Affiliate links and tracking sales

[cn1watts]

I just got my website up and running. It is a bunch of affiliate programs together on one site relating to one specific topic.

I did not want to use a lot of different banners or text links to clutter up my site, so I created my own links that match my site and contain the affiliate URL addresses.

What I need to know is this: I got the URL addresses out of the affiliate banner and text link codes, and then I used them to create my own links in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Since I did not use the entire HTML code, will this affect tracking of my sales? Am I getting the sales or is someone else? I have noticed that I have received a few clicks, but no sales according to CJ, BeFree, and Shareasale. Would doing this screw all of the tracking up? I am not selling anything, I am just offereing free quotes to consumers. I figured that I should have more sales for the amount of clicks I have received, since it is free to the consumer to fill out the forms.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Catalyst]

cn1watts,

I think there is a good chance you could be losing money. Each network and merchant handles traffic a little differently, so you should probably check with each just to be on the safe side. Have you tried doing any test transactions?

Linda

[cn1watts]

My website offers free mortgage qutoes, so there is not a way to puchase a product in order to test the transaction process. I have tested to see if the clickthroughs are showing up. They seem to be showing up the next day. Since the service I am offering is free, I am wondering why I have not generated any "sales" yet with well over 50 clicks total. I don't know what to do! I really do not want to use their tacky banners and text links, but I do want to have my sales (which I worked hard for) track correctly! Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

[Catalyst]

50 clicks is not enough to really judge. Tons of companies offer free mortgage quotes and it's a very competitive field. One of my clients has a mortgage affiliate program and a new affiliate just made 750 in a week and a half. The programs CJ EPC is crazy high - like 256EPC. But their Indie pays higher. The people that are converting well with it have targeted traffic and much more than 50 clicks though.

Linda

[cn1watts]

I know that 50 clicks is small peanuts. I am still testing different advertising campaigns, and this total was just from 2 days with one campaign through Google AdWords. I did not put too much money in to begin with because I wanted to test it first. I also wanted to test the tracking of my stats. This is the reason that I did not receive many clicks as of yet. I realize that the mortgage field is one highly competitive market and that many people probably have similar sites to what I offer. Do you have any suggestions on advertising? Will you view my site and see what you think? I am open to any suggestions you may have in order to make things better for potential customers. <snip>. I think that I might try and email each of the merchants I am promoting to see if I can run a test application for each of them. I want to make sure that the "sales" are tracking properly.

Thank you!

[edited by: Woz at 9:32 pm (utc) on Dec. 24, 2003]
[edit reason] no URLs please, see TOS#13 [/edit]

[JeffMull]

You need to use their links exactly to get credit. That's how they track.

[danieljean]

As others have pointed out, 50 clicks is not enough to know if things are working- but this depends on the conversion rate you need. If it is 10%, you are certainly in trouble. I don't know the math, but Jakob Nielsen wrote about the topic of keyword advertising in his September 2, 2001 column; the conversion rate and click-through numbers should follow the same statistical patterns. HTH.

[nativenewyorker]

cn1watts,

Please note that URL dropping is against the Webmaster World TOS.

Ted

[cn1watts]

How do I edit out my URL on my post? I went to the help section, but the icon they said to use is not anywhere to be seen.