Here’s the deal. You promote and push those affiliate links of yours. You work hard, dropping them everywhere. In blogs, in reports, emails. Then the sales start coming in. Yay! But… from where? Which one of those links generated the sale so you can go do it some more?

That’s the million dollar question!

Photo by miguel ugalde

Many affiliates would just love to know that but sadly, sometimes, we just won’t ever know because we don’t have access to the thank you pages of the seller to put in a tracking code that would tell us more information about the sale. At best, you will only know how many people clicked on your affiliate link and if you did a promo using a special link,  you can only put two and two together.

It Could Be Obvious

At times, you just know it because you do a mailing and the sales roll in as a direct result. But all is not lost. It all depends on the affiliate system and what tools they give you. With some programs (though rare) you can add your own HTML tracking code in to the thank you page. I recently acquired a plugin for my shopping cart so that affiliates can do just that. I use Delavo by the way.

Campaign Trackers

The alternative that many affiliate programs do offer is the special campaign tracker. For example in Wahmcart, the campaign trackers you set up as an affiliate is tied to the shopping cart so if a sale is a result of a special campaign link you will see it in your affiliate reports. The problem with creating campaigns is – most affiliates (including myself) find it can get tedious because if it’s a product you promote actively you probably link to this product everywhere umpteen times around your site. It’s a pain to create a campaign tracker for each link and certainly not productive.

But here’s an idea how to work around that.

Divide your web site into zones. You can do this mentally or put it down on paper – that’s probably best so you won’t forget. You can designate the header area as Zone 1 or Zone A – doesn’t matter what you call it. Then the sidebar as Zone 2, footer as Zone 3 and post content area as Zone 4. You can even create a ‘zone’ for PDF reports. Create special campaign links for each zone. If the merchant’s shopping cart can tell you which one of those campaign links generate the sale, then you now have a much better idea which area of your site or which activity is producing the most results for you.