Hi guys!
Could you imagine running an affiliate marketing business without tracking data? With no metrics or KPIs to analyze and optimize your advertising efforts?
We can’t. So this article is going to tell you all about the top metrics a clever affiliate should always keep track of to get their ROI green.
What are affiliate marketing metrics and KPIs?
First, let’s make one thing clear — metrics and KPIs are not the same things. Yes, it’s true that KPI may be actually a metric, but not every metric is a KPI. So what’s the difference exactly?
KPI – Key Performance Indicator
KPIs, meaning the Key Performance Indicators, tell us if what we’re doing is effective or not. It’s a way of measuring results and comparing them against our business objectives. To simplify, in affiliate marketing, that could mean breaking even or having a positive total ROI of all of our campaigns.
Now, making our affiliate business profitable, at whatever rate, is our KPI. Whereas the said ROI is an example of various metrics that measure the progress of reaching the set goals.
Affiliate Marketing Metrics
There can be as many kinds of metrics as you wish. Each business cares for different things, hence will measure the overall performance of its ventures using different methods. And since affiliate marketing is a very much data-driven environment, as we’ve already established, it too has its top metrics and generic KPIs.
Naturally, there are some metrics that budding affiliates are always told to pay close attention to, and the ones that super-affiliates simply can’t imagine running their business without.
Where does such distinction come from? Well… it all depends on someone’s experience, budget, the scale of your affiliate business, as well as the type of campaigns you’re running, and your optimization strategy. We’ll get to the optimization part in a bit, but at this point, we need to ask one more question.
If monitoring metrics and KPIs is so important to the success of your affiliate business, you need the data first. You basically need to gather as much relevant data as possible to have something to base your analysis and assumptions on.
And if you need a more detailed explanation of why collecting data is crucial for your affiliate marketing business then yes… here we go again! Read below to learn why tracking matters.
Where to get relevant data from? It’s TRACKING time!
So where does one get all this necessary data from? Well, it’s not like you’ve got to order it, it’s right there where it’s been all the time. In your traffic source platform, your affiliate network or a direct program, your anti-fraud solution, your other traffic source platform, and another affiliate network… or best, in your affiliate ad tracker.
List of affiliate marketing metrics
Since we’ve agreed that collecting data, preferably with the help of a proper tracking solution, is necessary to the success of your business ventures, let’s talk metrics now.
Please note that it’s not a complete and final list of all available affiliate marketing metrics!
That is because traffic sources and trackers, as well as other affiliate marketing tools, keep being developed, and new solutions/features/metrics and possibilities to enhance the performance of your business are being continuously added.
Let’s have a look at the grouped metrics, then.
☞ Overall metrics
The following metrics are out together as group number one due to their paramount importance… but also a very general scope. They’re almost the end product of your marketing efforts, yet if green — all is well!
ROI (Return On Investment) — tells you whether your campaign is profitable or not. It’s actually a percentage of the money you made, as a fraction of what you’ve invested in.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) — measures the efficiency of a digital advertising campaign. Though similar to ROI, it refers only to the cost of an ad campaign versus the overall investment that might be counted in ROI.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
CR (Conversion Rate) — is one of the most important metrics, also responsible for determining campaign performance. It shows the percentage of people who converted (performed the desired action) after engaging with your ad or a landing page, versus the number of all clicks. Including those that brought conversions and those that didn’t.
Mind that the nature of a conversion depends on your offer and may mean various actions.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
☞ Basic campaign metrics
These are simple metrics telling you how many times and how users interacted with your ads.
Visits/Views — a number of visits/views of your ads
Clicks — a number of total clicks on your ads
Unique clicks — a number of unique clicks on your ads
Conversions — a number of times the desired action was completed by users upon clicking your ads
☞ Budget and bidding metrics
The following metrics give you various information regarding your campaign budgets and set bids, as well as money your ads made.
CPC (Cost Per Click) — is a cost model in which you pay for each visitor’s click on an ad. For example, if you’re an affiliate advertiser, that cost model is available on push traffic in Zeropark.
CPV (Cost Per View) — is a cost model in which you pay for each impression of an ad. For example, if you’re an affiliate advertiser, that cost model is available on pop and domain traffic in Zeropark.
CPM (Cost Per Mille) — is a cost model in which you pay for a thousand impressions. Mille means a thousand. Applies in the same situation as CPV.
eCPA (Effective Cost Per Action) — tells you how much money it takes for your campaign on average to acquire a conversion.
Bids — the amount of money you’re ready to spend on an RTB auction to have your ad displayed.
Payout — the amount of money an affiliate network or program pays you for acquiring a conversion.
Revenue — the total amount of money you earn from running a campaign (includes both spend and profits).
Profit — the amount of money you earn after deducting all costs associated with it.
☞ Optimization metrics
These may not come to everyone’s mind when discussing metrics, yet are equally important while assessing the campaign’s performance and profitability.
Source — although the terminology may vary depending on the traffic source (and we’ll obviously use the Zeropark one), it is essentially a single publisher who displays your ads. One source may contain several targets.
Target — is a single traffic placement (also known as target ID or site ID, depending on the naming) from a given publisher.
Monitoring the performance of sources and/or targets is essential to understanding if your campaign has a chance of turning profitable or not. Depending on the performance, sources/targets can be paused, resumed, or one can bid up to win more traffic if they look promising.
Keywords — similarity as with sources and targets, certain keywords should be paused, resumed, or bid up on to win more traffic if they look promising.
CTR (Click Through Rate) — tells you what percentage of users click on your ads, compared to how many times a given ad was actually displayed to a user.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
WinRatio — tells you the percentage of how many times you have bid on a given source/target/, and how many times you have actually won the auction and got your ad displayed.
Landing page views/clicks/CTR/CR — same metrics as described above, only referring to a single landing page.
For example, a Landing Page CTR would be a measure of how many times a landing page was displayed to a user, and how many times a user clicked on it.
Ad Creative views/clicks/CTR/CR — same metrics as described above, only referring to a single ad creative.
For example, an ad creative CTR would be a measure of how many times it was displayed to a user, and how many times a user clicked on it.
☞ Anti-fraud metrics
These may vary depending on the anti-fraud solution you’re using.
Suspicious views — a collection of data that may indicate fraudulent activity. For example, showing the percentage of visits flagged as suspicious.
Suspicious clicks — a collection of data that may indicate fraudulent activity. For example, showing the percentage of clicks flagged as suspicious.
☞ Targeting metrics
GEO — information on where users are located based on their IP address. It’s actually a location of a user’s device that is connected to the Internet and based on that a country, region, city, and Internet Service Provider (ISP) of such device may be identified.
Adult/Non-Adult (Mainstream) — information on the type of traffic supplying a given campaign. The distinction is made between adult traffic (allowing both adult and mainstream content) and a mainstream only, where no adult content is allowed.
Day parting — a collection of data telling you the times of the day when ads are shown to users. Useful for distinguishing the most and least profitable set up.
Frequency filtering — a collection of data telling you how many times per given time unit ads are shown to users. Useful for distinguishing the most and least profitable set up.
Device — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when run with desktop or mobile traffic.
OS/ OS version — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given Operating system or Operating system version.
Browser — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given browsers (mobile or desktop).
Carrier — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given mobile carriers.
IP/ ISP — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given IP addresses or Internet service providers.
Having so many items to monitor may seem daunting, but please note that these come from general ones to analyzing very precise and detailed information. Depending on your goal, or the information you’re searching for, you’d be looking at various stats and figures.
▶︎ If you want to know more about the top metrics, read the full article and find out:
Could you imagine running an affiliate marketing business without tracking data? With no metrics or KPIs to analyze and optimize your advertising efforts?
We can’t. So this article is going to tell you all about the top metrics a clever affiliate should always keep track of to get their ROI green.
What are affiliate marketing metrics and KPIs?First, let’s make one thing clear — metrics and KPIs are not the same things. Yes, it’s true that KPI may be actually a metric, but not every metric is a KPI. So what’s the difference exactly?
KPI – Key Performance Indicator
KPIs, meaning the Key Performance Indicators, tell us if what we’re doing is effective or not. It’s a way of measuring results and comparing them against our business objectives. To simplify, in affiliate marketing, that could mean breaking even or having a positive total ROI of all of our campaigns.
Now, making our affiliate business profitable, at whatever rate, is our KPI. Whereas the said ROI is an example of various metrics that measure the progress of reaching the set goals.
Affiliate Marketing Metrics
There can be as many kinds of metrics as you wish. Each business cares for different things, hence will measure the overall performance of its ventures using different methods. And since affiliate marketing is a very much data-driven environment, as we’ve already established, it too has its top metrics and generic KPIs.
Naturally, there are some metrics that budding affiliates are always told to pay close attention to, and the ones that super-affiliates simply can’t imagine running their business without.
Where does such distinction come from? Well… it all depends on someone’s experience, budget, the scale of your affiliate business, as well as the type of campaigns you’re running, and your optimization strategy. We’ll get to the optimization part in a bit, but at this point, we need to ask one more question.
If monitoring metrics and KPIs is so important to the success of your affiliate business, you need the data first. You basically need to gather as much relevant data as possible to have something to base your analysis and assumptions on.
And if you need a more detailed explanation of why collecting data is crucial for your affiliate marketing business then yes… here we go again! Read below to learn why tracking matters.
Where to get relevant data from? It’s TRACKING time!So where does one get all this necessary data from? Well, it’s not like you’ve got to order it, it’s right there where it’s been all the time. In your traffic source platform, your affiliate network or a direct program, your anti-fraud solution, your other traffic source platform, and another affiliate network… or best, in your affiliate ad tracker.
List of affiliate marketing metricsSince we’ve agreed that collecting data, preferably with the help of a proper tracking solution, is necessary to the success of your business ventures, let’s talk metrics now.
Please note that it’s not a complete and final list of all available affiliate marketing metrics!
That is because traffic sources and trackers, as well as other affiliate marketing tools, keep being developed, and new solutions/features/metrics and possibilities to enhance the performance of your business are being continuously added.
Let’s have a look at the grouped metrics, then.
☞ Overall metrics
The following metrics are out together as group number one due to their paramount importance… but also a very general scope. They’re almost the end product of your marketing efforts, yet if green — all is well!
ROI (Return On Investment) — tells you whether your campaign is profitable or not. It’s actually a percentage of the money you made, as a fraction of what you’ve invested in.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) — measures the efficiency of a digital advertising campaign. Though similar to ROI, it refers only to the cost of an ad campaign versus the overall investment that might be counted in ROI.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
CR (Conversion Rate) — is one of the most important metrics, also responsible for determining campaign performance. It shows the percentage of people who converted (performed the desired action) after engaging with your ad or a landing page, versus the number of all clicks. Including those that brought conversions and those that didn’t.
Mind that the nature of a conversion depends on your offer and may mean various actions.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
☞ Basic campaign metrics
These are simple metrics telling you how many times and how users interacted with your ads.
Visits/Views — a number of visits/views of your ads
Clicks — a number of total clicks on your ads
Unique clicks — a number of unique clicks on your ads
Conversions — a number of times the desired action was completed by users upon clicking your ads
☞ Budget and bidding metrics
The following metrics give you various information regarding your campaign budgets and set bids, as well as money your ads made.
CPC (Cost Per Click) — is a cost model in which you pay for each visitor’s click on an ad. For example, if you’re an affiliate advertiser, that cost model is available on push traffic in Zeropark.
CPV (Cost Per View) — is a cost model in which you pay for each impression of an ad. For example, if you’re an affiliate advertiser, that cost model is available on pop and domain traffic in Zeropark.
CPM (Cost Per Mille) — is a cost model in which you pay for a thousand impressions. Mille means a thousand. Applies in the same situation as CPV.
eCPA (Effective Cost Per Action) — tells you how much money it takes for your campaign on average to acquire a conversion.
Bids — the amount of money you’re ready to spend on an RTB auction to have your ad displayed.
Payout — the amount of money an affiliate network or program pays you for acquiring a conversion.
Revenue — the total amount of money you earn from running a campaign (includes both spend and profits).
Profit — the amount of money you earn after deducting all costs associated with it.
☞ Optimization metrics
These may not come to everyone’s mind when discussing metrics, yet are equally important while assessing the campaign’s performance and profitability.
Source — although the terminology may vary depending on the traffic source (and we’ll obviously use the Zeropark one), it is essentially a single publisher who displays your ads. One source may contain several targets.
Target — is a single traffic placement (also known as target ID or site ID, depending on the naming) from a given publisher.
Monitoring the performance of sources and/or targets is essential to understanding if your campaign has a chance of turning profitable or not. Depending on the performance, sources/targets can be paused, resumed, or one can bid up to win more traffic if they look promising.
Keywords — similarity as with sources and targets, certain keywords should be paused, resumed, or bid up on to win more traffic if they look promising.
CTR (Click Through Rate) — tells you what percentage of users click on your ads, compared to how many times a given ad was actually displayed to a user.
You can calculate it using the following formula:
WinRatio — tells you the percentage of how many times you have bid on a given source/target/, and how many times you have actually won the auction and got your ad displayed.
Landing page views/clicks/CTR/CR — same metrics as described above, only referring to a single landing page.
For example, a Landing Page CTR would be a measure of how many times a landing page was displayed to a user, and how many times a user clicked on it.
Ad Creative views/clicks/CTR/CR — same metrics as described above, only referring to a single ad creative.
For example, an ad creative CTR would be a measure of how many times it was displayed to a user, and how many times a user clicked on it.
☞ Anti-fraud metrics
These may vary depending on the anti-fraud solution you’re using.
Suspicious views — a collection of data that may indicate fraudulent activity. For example, showing the percentage of visits flagged as suspicious.
Suspicious clicks — a collection of data that may indicate fraudulent activity. For example, showing the percentage of clicks flagged as suspicious.
☞ Targeting metrics
GEO — information on where users are located based on their IP address. It’s actually a location of a user’s device that is connected to the Internet and based on that a country, region, city, and Internet Service Provider (ISP) of such device may be identified.
Adult/Non-Adult (Mainstream) — information on the type of traffic supplying a given campaign. The distinction is made between adult traffic (allowing both adult and mainstream content) and a mainstream only, where no adult content is allowed.
Day parting — a collection of data telling you the times of the day when ads are shown to users. Useful for distinguishing the most and least profitable set up.
Frequency filtering — a collection of data telling you how many times per given time unit ads are shown to users. Useful for distinguishing the most and least profitable set up.
Device — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when run with desktop or mobile traffic.
OS/ OS version — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given Operating system or Operating system version.
Browser — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given browsers (mobile or desktop).
Carrier — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given mobile carriers.
IP/ ISP — statistics on the performance of your campaigns when targeted per given IP addresses or Internet service providers.
Having so many items to monitor may seem daunting, but please note that these come from general ones to analyzing very precise and detailed information. Depending on your goal, or the information you’re searching for, you’d be looking at various stats and figures.
▶︎ If you want to know more about the top metrics, read the full article and find out:
- Why is it important to track your metrics?
- How to read data?
- Understanding your CTR (Click Through Rate)
- Understanding your WinRatio
- Understanding your eCPA (Effective Cost-Per-Action)
- Understanding your Revenue & Profit
