Tracking Software: When Do You Need to Purchase a Tracker?

Imagine owning a retail store without tracking your sales, profits, or the products that are making you the most money. Sounds crazy, right? Well, running a campaign without tracking the results is exactly the same. 

Sure, if you’re lucky enough, your campaign can succeed without paying much attention to this area. There are also marketers that opt for the tracking features already available on their ad networks, even if they don’t provide the most accurate results. But, if you’re serious about your affiliate marketing career, you should focus on finding the best tracker for your campaigns.

While having a tracker is necessary, finding the ideal platform for your specific case is not always easy. Below, we’ll go over the benefits of purchasing a quality tracker and tell you when you need to invest in this type of software.

Overview of Affiliate Campaign Trackers

Simply put, a tracker is a piece of software that collects, parses, and displays the data collected from your campaigns’ performance. There are dozens of tracking platforms available, many of which offer distinct features that are designed to improve the way you use the information you collect.

Like other tools, trackers can vary greatly in price, compatibility, and other characteristics. Therefore, you should research all of your options carefully until you find one that ticks all of the boxes.

Are All Trackers the Same?

It’s important to note that even though the market is saturated with tracking software options, not all of these are created the same. 

Even Google offers an unpaid analytics tool, but the results collected and options available in this platform leave a lot to be desired. Instead, you should look into getting a paid platform that helps improve your campaigns enough to be worth the investment.

Marketers that Should Purchase Affiliate Tracking Software

The answer to the question “what marketers should buy a tracker?” is simple: all marketers should. Trackers are even used by third parties, like publishers, to improve their performance and you should definitely be doing the same.

Some of the benefits of purchasing a good tracker for affiliate marketing include:

• Easy campaign management
• Automates data analysis to reduce manual work
• Better ad targeting
• Get actionable insights
• Test variants simultaneously
• Reduce scalability costs
• Receive help from a reliable customer care team

The Most Important Metrics Affiliates Need to Track

As we mentioned before, trackers can bring specific features that are designed specifically for affiliates and other types of marketers. That said, you should also make sure that your tracker of choice tracks the data you find most valuable.

Before committing to any tracker, make sure it can help you monitor and visualize statistics like:

Clicks and Click-Through Rate 

Clicks and click-through rate (CTR) are two of the most important metrics for digital marketers. Although your campaign should not be ruled by these alone, it’s important to track these and ensure that your campaign is not underperforming.

Conversions and Lead Generation

Conversions and lead generations are more useful when it comes to measuring the success of your campaign. A conversion can be a specific action that you want visitors to take, like clicking on an ad. Lead generation often requires a few more steps as users also need to provide contact information among other details.

Impressions

The number of impressions you receive is crucial, especially for display campaigns. This metric is great to track awareness, but impressions also help you calculate conversion rates, determine how profitable your ads are, and other essential pieces of information.  

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate is one of the most important statistics for effective optimization. If your landing pages or pre-landers have a high bounce rate, it probably means that there is a big problem with your current setup.

Return on Investment

The easiest way to calculate the return on investment or ROI is by taking the earnings you generate and dividing them by the initial investment. This formula may also include additional variants, so research the tracker you want to choose and make sure that the ROI formula aligns with your campaign.

Commission Ratios

The affiliate commission ratio is a great statistic for savvy affiliates that only want to do business with companies that offer a good payout. As the name suggests, commission ratios tell you how much affiliates are making based on the number of conversions and how much they receive for each one.

Get Started with Your Affiliate Campaign Now!

Although many marketers believe that paid tracking software is a luxury, smart affiliates will make an effort to invest in these tools right from the beginning. 

If you want to find out more about running a successful campaign, contact ActiveRevenue and our team will be glad to help.