Suzy: Week 20 Goals-Affiliate Advertising Reports

If you’re wondering what this Case Study is all about, please read the introductory post from Week One.

You can browse through all the older installments here.

Last week we talked about how Suzy is tracking what people search for once they get to her travel blog (see “Suzy: Week 19 Goals-Tracking Your Site Searches“), and using that information to improve her site and increase the number of people who can find her.

This week we’re talking about how Suzy periodically reviews her Affiliate Advertising reports, to see which ads are “performing” (by getting click-throughs) and which ones aren’t. She can then use that information to make changes to improve the revenue potential of her travel blog.

By now you should have (free) accounts set up with Google Affiliate Network, Commission Junction, and LinkShare, and possibly others.

Each will have their own variation of affiliate reports for you to view, but they should all show you some basics stats, such as:

• Impressions – this is how many times an Ad has been displayed to site visitors. If you add up all of your Impressions across your various Affiliate Network accounts, the total should roughly correspond to the number of Page Views you have for the same period of time. It will likely never be exact, but should be fairly close;
• Clicks – aka “click throughs” – how many times a given Ad is clicked on, taking the site visitor to the advertiser’s website;
• Earnings – whatever amount a given ad has earned for you over the time period you’re viewing

As you’re looking at your reports it’s important to keep in mind the placement of those ads on your site. Are they in your Banner area (top of the page) or sidebar? Above or below the fold? While you want your best performing Ads (those that earn you the most revenue for each click/action) placed in your most noticeable spots, you can test other Ads that may not be performing as well by moving them around and assessing the results after a week or two.

Ads that have few to no clicks are wasting space on your travel blog – seek out other relevant advertisers and replace them.

Another important ratio to look at is clicks-to-earnings – do you have Ads that garner lots of clicks, but little to no revenue? Look at the page your visitors are landing on when they click on the Ad. Is it relevant to what was advertised? Is it a compelling page that seems like it should inspire a purchase? If not, remove that Ad and test another one in it’s place, but be sure to give feedback to the advertiser – sometimes they are willing to make changes to help improve their sales.

But wait – there’s more! In some cases a particular spot in your banner or sidebar could earn you more from a Direct Advertiser (for more on Direct Advertising see Suzy: Week 16 Goals–Direct Advertising). You’ll want to weigh how much that space is earning for you (after testing a few different ads and advertisers) with what it can earn from someone who wants to pay a monthly/annual fee to have their ad there.

It’s ALL ABOUT testing, testing, testing. Eventually you’ll hit upon the optimal combination of advertisers and placement to maximize what that space can do for you.

Stay tuned! Next week we’re wrapping things up with a summary of the whole Case Study and will discuss what worked – and didn’t work – for Suzy, so you can learn from her experience!

~Trisha

Do you read and act on your Affiliate Reports? Share your advice!