How does affiliate tracking work

What exactly do you need this information for? Primarily for settling accounts with affiliates. Depending on which method you choose, the payment method may be different. Here are some of the most popular payment methods:. Thanks to this information, you can get a better overview of your affiliate network and plan your further actions.

Once you select an affiliate tracking method, cooperation with affiliates will be seamless. Steps to Success in Email Marketing. Get exclusive offers and the latest news about our products and services delivered directly to your inbox.

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What is the best affiliate tracking software? Wrapping up. Ever wondered what affiliate tracking is and why it is so important? Tracking allows brands and affiliates to gain invaluable insight into which elements of their online activity are generating the greatest volume of visitors, conversions and clicks. This provides a clear view as to whether an affiliate marketing campaign is working or not.

Affiliate networks offer different tracking solutions, which enables the ability to track a range of different metrics.

However, there is a range of different commission models that can be used depending on the brand and what vertical they are in. The most common commission model for affiliate marketing is cost per acquisition CPA , which means the brand only pays out to the affiliate once the sale is complete. There are also payment models such as cost per click CPC , cost per lead CPL and cost per thousand impressions CPM , which brings flexibility to the payment set up, allowing the brand as well as the affiliate to utilise the channel efficiently.

Traditionally affiliate marketing is powered by cookies, which is a piece of technology that interacts with a web browser to store information such as user preferences, login details or registration information and shopping cart contents. Ever searched online for "phone deals" and suddenly you see display banners advertising phone special offers on other websites? This is as a result of a cookie being dropped on your browser on the initial search, storing the data of this search as something you might be interested in and allowing you to be targeted at a later date.

These cookies tend to last 30 days, but this can vary between brands. In the context of affiliate marketing, these cookies store the link or ad that the website visitor clicked on. Cookies can also store a range of data attached to this click, including the time and date of the click and what type of websites you have visited.

There are several different forms of cookies as well as uses for the cookies ; however, the most common cookie type used in affiliate marketing is called a first-party cookie. This cookie allows us to identify the advertiser, the publisher and therefore the agreed commission amount. The parameters can be as sophisticated as the brand needs, providing insights into specific products including details such as the colour or sub-brand , as well as details on the different payment or delivery type, whatever aspect of the attribution that is useful to the brand.

This allows the network owner as well as each affiliate to track and gain insight to which portions of the network receive the most visitors, conversions, traffic or clicks, and be able to see if a marketing campaign is working or not.

There are many types of affiliate tracking software being used depending on the business model, most of which show graphs of different metrics. Popular affiliate networks are Amazon and Ebay, who give out commissions for every purchase made from or through its affiliates. Share this Term. Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!

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