I’ve been an affiliate marketer since 2007, and I’ve had significant successes and failures along the way.
Take it from me, there’s more to becoming a successful affiliate marketer than finding an affiliate product you think will convert and then sending as much traffic as possible.
That alone is a recipe for failure.
While an affiliate marketer needs to find offers that are converting (and hopefully have a good commission) and then use traffic sources that will convert, it’s not that straightforward. You need to understand the metrics too.
This article will quickly walk you through all the crucial metrics that affiliates should use when analyzing a campaign, increasing affiliate earnings, and determining whether they should continue with a campaign or not.
What Is EPC?
EPC stands for earnings per click. It is an essential metric in affiliate marketing campaigns, which can be used to determine if a product will be profitable or not. If you want to become a successful affiliate marketer, it’s one of the key metrics you need to know.
Why Is EPC Important?
EPC is a metric that tells the affiliate how much money they will make for every time someone clicks their link.
It’s important to know where you are with your EPC number and finding out if it’s worth continuing with this campaign or not.
As an affiliate marketer, many campaigns are going at once, so it’s necessary to either diversify your campaigns or focus on the ones that are making you more money.
The most important metrics to use when analyzing a campaign include EPC and CTR – both of which help determine if this affiliate marketer wants to continue with this product.
What are the highest EPC affiliate programs?
The EPC and potential earnings of individual affiliate programs are changing all the time; however, some industries have consistently high earnings potential.
Web hosting is one industry that has a high potential for affiliate earnings. Affiliate programs in this industry tend to offer commission rates of 20% and upwards.
BlueHost and Hostinger have some of the highest in the industry.
Some other industries that often have good earning potential are:
Weight loss, VPN, digital marketing, finance (credit cards), electronics and computer hardware, travel.
Ultimately, the highest converting offer will be the one that your audience needs the most.
How is EPC calculated?
EPC is calculated by taking the total earnings from an affiliate’s clickable URL and dividing it by the number of clicks that they had for their link.
Because I’m lousy at maths, let’s keep things simple.
An example would be if there were 100 clicks on a particular affiliate offer, and $100 was made in revenue from those clicks (this is because most people will click once).
The EPC is $1 per click. This means that an affiliate marketer would need 1000 clicks for a profit of $1000.
This metric can help determine how much commission you will earn and if this product is worth carrying on with or not.
What is CTR in affiliate marketing?
CTR stands for Click Through Rate.
This is the percentage of clicks from a particular offer or website that are click-throughs and can be used to figure out how effective an affiliate marketer’s campaign is.
For example, if 100 people see your advert and receive ten clicks, your CTR is 10%.
This will help you to determine the effectiveness of your campaign.
Why can EPC be misleading?
EPC is not always an accurate picture of whether or not a campaign is profitable.
For example, consider the traffic source that’s sending visitors to the affiliate offer. Unless the traffic is highly targeted, the EPC will be lower.
Another thing to consider is the use of pop-ups.
I ran into an issue when I started affiliate marketing. I (stupidly) put the offer as a pop-up on my website.
What happened?
Of course, the vast majority of people clicked the close button – completely throwing off the metrics.
Learn from my mistake, only send traffic that has expressed an interest in the offer.
Filter your traffic
It’s a good idea to filter or clean your web traffic.
This means you only send highly targeted traffic to the offer by filtering out anyone who isn’t interested.
An easy way to do this is with a bridge page. A bridge page sits in between the traffic source and the affiliate offer.
It should contain valuable content that reminds visitors why they need to purchase the offer, but it shouldn’t try to sell too hard; leave that to the sales page.
Another way to filter traffic is through a content page, like a video or a blog post.
But if you had to choose only one, then the best way, in my opinion, is with a landing page.
A landing page does two things:
Firstly, it repels anyone who is not interested in taking action to solve their problem.
Secondly, it motives anyone who wants to take action to subscribe to your email list. Your email list is your biggest asset.
Email works so well because it’s a personal way to reach out.
It gives you access to your customers’ inboxes, and it allows you to build trust.
Another massive advantage of email marketing is that there are no limits: the sky is the limit. You can send as many offers as you like, as often as you like.
Achieving A High EPC And Conversion Rate
A common approach is to build a funnel around the three types of pages I’ve mentioned but structured in a way that generates sales quickly.
Content page – use a content page like a blog post to attract targeted traffic. Use the content to address your visitor’s problem, and provide part of the solution to deliver value and build enough trust for them to make a micro-commitment, such as give you their email address.
Landing page – offer another piece of content that promises further help, but this time in exchange for their email address. This form of gated content will only attract people who are serious about taking action. But that doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy just yet.
Bridge page – provide a piece of content that delivers on the promise you made on the landing page. This is best done in the form of a video, audio, or article. This content has two elements; provide value and an offer. You must tell your subscriber how they can purchase the affiliate offer.
When you filter the traffic in this way, you will help to keep the EPC high, which is good for you and the vendor.
If a vendor’s EPC is high, they will most likely keep the offer on the market, ensuring you can continue to sell it.
It will also dramatically increase your conversion rate, as only interested people will visit the affiliate offer.
And the subscribers who didn’t purchase the first time around can still receive future offers from you, whenever you like.
What is KPI?
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator.
These types of metrics are typically used to measure or track the success of a marketing campaign and can be broken down into two categories:
Leads, which refer to when someone has been contacted by your marketing team, and they have shown some form of interest in what you’re offering.
The second is sales, which refers to when someone has purchased your product or service.
KPIs are the metrics that an affiliate marketer should focus on in order to help them track their success and determine what works for their business.
You can use these KPIs to evaluate an affiliate marketing campaign’s progress relative to the budget.
Understanding your KPI’s will help you to determine how long it’s going to take for your campaign to be profitable and what the potential ROI is.
Conclusion
As you can see, achieving success is about more than just finding an affiliate offer and sending traffic to your affiliate link. You need to track your success with KPIs and understand the metrics.
This data-driven approach to affiliate marketing will help you make better decisions and increase your earning potential.