Affiliate marketing can be boiled down to one core concept: convincing users to complete a particular action. Usually, this action is purchasing a product or service. However, it can also be something like clicking on a specific link.
While this is the most basic way to think about affiliate marketing, in reality, it’s a far more complex and nuanced process. The affiliate marketing funnel is a term you’re going to hear a lot, and it’s vital that you understand what it is. Let’s take a closer look at the affiliate marketing funnel and discuss how it relates to tracking.
What is the Affiliate Marketing Funnel?
Successful affiliate marketing is all about convincing people to purchase a product or click on a link. Once this action has been completed, your job is done. However, by studying and analysing the journey the consumer has been on in the lead-up to completing the desired action, you can better understand how your approach is working. Therefore, you can make changes to improve it in the future.
This journey is what’s known as the sales funnel . It’s the steps a customer takes before they complete the action you want them to make. We can break the funnel down into four key stages: awareness, interest, desire and action.
The content you produce, whether that be images or blog posts, can be used to raise awareness and generate interest. After a user has clicked through to a landing or product page, the design of your platform and the effectiveness of your CTA’s will generate desire and stir them to action.
The Importance of Tracking
Tracking has become an integral part of any digital marketing campaign. Being able to better understand customers and their actions is invaluable and allows you to optimise your techniques and see significantly improved results.
When it comes to the affiliate marketing funnel, tracking at every stage is key if you want to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the customer journey and adjust for success.
The first and one of the most important metrics you need to track is where your customers are coming from. When a user lands on your site, did they come from a search engine, social media or a referring website? This information will immediately show you where you are most successful, allowing you to further focus on that channel and make improvements across others.
You should also be tracking the conversion path. When a user clicks on a link or purchases a product, what exact steps did they take to get there? They may have come from a particular blog post or a video, which will demonstrate that this kind of content works particularly well.
Finally, you can evaluate the success of your ad campaigns by tracking the click-through rate (CTR). This measures how many users are reaching your platform via links in ads. By tracking this metric, you can assess how effective your ads are and make changes to improve results.
In Conclusion…
Understanding the affiliate marketing funnel is essential if you want your campaigns to succeed. Breaking down the customer journey into distinct stages means you can optimise each of these to boost results. Tracking is key; it can help you better understand customer movements and actions and allows you to identify the most and least effective touchpoints.
