Affiliate marketing is a powerful way to expand your brand reach and get new customers. But to ensure your program thrives, you need to track and measure its performance.
Without monitoring the right metrics, you’ll be flying blind. You cannot identify what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus your efforts. This makes it impossible to maximize your returns and scale your affiliate channel.
This article will uncover key metrics to monitor and techniques to run a thriving affiliate program. Let’s start now!
5 Key Metrics To Measure Your Affiliate Program
If you’re finding ways to measure your affiliate campaign, consider using the metrics below.
Clicks On Affiliate Links
Clicks on affiliate links are the first signal of whether your affiliate program works. They represent the number of potential customers visiting your site through affiliate promotions.
In UpPromote, you can easily track the number of real-time clicks on its Analytics Dashboard. You can filter click data by dates, programs, or sales networks. This helps you to analyze trends and track the effectiveness of individual campaigns.
As you can see in the picture below, there’s a total of 244,617 clicks for a one-year period (March 26th, 2023 to March 26th, 2024). The graph reveals a distinct upward trend from mid-April to August 2023. The figure is followed by a decrease in clicks towards the end of the year and the beginning of 2024.
You may also analyze what affiliate marketing promotions led to click increases from mid-April to August 2023.
Additionally, you should dig deeper to understand the reasons behind decreases towards the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. It could be changes in affiliate strategies, seasonal buying patterns, or technical issues with your links.
Affiliate Performance
It’s crucial to monitor your affiliate performance on a regular basis. This lets you identify top-selling affiliates, effective marketing strategies, and areas for improvement.
The UpPromote analytics dashboard shows a list of top affiliates. Here, you can analyze data by date range, specific program or campaign, network sales, and affiliate status.
On this table, each affiliate will be listed with detailed information such as number of clicks, number of referral orders, revenue they bring and commission amount they get,…
Total Sales Generated
At the heart of any affiliate program lies the ultimate goal: generating sales. The total sales help you measure the program’s success and understand your partners’ return on investment (ROI).
Our Analytics Dashboard clearly shows the overall revenue generated through your affiliate program. You can even filter this data by date, program, or network sales for deeper insights.
But that’s not all! The dashboard also shows your total referrals and total commissions paid out. This lets you see at a glance if your affiliates are driving valuable sales to your store.
Plus, UpPromote shows you where your referrals are coming from. Did a specific social media campaign or blog post go viral? Therefore, you can guide your affiliates to leverage these successful strategies.
Affiliate Revenue After Commission Payouts
Affiliate commissions are what you pay to get new customers through affiliate marketing. When calculating your affiliate revenue after paying commissions, you’ll see how much the program brings.
| Affiliate Revenue = Total Revenue Generated – Commission Payouts |
A profitable program allows you to allocate resources for further development and expansion. You can offer top performers higher commission rates or additional marketing tools.
If your program isn’t profitable, you can find areas to improve. You can consider adjusting commissions, targeting specific channels, or supporting underperforming affiliates.
For example, let’s say your affiliate program generates $10,000 in total sales during a month. However, your standard commission rate is 20%, meaning you pay $2,000 to affiliates. In this scenario, your affiliate revenue would be $8,000 ($10,000 total sales – $2,000 commission payouts).
Cost Per Acquisition Through Affiliate Marketing
We all know cost per acquisition (CPA) indicates the total cost of a customer taking a specific action. But in this case, we’re discussing the cost of getting a customer to place an order.
A low CPA means you’re getting customers at a low cost through your affiliate program. But if your CPA is high, it’s time to find ways to reduce costs for acquiring customers.
For example, imagine your program generates 100 sales in a month with a total affiliate payout of $1,000. That means the average commission per sale is $10. If you add other program costs (like software fees and marketing materials) of $200 for the month, your total program cost is $1,200. So, your CPA would be $12 ($1,200 total program cost divided by 100 sales).
6 Key Techniques To Grow Your Affiliate Program
You’re armed with the essential affiliate marketing metrics. Now, let’s explore these 6 key techniques to optimize your program’s reach, conversion, and revenue.
Keep Recruiting Affiliates
Just like any relationship, affiliate partnerships require ongoing nurturing and expansion. This brings in fresh ideas, helps reach new customers, and keeps your program active.
By diversifying your affiliate partners, you can keep your brand interesting and reach new audiences. A fashion blogger might focus on style tips, while a fitness enthusiast could highlight how your clothes fit during workouts.
Regular recruitment also ensures a steady stream of affiliates promoting your products. This keeps your program dynamic and prevents slowdowns in sales, especially if key affiliates change focus or take breaks.
Our app offers various effective methods to expand your affiliate pool and grow your program.
Post-purchase popup: Invite customers to join your affiliate program after they make a purchase. This capitalizes on their satisfaction and encourages them to promote your products.
In the General Settings section, you can select the promotion method and program to apply for. You can also assign customers as downline affiliates and reward them for their referrals.
Next, you can set display rules like showing only once per customer or closing on background clicks. You can easily understand each setting by clicking on the information icon (“I”).
Customer referral: You can reward customers for referring their friends to your business. This encourages word-of-mouth marketing and builds loyalty while attracting new customers.
Here, you can edit the friend incentive’s name, amount, and discount type. Next, you can configure the rewards your customers will receive for referring friends. On the right side, you’ll find a section for a pop-up notification that appears to your customers.
Marketplace listing: List your affiliate program on UpPromote’s Marketplace to attract more affiliates. 
You’ll provide your affiliate program’s details and what you expect from your ideal affiliates. Next, you will decide the type of affiliates you’d like to attract. Be specific about the ideal characteristics such as age, gender, location, or promotional channels.
Provide Ongoing Communication And Support
A successful program requires fostering strong relationships with your partners. Clear communication and support help new affiliates understand program rules or product details. Thereby, affiliates will know how to promote your products effectively.
When you show that you care about their success and are there to help, it creates a positive environment. This leads to lasting partnerships where affiliates work hard to promote your brand and make sales.
UpPromote offers two ways to communicate with affiliates: Chat and Email. Keep everyone in the loop and engaged.
Merchants and affiliates can communicate in the in-app chat box and solve any urgent questions or issues.
Or, you need to broadcast a program update or special offer to all your affiliates? UpPromote allows you to send customized bulk emails with ease.
Offer Lucrative Commission Rates
High commissions help attract top affiliates and motivate them to promote your brand. It also encourages them to create great content that promotes your products well.
In addition, you can consider auto-tier commissions for your affiliate program. This approach rewards affiliates with progressively higher commission rates based on their performance. Imagine an affiliate program with three tiers:
- Tier 1 (Entry Level): New affiliates start here with a baseline commission rate (e.g., 10%).
- Tier 2 (Growth): As affiliates drive more sales, they unlock a higher commission rate (e.g., 15%).
- Tier 3 (Top Performer): When affiliates reach a specific sales gold, they earn the highest commission rate (e.g., 20%).
All of these can be done easily through the affiliate marketing app UpPromote. Simply go to Outreach > Multi-level marketing. Then, set different commission levels for your affiliates based on their performance.
Motivate Affiliates With Promotional Resources And Incentives
t’s important to provide affiliates with various promotional resources and incentives. The more you support affiliates, the more likely you’ll gain referred sales. You can offer pre-made banners, product descriptions, social media posts, or even video templates.
Moreover, you provide resources, which means that you can control the visual representation of your brand. Customers are more likely to respond to cohesive and well-crafted promotional content.
UpPromote makes it easy to keep your affiliates happy and selling your products. They offer a toolbox full of ways, including Coupons, Media Gallery, Gifts, and Bonuses.
Coupon promotion: You can create exclusive coupons and discount codes for your affiliates.
Here, you can create coupons for your affiliates, set coupon types, values, minimum purchase requirements., and more. On the right side is a quick summary of the coupon content. You can also add notes for your affiliates if necessary.
Marketing materials: Merchants provide marketing materials like banners, product images, or promotional content.
In the Media Gallery section, you create various media categories and upload media assets photos, banners, or videos).
Gifts: You can send gifts to motivate your affiliates as welcome packages or commission payments.
You can edit every detail of your gift, including its name, type of gift, and specific products. On the right side, there’s also a handy summary of your gift package. You can double-check all the details before finalizing it.
Performance bonuses: Merchants can reward affiliates for hitting sales goals or generating leads.
You can set clear conditions for the bonus and determine its value. Like any part, a summary of the bonus is provided for a quick and easy overview.
Reward Top Performers
It’s crucial that you recognize and reward top affiliates who bring you the most sales. Just like anyone else, affiliates like to feel valued. That way, you build a stronger relationship and they’re more likely to keep working with you.
Besides, when people see you treat your top performers well, they will want to join your program, too. Everyone wants to be part of a winning team.
There are many ways to reward top-performing affiliates. You can use higher commissions, exclusive discounts, or free marketing materials.
Watch Out For Shady Affiliate Practices
Not all your affiliates are professional and decent; some can be plain shady. To understand truly how a member works, keep an eye on his/her activities and where the traffic comes from.
Let’s say an affiliate only shares coupon codes that don’t really give discounts. This doesn’t add much value to your program and can harm your trustworthiness. To tackle such issues, it’s crucial to check and review your affiliates’ methods.
Case Study: TréSkin Grows Sales Through UpPromote Affiliate Marketing Software
Launching its affiliate program in August 2022, TréSkin earned a total of $120,000+ in affiliate revenue.
TréSkin, a popular organic beauty brand in the USA, wanted to reach more customers and boost sales. In late 2022, they turned to affiliate marketing as a cost-effective and scalable solution.
UpPromote helped TréSkin find people (affiliates) who could spread the word about their skincare products. They found these partners through social media and the UpPromote Marketplace.
UpPromote also made things easier for TréSkin by:
- Setting up commission rates for affiliates (how much they earn per sale)
- Automatically tracking sales and managing everything
- Offering gifts and bonuses to keep affiliates motivated
Conclusion
A successful affiliate program works both ways. You and your affiliates work together to reach a common goal: more sales for your business!
By leveraging UpPromote, you can see how well your affiliate program is doing. You’ll know how to optimize your business for growth and strengthen relationships with your partners.
