I talked about conversion funnel analysis in one of my first posts and I do profoundly believe that increasing your website conversions is the most effective way to increase Revenue. However; this is easier said than done if you are in affiliate marketing, as most of the conversions you are working with happens on the retailers site.

But first we have to define what types of conversion tracking we can do and I tend to look at the following three when talking about the affiliate marketing conversion challenge:

1. On Page conversion tracking
2. On Click conversion tracking
3. On Redirect conversion tracking

Please observe that these are not different metrics (kpi’s) but different methodologies. With that said and even though they are pretty self explanatory – let me try to give three quick examples:

On Page conversion
This the traditional “thank you”-page conversion tracking.
And this typically being a page at the very end of a funnel.

On Click conversion
This is the typical affiliate “exit link” banner or text – a link which links to the affiliate network redirect page (the affiliate tracking code). The conversion tracking have to be deployed as a HTML on-click for the affiliate to be able to track this as a conversion (click to retailer) – I will talk about consolidating revenue later on.

On Redirect conversion
Most affiliates (due to many reasons, that I will debate later) use a redirect script/page to redirect their exit link traffic through. You typically see this as a e.g. click.php link on a banner with added variables such e.g. click.php?retailer=2&campaign=1.

…But much much more about this – I have decided to do a specific post (beyond this basic outline) about all three conversion types as this is the foundation for everything else we want to do in regards to revenue tracking! and hey, I got to get this posted… it’s my mom’s birthday today and that magic call have to happen soon :-)

N.B. Here goes a pool of links about conversions at blogs I read and recommend:

Excellent Analytics Tip#5: Conversion Rate Basics & Best Practices
Buyer versus order conversion rates
Anatomy of a Conversion (/actually a funny story at the same time)
Increase Conversion Rates with Copy Testing
The (un)Real Conversion Rate topic discussion
..