17 Essential Affiliate Marketing KPIs and Metrics

Ready to successfully run your B2C or B2B affiliate program to grow your brand? The difference between thriving affiliate programs and those that struggle often comes down to improper measurement of KPIs and important metrics.

According to Digiday, 58% of brands attribute brand awareness success with affiliate marketing. How do they measure that success?

Well, this guide will walk you through the 17 most important KPIs for affiliate marketing success. By the end, you'll have a clear roadmap for affiliate tracking and improving your own affiliate programs.

Key Summary

Here are the three most important takeaways:

• Focus on quality over quantity - The most successful affiliate programs prioritize metrics that measure partner quality, conversion rates, and lifetime value rather than just traffic volume or number of affiliates.
• Track both performance and relationship metrics - Winning programs monitor traditional performance indicators alongside partner satisfaction, engagement levels, and program health metrics to ensure long-term success.
• Use the right tools for comprehensive tracking - Manual tracking methods limit your ability to measure and adjust quickly. A dedicated affiliate marketing software provides the detailed analytics needed to make data-driven decisions and scale your program.

The 10 Most Important Affiliate Marketing KPIs to Track

1. Conversion Rate

% = (Conversions / Clicks) × 100

Why It's Important

Your conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors from your affiliates who drive sales, leads, or your desired outcome. This metric directly represents the quality of your affiliates and the effectiveness of that marketing channel. A high conversion rate means that your affiliates are driving qualified actions.

How to Benchmark

Industry benchmarks can vary but most successful affiliate programs see conversion rates between 2-5%. E-commerce programs typically range from 1-3%. And software and digital services often have the highest conversions rates at 3-7%. Your top affiliates may also drive your highest conversion rates, so keep that in mind, as well.

Example

An online fitness coach sees that their top affiliate generates 500 landing page views a month with 20 conversions. A 4% conversion rate.

2. Revenue Per Click (RPC)

# = Total Revenue Generated / Total Number of Clicks

Why It's Important

RPC shows how much revenue that each visitor generates for the business from affiliates, in aggregate and by each affiliate. This metric helps you understand the true value being driven and know which affiliates drive the best visitors.

How to Benchmark

RPC varies widely by industry. E-commerce sites might see $0.50-$3.50 per click, while high-ticket services, like those in the financial services space, can achieve $5-$50+ per click.

Example

A SaaS company finds that tech affiliates on YouTube generate an average RPC of $1.50, while social media influencers produce $0.65 per click. This insight leads them to increase commissions for YouTube focused affiliates.

3. Earnings Per Visitor (EPV) from Affiliates  

# = Total Affiliate Revenue / Total Affiliate Visitors

Why It's Important  

EPV helps you measure the average revenue generated per visitor driven by an affiliate. This is different than RPC as a single visitor may make several clicks before a purchase in some industries. It’s also a useful aggregate metric to compare against other traffic sources for your overall marketing mix.

How to Benchmark  

Calculate EPV across all affiliate-driven visitors and compare it to other channels or affiliates. Strong affiliate programs often have EPV ratios that demonstrate higher-than-average conversion rates or revenue per visit, signaling high-performing partnerships. 

Example  

An online fashion brand begins to scale their affiliate program and finds that visitors from their top influencer generate an EPV of $3.25, compared to the overall average of $2.10. This higher EPV justifies offering these top-performing affiliates exclusive promotions to drive even more traffic.

4. Return on Investment (ROI) for Affiliates  

% = [(Revenue - Cost) / Cost] × 100

Why It's Important  

ROI measures the overall profitability of your affiliate program and is especially important for comparing against other marketing efforts. And also getting further support from executives and leadership for a new affiliate initiative. It can also help you assess the efficiency of your commission structures, partner performance, and program management.

How to Benchmark  

While ROI for industries can vary significantly due to aspects like different business models and expense structures, this KPI is best used internally to benchmark ROI against other initiatives. For example, paid social may generate a higher volume of individual sales, an affiliate program may generate higher average order values.

Example  

An online health store spent $30,000 on affiliate commissions and program expenses last quarter while generating $60,000 in revenue. They had $10,000 in other direct expenses to fulfil these orders, for an estimated profit of $50,000. Their ROI was 167%.

5. Leads 

# = Number of Potential Customers Captured 

Why It's Important 

Leads are a major part of the sales funnel, especially when you’re first building out an affiliate program. As a marketing manager, leadership will like to see if initial efforts are working. Tracking leads helps measure the effectiveness of your affiliates' strategies and their ability to bring in the right prospects. 

How to Benchmark 

On average, landing pages may convert 1-5% of visitors into leads, while email campaigns often yield an average of 5.88%, according to Omnisend. It's essential to analyze leads by affiliate type and promotional strategy to refine your approach. 

Example 

A SaaS company finds that affiliates promoting free trials generate 75 leads per month, compared to only 10 leads from affiliates promoting a demo call to action. Because of this metric, the marketing manager decides to prioritize free trial campaigns and provide affiliates with optimized trial promotion materials.

6. Average Affiliate Rates

% = (Total Commission Paid / Total Sales Generated) × 100

Why It's Important

A high active affiliate rate indicates that your program is effectively motivating affiliates to participate and generate results. Low rates might signal issues such as lack of communication, inadequate incentives, or poor affiliate fit with your brand.

How to Benchmark

Industry benchmarks suggest that active affiliate rates typically range between 10-30%, depending on the size and maturity of the program. Tracking this metric over time can help you evaluate the performance of your recruitment and engagement strategies.

Example

A software company notices that only 12% of their affiliates are active. After launching a new onboarding process and offering performance-based bonuses, their active affiliate rate increases to 25%, boosting overall program performance.

7. Affiliate Retention Rate

% = [(Number of Active Affiliates at End of Period - Number of New Affiliates During Period) / Number of Active Affiliates at Start of Period] × 100

Why It's Important

Your affiliate retention rate directly measures what percentage of your affiliates continue promoting your products over time. A high retention indicates the program provides strong value to your affiliates. A low retention rate is a sign that products may not be resonating and selling, commission payouts are low, or overall a weak affiliate program. 

How to Benchmark

Strong affiliate programs maintain 60-80% retention rates annually. Programs with excellent support and competitive commissions often achieve 80%+ retention. 

Example

A travel agency tracks that they retain 75% of affiliates for their first year, but only retain 45% of that cohort in year two. This insight leads them to launch an affiliate incentive at the 2nd year mark to incentive continued partnerships.

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8. Brand Awareness Score

To calculate the Brand Awareness Score, you’ll need to combine a few metrics as you see fit to measure this visibility. Here's an example formula:  

# = (Clicks × 0.4) + (Impressions × 0.3) + (Engagement Rate × 0.3) 

Why It's Important  

A Brand Awareness Score will help you understand if affiliates are increasing your brand’s visibility and overall market awareness. According to EMarketer, 56% of affiliate programs are used at the awareness stage for marketing. A strong awareness strategy lays the foundation for higher conversion rates and long-term customer relationships. This awareness can drive store foot traffic and other direct website sales traffic, too.

How to Benchmark  

Track the performance of affiliates by comparing Brand Awareness Scores across campaigns and other comparable marketing channels. For example, how does this awareness effort compare to Out-of-Home billboard advertising, or other digital spend? Use this data to focus on affiliates that consistently boost visibility and engagement.

Example  

An online and in-person retail chain in the USA tracks brand awareness. They find that influencers on Instagram generate an average Brand Awareness Score of 85, driven by high engagement rates, compared to 60 from general content websites. As a result, the brand doubles down on influencer partnerships to maximize visibility.

9. Time to First Purchase

# = Date of Purchase - Date of First Interaction

Why It's Important

This metric measures how quickly affiliate-referred visitors make their first purchase. Shorter conversion times indicate strong purchase intent and effective pre-selling by affiliates. Understanding this timeline helps optimize follow-up sequences and identify which affiliates drive the most motivated prospects.

How to Benchmark

Track median time to purchase across different affiliate categories. E-commerce sites typically see short sales windows of 1-7 days, while B2B services could see 30-90 days timeframes. This metric should fit in-line with the average timeframe for a sale across the company for program success.

Example

An online course platform finds that students referred by their YouTube affiliates purchase within 3 days on average, while the company's other marketing efforts generate sales within 24 hours. This insight leads them to expand beyond YouTube to Instagram, where their ads get the faster time to purchase.

10. Commission-to-Revenue Ratio

% = (Total Affiliate Commissions Paid / Total Revenue Generated by Affiliates) × 100

Why It's Important

This affiliate program KPI shows you what percentage of revenue you're paying out in commissions. It helps ensure your affiliate program remains profitable while staying competitive. This is great to review quarterly to see how changes in revenue fluctuate with promotions and the affiliate program overall.

How to Benchmark

Digital products often have higher ratios, in the 20-50% range, because of their higher profit margins. While physical products typically hover around 5-15% due to larger overhead costs.

Example

A digital marketing agency maintains a 15% commission-to-revenue ratio but offers 25% for affiliates who generate over $15,000 monthly. This tiered structure motivates high performance while maintaining overall profitability.

Recommended Resource: Affiliate Agreement Template

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Other Important Metrics

11. Affiliate Acquisition Cost

Don’t let marketing costs go awry. Track how much you spend to recruit each new affiliate, including advertising, outreach tools, and staff time.

12. Affiliate Onboarding to Sale Rate

Measure how many affiliates get onboarded to your affiliate program and rate at which a sale is made. You don’t want dormant affiliates. This will help you adjust your affiliate recruitment efforts for stronger partners.

13. Platform Conversion Rate

Mobile and desktop users may have different buying behaviors, track how well affiliate leads convert by device and platform. This metric helps identify optimization opportunities around marketing materials and new affiliates you’ll want to onboard.

14. Quarterly & Yearly Growth

Reviewing growth metrics quarterly allows for timely adjustments and ensures your efforts remain aligned with market shifts and audience behavior. Yearly growth evaluation provides a broader perspective on how your program or platform has evolved.

15. Content Performance Score

Want to get granular? Check out and evaluate the performance of affiliate-created content. This could include blog posts, videos, and social media content. Develop a score and use it as a metric for engaged leads from certain creatives.

16. Cross-sell and Upsell Rates

By measuring which affiliates generate repeat or up-sell opportunities, you can better understand buying habits and individual promotions for products or services that lead to this type of shopping behavior. 

17. Competitive Analysis Metrics

Monitor how your commission rates and program features compare to competitors. This market research helps to maintain your program competitiveness and stay on top of things.

Industry-Specific Differences in KPIs and Metrics

KPIs and metrics obviously vary across industries, so here is a rough breakdown for some of the major industries across affiliate marketing:

Fashion

Prioritize metrics like conversion rates, revenue per click, and time to purchase. Brand awareness for social media affiliates can also be very important.

SaaS

For SaaS companies, conversion rates and leads, along with overall ROI are some of the most critical KPIs.

E-Commerce

E-commerce businesses should look at time to first purchase, return on investment, and earnings per visitor.

Easily Track All Important Metrics

Managing KPIs manually through spreadsheets and multiple platforms creates major administrative challenges for small teams. That’s where LeadDyno comes in.

LeadDyno transforms this process by automatically tracking and reporting on all essential affiliate marketing metrics in one comprehensive dashboard. Instead of logging into multiple systems and manually calculating ratios, you get real-time insights that help you make faster and informed decisions.

The platform provides automated calculations for complex real-time tracking elements like top affiliates, recent events, commissions due, and so much more. You can easily compare affiliate performance and spot opportunities that hours of manual work would only uncover if you are using spreadsheets and manual methods.

With LeadDyno's advanced analytics, you can drill down into any metric, compare time periods, and even set up automated alerts when KPIs hit specific thresholds. This level of automation and insight enables you to focus on strategic activities like partner development and program optimization rather than data collection and analysis.

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Frequently Asked Questions for KPIs

How do you calculate the quality of your affiliates?

The complicated part of this is that affiliate quality combines multiple factors including conversion rate, customer lifetime value, compliance with program terms, and engagement level. For long-term measurement, begin by creating a scoring system that weighs these factors based on your business priorities.

Typically, the highest revenue-generating affiliates that require the least amount of team time and other expenses, is usually the highest quality affiliate. 

What is the 80/20 rule in affiliate marketing?

The 80/20 rule suggests that 80% of your affiliate program results come from 20% of your affiliates. This is known as the Pareto principle. Understanding this distribution helps prioritize relationship management and program optimization efforts.

How do you track affiliate links?

Most platforms use cookies or pixel tracking to follow user journeys from initial click to purchase. Advanced systems like LeadDyno provide real-time tracking with detailed attribution reporting. 

Proper tracking also makes for accurate commission calculations and happy affiliates. The last thing you want to do is misattribute sales and burn the affiliate or influencer relationship.

Take Your Affiliate Marketing to the Next Level

Remember that the most successful affiliate programs focus on quality metrics that drive long-term value rather than vanity metrics that look impressive. Your core metrics also change as your affiliate program matures, so keep that in mind as well. 

Ready to simplify your affiliate marketing measurement and unlock better results? Start your free trial and see how automated KPI tracking can free up your time for strategic growth activities.

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