TUNE for Affiliate Marketing
Getting Started with an Affiliate Marketing Program
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based advertising where an individual earns a commission for sending new visitors and customers to a business. Brands, advertising networks, and digital publishers all use software like TUNE to measure the clicks and conversions that power affiliate marketing.
ECOSYSTEM
Who Are the Main Players?
- The User is the customer. They make online purchases, fill out your surveys, sign up for your services, etc. Sometimes referred to as visitors, traffic or the target audience.
- The Advertiser is the seller or merchant. They’re looking for users and traffic specific to their products/services, which will result in leads or sales.
- The Affiliate is also known as the publisher or partner. They have relevant websites or traffic sources for a target audience and generate revenue by promoting advertisers’ offers (products/services) and getting a cut or flat payout for generating a conversion.
- The Affiliate Network is the middleman and acts as a broker for the advertiser. Affiliate networks recruit affiliates to promote products and/or services. The network specializes in finding and managing both advertisers and affiliates so advertisers are free to focus on their products/services and affiliates are free to focus on publishing and promoting offers.
- Affiliate Tracking Software, also known as the performance marketing platform, partner marketing platform, affiliate marketing software, or affiliate program software, is the software that empowers businesses to measure and manage their performance-based partnerships directly through one unified dashboard.
MEASUREMENT
What Should Affiliate Marketing Programs Measure?
Here are a few things you’ll want to track, analyze, and optimize in your affiliate marketing program:
- Clicks: A click interaction with an affiliate tracking link
- Affiliate sales: Income generated by affiliates
- Revenue: Total income generated for the brand from all sources
- Cost per click: How much it costs to get a user to click on an affiliate promotion, paid as a flat amount
- Cost per sale: The percentage of the total sale amount that an affiliate earns for driving the sale (good where multiple items may be added to a shopping cart)
- Cost per lead: How much it costs to acquire a prospective customer, paid as a flat amount
- Conversion rate: The percentage of how many clicks turn into completed actions (click to sale, click to registration, click to download, etc.)
- Return on ad spend: How many sales result from the total money spent on advertising, which informs how much revenue is generated (or in some cases lost) per dollar spent
- Top affiliates: An advertiser will want to know their top-performing partners and affiliates so they can allocate more advertising and resources to them
- Affiliate referrals: Incentives for existing affiliates to recruit new affiliates to a program
- Program diversity: How many different types of affiliates and audiences a program covers
E-BOOK
The Ultimate Guide
The Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing is the industry's only step-by-step guide to building a cross-channel affiliate program. With expert insights, examples, and use cases, this guide has everything you need to get started.
CASE STUDY
Credit Sesame + TUNE
A TUNE customer since 2015, Credit Sesame views the TUNE platform as its go-to solution for running an affiliate marketing program, from onboarding partners to optimizing campaigns, automating tasks, and preventing fraud.
Please note: all fields are required.
Opting in for additional information is not required to receive this content. All data is protected and secured as outlined in our privacy policy.