Metrics, statistics, and reports help affiliates understand how to increase clicks and conversions
You might feel you have a successful affiliate lead gen site. But how do you know for sure? In this article, I will take you through the key areas you need to understand about data measurements. Through this, you’ll have the best route to success!
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
There’s an old saying, “you can prove anything with statistics”. It’s a warning that twisting the numbers around or interpreting them the wrong way can lead to problems. For example, if you run a blog that has high visitor traffic, you might think that it’s a great success. But if you look a little deeper, you might find some ugly truths.
If you have a high bounce rate, if the audience are in the wrong location, if nobody’s clicking or converting… your high audience levels do NOT equal success.
As an affiliate publisher, you need to monitor the numbers from a few different sources. You have your affiliate platform’s dashboard (see revJOLT‘s reporting functions), your website’s metrics (from Google Analytics, for example), and any social media or other publishing platform stats. Each of these can give you great information, but the better idea is to use them together to get the full picture.
Website statistics to watch
Acquisition source – social media, organic search, PPC ad? Where are your users finding you? If one channel looks weak, how can you increase it?
Bounce rate – where site visitors leave your site without clicking on anything. In other words, they took one look and said: “this ain’t for me!”
Time on page – if people are reading through your site, this will be higher. This means they like what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. If it is nearly zero, something is wrong with your website.
Geographic location – if you provide leads for mortgages for Americans, people from other parts of the world visiting your site are not going to be interested in opting in. Increase your geo-targeting signals.
Key social media numbers
Engagement vs Impressions – if 50 people viewed your tweet or post, how many actually opened it to get a better look, or liked it? Did they click the link? If your ratio of impressions to engagement is low, you might need to make your posts more compelling.
Paid posts vs Organic performance – are you wasting money promoting tweets or Facebook posts? Could you be better served with better content? Or is paying for advertising the only way to get you the reach and the revenue boost you need?
Post rate – are you keeping up your post numbers? Or have you lost focus? The only way to keep attention is to be visible, so keep it up!
Important affiliate platform metrics
EPC/EPL – Earnings Per Click/Earnings Per Lead. How many clicks or leads forwarded divided by the revenue you earned from them.
Leads source – if you have configured your setup correctly, you should be easily able to find which forms or links, which channels are working the best, and strengthen those that aren’t.
Visitors vs Lead Capture vs Lead Qualification – are your forms working? Are they capturing genuine leads, or is something wrong? You can only tell if you do the math.
Fortunately, with revJOLT‘s transparent and intuitive reporting functions, affiliate marketers have a great chance to understand what is working and fix what isn’t.
Don’t forget to check our affiliate marketer’s ultimate guide to jargon for further help.
Oh, you didn’t sign up to revJOLT‘s lead trading and affiliate programs yet? What are you waiting for? Get signed up and earning ASAP!