Setting up an affiliate program and having affiliates is just part of the affiliate marketing process. To be successful, your affiliate must actively be promoting your business, products, and services. Otherwise, no number of affiliates will bring you the traffic you desire.
How to Measure Affiliate Engagement
Affiliate engagement is one of the most important KPIs to track, and it does not take much to do so. Here are three ways to measure affiliate engagement to help analyze the success of your affiliate program.
Number of Affiliate Referrals
Is your affiliate actively referring your product or service? It is unfair to expect your affiliate to put their links all over their website. You do not want them to do this anyway as it can look pushy and tacky, driving potential traffic away from instead of to your site.
However, it is acceptable to expect your affiliates to place a reasonable amount of links. Do they seem to be meeting that requirement? They should be actively referring you to their audience, too.
Visits From Affiliate Links
The next thing to know is how much traffic is coming in from those affiliate links. When an affiliate signs up for your program, a unique code and link are generated. Every time a reader clicks that affiliate’s link, it shows up under that specific code or affiliate name. This allows you to see how much traffic a particular affiliate is generating.
Total Affiliate Conversions
How much of those clicks led to a purchase? Not every click will, of course. However, the number conversion rate can help you determine several things, including:
- The quality of traffic from affiliate links
- If your offer relates to that affiliate’s audience
- Whether your landing page is effective
You can measure the conversion rate with the following formula: (Number of conversions / Number of clicks) x 100. For example: If you have 100 visitors and 10 of them make a purchase, that is a 10% conversion rate.
4 Tips for Improving Affiliate Engagement
If your affiliate engagement is not where you want it to be, there are a few steps you can take to improve it.
1. Engage With Your Affiliates
It starts at the head. If you want your affiliates to increase engagement, you should be sure you are engaging with them. You can do this through phone calls, personalized emails, live chat, social media, or any other method you choose. The key is to be personal so that your affiliates feel like part of the team — not just a way for you to make money.
2. Listen to Them
Many affiliates will reach out with questions, concerns, and ideas to improve the program. Some will reach out for help if they are unsure of how to be an effective affiliate. Any time your affiliates reach out, respond to them. Listen to their ideas. Assist where you can. Treat them as a partner — their success increases your chances of success.
You do not have to wait for them to reach out first, either. Instead, contact them. Ask how things are going and if they need anything. Let them know you are available if and when they do.
3. Provide Some Training
Consider sending out a weekly email outlining a few tips on increasing sales. Hold a webinar for affiliates about how to naturally promote a product. Create a step-by-step guide for setting up affiliate links.
4. Reward Them
Everyone enjoys a good reward. Consider giving your highest performers a bonus to motivate them to keep up the hard work. You might also benefit from holding a contest among all affiliates.
Simplify Affiliate Tracking
Tracking affiliate metrics is a vital part of running a successful affiliate program. However, it can also be an overwhelming process. LeadDyno’s affiliate tracking tool can simplify it and improve your level of success with the following features and benefits:
- Automated marketing to keep affiliates engaged, which allows you to send trackable coupons, offer temporary incentives, provide shareable brand content, send newsletters, and more.
- The ability to bulk pay affiliates and provide rewards.
- Comprehensive analysis of your affiliate program, helping you to tweak it as necessary.
These are just a few ways LeadDyno can help. Sign up for a 30-day free trial to experience the full power and benefits.
