Affiliate Marketing Resources: Part 2

Posted by Nate | May 12, 2008 .

Hey! It looks like you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This is part 2 in a series of posts about various affiliate marketing terms, techniques and strategies. This is designed to be a beginner’s guide and cover the basics, although some of the strategies and resources covered can certainly be used by affiliate marketers of all levels. You can read Part 1 here.

Pay Per Click (PPC): A type of affiliate marketing that we have recently undertaken that rewards an affiliate for each unique click to the merchant’s web site, and the affiliate pays a certain amount for each click.

Cost Per Click (CPC): The cost of each one of the clicks on your ad.

Click-Through: The action when a user clicks on a link and follows through to the merchant’s web site.

Click Through Ratio (CTR): The percentage of clicks through to your landing page out of the total number of impressions of your ad. The higher the CTR is, the more likely you are to see more sales and increase your return on investment (ROI). Also, a higher CTR helps your quality score on Google AdWords, which is always a good thing.

Return on Investment (ROI): Something all affiliates want to see, a significant return on their investment. The larger number of sales you make through your campaign means you will see a greater return on your investment than someone who is not converting as many clicks into sales.

Commission: Income an affiliate earns for generating a sale, lead or click-through to a merchant’s web site (depending on the type of offer you are running).

Conversion Rate: The number of clicks that turn into a commissionable act (either a sale or a lead). Obviously, the higher this is the better for you.

Landing Page: The page the customer goes to when they click on your ad or affiliate link. You want this page to be well designed and clear so that the customer can find what they are looking for and so that they will be able to buy the product you are selling. Poor landing pages hurt your sales conversions and will adversely affect your ad in AdWords as well. For those people direct linking to a landing page provided for you through your affiliate network (like us), it may be worth the effort to look into hosting and creating your own landing page in order to improve quality and content, as well as have some control over the page.

Residual Earnings: Programs that pay affiliates not just for the first sale a shopper form their sites makes, but all additional sales made at the merchant’s site over the life of the customer. Lots of continued value to this type of affiliate work, obviously, as you’ll continually generate commissions from repeat buyers.

Tracking Code: Refers to the hidden code that is placed on the confirmation page of your store for tracking sales conversions. This is a great way to monitor your keywords as well to see which ones are converting to sales and which ones aren’t.