This is the third step of the 7 Steps To Upgrade Your Affiliate Program for 2021 series, providing actionable strategies to build a stronger affiliate program.
Check out the other steps in the series:
- Step #1: Monitor and Stop Coupon Poaching
- Step #2: Use First Touch Attribution for Content Publishers
- Step #4: Track Influencers Through Coupons and Coupon Site URLs
- Step #5: Use QR Codes to Track Offline Affiliates & Partners
- Step #6: Drill Down Into Affiliate Placement Reporting
- Step #7: Catch More Fraud & Automate Prevention
It’s second nature to use sales generated as a main metric to evaluate partner value. After all, knowing who the rising stars, consistent producers, and heavy hitters are in your program allows you to ramp up perks to keep those folks active.
Partners aren’t guaranteed to stick with your program, however. Partners stop promoting programs for a variety of reasons including:
- Higher payouts or exclusive offers from a competing program
- Shift of niche or focus
- Lack of time to commit to performance marketing
- Suspension or penalty by current program or program group
There simply isn’t one answer to why they choose to stop promoting.
Beyond partner churn, purchase reports don’t tell the whole story of consumer value. Data from consumers who don’t immediately drive a conversion -- like consumers who make repeat purchases, come back to your site via retargeting, or are introduced to your site by a compelling product review, do not show up in standard purchase reports.
As evidenced by the name of this post, there is a method to bolster your partner evaluation efforts: tracking events. Let’s jump into why events should be tracked each month!
Tracking Events: Like Discovering How To Make Legit Movie Theater Popcorn At Home
Apparently, the key to the amazingness of movie theater popcorn lies in a key flavor additive called Flavacol. During a trip down the rabbit hole I found out that Flavacol gives movie popcorn its famous enticing smell, yellow color and addictive taste. Best of all, you can pick up this “secret” ingredient online everywhere and use it to create some amazing theater popcorn at home.|
Like immediately buying Flavacol on Amazon after reading this post, the insights that you get from event tracking can also be put into action to reward and recruit partners.
Event tracking -- the practice of tracking unique performance marketing outcomes -- allows you to examine how consumers are interacting with your site to give you more actionable program data.
Tracking events lets you truly cover all of your bases. If you can think it, you can track it.
Event tracking via Everflow is totally customizable and simple. All you need to do is set up a pixel and adjust a few options in Everflow.
To help you narrow down your focus a bit so you can get started sooner, we’ll cover our partners’ most commonly tracked events in the next section.
Popular Events To Track
As mentioned, virtually any site event can be tracked. To get your creative juices flowing and show you how powerful event tracking can be, here’s a few popular events that have proven to be difference markers for our partners:
Initial Site Visit: Track partners who introduce visitors to your brand, such as influencers who give your products a shout out on the ‘Gram, or content affiliates who write thorough reviews that direct consumers to your site. These introductions are invaluable, as the consumer may not have never heard of your company before, but is now interested in your brand.
With a very small percentage of consumers making a purchase the first time they visit a site (8%), partners who drove those new users may not end up with the credit that they deserve for the sale. Tracking initial visits is key to knowing who is bringing in new business vs. those who may be poaching it.
Upsells: Not all purchases hold the same weight. With typical online upsells at a success rate at a max of 25%, identifying which partners drive higher value purchases can be a program game changer.
Sign-up and Registration: Pinpointing partners who drive engaged consumers to your site can be huge for identifying your true program stars. By tracking key interest indicators like newsletter subscriptions, webinar signups, contact form submissions, or demo requests, you’ll quickly see which partners are bringing more aligned consumers to your site.
Loyalty: Partners who drive loyal consumers can be extremely valuable. For example, tracking which partners bring in more consumers who join your social channels, share your content, or visit your site often is an easy way to know who is helping to build your brand.
Repeat Activity: Everflow’s powerful email attribution functionality allows you to follow a consumer’s journey with your brand after they make a purchase. This feature is useful when tracking partners who drive more than the traditional single sale, such as subscription renewals or rebills, or bringing consumers back to your site via organic search and your internal paid search.
Ready to start tracking events? Read on below!
Begin Tracking Events Via Everflow In A Few Minutes
Event tracking can be easily enabled in a few different ways, including at the advertiser level, post-conversion, and via email address.
Here’s a few brief articles to give you some more details on each process:
- Advertiser-Level Events
- Post-Conersion Events
- Email Attribution Events (great for recurring subscriptions and rebills)
Once you’re ready to get started, book a demo today and we’ll walk you through setting up the best event tracking options for your program goals.
Adding event tracking alongside your purchase tracking efforts allows you to gain a full view of your partner landscape.
To continue with our popcorn references:
Utilizing event tracking is almost like adding M&M’s to your movie popcorn order. You’re taking something that is already useful and making it even better (though event tracking has significantly less calories than the combo of popcorn and chocolate candy).
Ready for Your Next Step in Upgrading Your Affiliate Program?
Check out: Step #4: Track Influencers Through Coupons and Coupon Site URLs
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