to see where they can optimise

their campaign.

Information collected includes:

• Impressions

• Clicks

• Conversions

All this information helps to build up data in order to strengthen the campaign.

Affiliates will use this information to determine the success of their marketing

efforts. Remember that affiliates invest money into marketing various

merchants, and they only get rewarded on commission. An affiliate will use the

above information to determine whether or not to promote a merchant, and

how much they should invest in promoting a particular merchant.

Merchants can use the information on their campaign to determine how best to

optimise. For example, if a particular type of banner seems to be doing better

than others, they could use that to improve other banners that they offer.

How long does a cookie last for?

If you follow the steps mentioned above to see what cookies have been set on

your browser, you’ll notice that there are a lot of different expiry periods for

cookies. Cookies are not just used for affiliate marketing. They are also used

to store information so that a website “remembers” who you are next time you

visit it. The domain owner gets to determine for how long a cookie should last.

This is called the cookie period.

When it comes to affiliate marketing, it is up to the merchant to decide what the

cookie period should be. The affiliate is only awarded commission should the

desired action take place within the cookie period. Some merchants make the

cookie last for the session only (i.e. if the user only purchases the following day,

no commission is rewarded), whereas the standard cookie period for affiliate

marketing is 30 to 60 days. Some merchants offer 999 day cookies, or even

lifetime cookies.

There are merchants who offer what is called an affiliate lock-in. Here, the

first affiliate to refer the customer earns commission on the lifetime of the

customer: every purchase that the customer makes will earn the affiliate

commission.

Affiliates tend to prefer a longer cookie period: it increases the likelihood of

being awarded commission.

And when things go wrong…

Successful tracking is fundamental to any digital marketing campaign, and

especially so to affiliate marketing. As affiliates are only paid for performance,

should anything go wrong in the tracking process, it is the affiliates that

suffer. The merchant will still get the desired sales, but the affiliates won’t be

rewarded.

So, it is good to bear in mind some of the problems that can be faced with

tracking.

Multiple referrals, one sale – so who gets the bounty?

With so many affiliates, it is not uncommon for a potential customer to visit a

merchant’s website through the links of many different affiliates before finally

making a purchase. Who do you think should receive the commission?

It has become standard practice that the most recent referral is awarded the

commission, though there are some merchants who also offer compensation

to other affiliates involved in the sales process. In the example above, the

affiliate who placed the PPC advert would get the commission for this sale.

Cookies getting a bad reputation

Consumers sometimes get anxious when they hear things like “tracking” and

“collecting information”, and so they delete cookies from their computer. If this

happens, then the sale will never be attributed to the affiliate. This practice,

however, does not seem to have a drastic effect on numbers, and so most

affiliates will calculate this into their ROI.

Clashing cookies

Merchants will often use some kind of tracking so that they can better optimise

their own marketing efforts. Or, a merchant may make some kind of technical

change to their website. It is crucial that any of these changes are tested first

with the tracking software, to make sure that it does not create any conflict. It

is generally accepted practice that even if it is a merchant’s marketing effort

that is responsible for the final sale, the affiliate still gets the commission if it

is within the affiliate’s cookie period.

Placing an order by another method

If the customer completes the action, but does not do so online, the affiliate

will not receive commission. So, if a customer visits an online retailer through

an affiliate link, but places an order over the phone, the affiliate will miss out

on commission.