Insights on Affiliate Marketing Tracking

Advertising and marketing are crucial parts of any business's expansion plan. Ultimately, if people are unaware of what your business is selling, they will not be able to buy your stuff. Affiliate marketing is a notion that falls within the broad category of marketing. While many businesses should be using affiliate marketing, they may not fully comprehend what it entails. Even fewer know how to use affiliate marketing's tracking features to their full potential. Here are some things to be aware of about tracking in affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Paying affiliates to drive visitors to your website is known as affiliate marketing. Usually, this is done by using an affiliate link or customized promo code. An affiliate earns a commission for essentially inspiring a purchase when they refer a customer to your business and that customer completes the transaction. For businesses, the goal is to increase brand awareness; for affiliates, the goal is to monetize the development of content, such as Instagram posts or YouTube videos.

81% of advertisers used affiliate marketing in 2016 as a component of their entire marketing strategy. For a long time now, affiliate marketing has been a crucial component of marketing, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Actually, it's more likely that for the past few years, the percentage has only gone up.

Why Is Tracking So Important in Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing tracking is so important because it’s one of the ways you understand how your company’s marketing processes work overall. Going back to 2016 again, Business Insider reported that 15% of the digital media industry’s revenue was already coming from affiliate marketing, and in the six years since, it’s almost certainly increased dramatically. If you have no information about where 15% or more of your purchases are coming from, then you’re going to have a harder time creating your affiliate marketing strategy.

The more information you have, the better you can tailor your digital marketing strategies, which is one of the biggest reasons that you want a wide breadth of information regarding affiliate marketing tracking. From the device a customer is using to the specific time they accessed the page and even where their mouse may have hovered as they looked through the website, these pieces of information can help you make your content marketing strategies more effective.

How Does Tracking Work for Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing tracking is about getting as much data as you can. It’s important to look to the future when it comes to understanding tracking for affiliate marketing. For example, Google is planning to do away with third-party cookies, which means that first-party and zero-party information is becoming more valuable in today’s advertising marketplace.

First-party data is data that a company receives from its user activity and interaction. For example, when a potential customer clicks through an affiliate link, you may be able to get information about whose affiliate link they clicked, what web pages they spend time on, what items they look at, and what they add to their cart before they check out or leave.

Zero-party data is data that a customer gives you directly. When a customer goes through the account creation process or the checkout process, they may give you information like their mailing address, email address, name, and phone number. These pieces of information are all zero-party data.

High-quality affiliate marketing processes can help you collect as much information as you need to track your customers and tailor your marketing efforts toward the people who actually visit your website.

Managing Privacy Concerns and Affiliate Marketing Tracking

Privacy concerns are absolutely at the forefront of the digital advertising conversation on average. iOS 14.5, which went live in early 2021, started prompting users to opt-in to data collection rather than providing an option to opt-out of data collection, and as previously mentioned, Google is planning to do away with third-party cookies through the Chrome app.

The best way to manage privacy concerns is to look at things from the user’s point of view. Are you using the information in malicious ways? Are you using data that the user wouldn’t naturally want to give you? Are you using an extensive amount of information? If none of these are true, then you’re probably fine to use this data, especially after consulting with a legal team to stay within your legal requirements, including CCPA and GDPR.

Using Affiliate Marketing Technology to Automate Your Tracking

This type of tracking can be done by hand, but after you reach just a few hundred hits, it will become very tiring. Refersion and other affiliate marketing technologies are far superior. With the help of this kind of technology, you can monitor the total performance of your affiliate marketing program and get details about income, commission payments, and other related aspects. Furthermore, by using affiliate marketing software that uses first-party data, you can protect your tracking programs from problems that may come with third-party data.

Any small business can profit greatly from affiliate marketing, regardless of the products or volume being sold. To get the most out of your affiliate marketing procedures, though, you need efficient tracking. You may accomplish the best possible marketing while still providing your users with a comfortable experience if you employ the appropriate tracking.