Ask Shawn Collins: Tracking PPC Arbitrage Conversions

I drive affiliate traffic through pay per click search engines straight to affiliate links without a landing page. How can I track which keywords are converting best?

It’s actually a fairly easy method. I’ll tell you what I do to track the effectiveness of my pay per click keywords in affiliate campaigns.

I use sub-IDs for each keyword. Most any affiliate network ought to offer the ability to do this – it’s a string of alpha-numeric characters that you add on to your affiliate link. I would suggest using each keyword as a sub-ID, so you can evaluate the reporting quick and easy.

For example, here is an affiliate link through Commission Junction to promote 1&1 Internet Web Hosting:

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1544023-10365666

If I were running a pay per click keyword campaign to promote this affiliate program, here is an example of a link with a sub-ID I could use for the keyword “web hosting”:

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1544023-10365666?SID=web_hosting

The structure of the sub-ID varies for each affiliate network (CJ calls it SmartRewards), so check with the respective affiliate network about how to create sub-IDs for their links.

See more affiliate marketing questions answered on Affiliate Tip TV at YouTube.

Subscribe to the Affiliate Tip TV channel on YouTube.