As Affiliate Marketing matures, so does the level of sophistication of sites that earn a significant portion of their revenue from Affiliate relationships. These Affiliates have very savvy business strategies to maximize revenue. So, the good merchant program needs to make sure that they offer the necessary technology to assist their Affiliates in maximizing their profits.

"Test, Test, Test", is the primary rule in online marketing. The speed and flexibility of the Internet allows websites to try out new marketing strategies and then analyze the results very quickly. Then, it's possible to adjust the marketing strategy immediately to maximize performance. One of the simplest and yet most effective ways of maximizing performance is to know precisely the performance statistics of the site's various ad campaigns.

You see, a good Affiliate will have multiple methods of promoting a merchant's links. In addition to their primary website, they might have a popular newsletter that goes out to a large list regularly and they might have a small text ad on a complementary site. It is critical for that Affiliate to know which links are producing the best conversion rates, that is impression to sale ratio. That's the only metric that is really meaningful for either the Affiliate or merchant. How many people actually buy after viewing the link?

MyAffiliateProgram's "SuperTrack" module allows the serious Affiliate to track multiple ad or link placements and also allows for both the Affiliate and merchant to understand how each placement is performing. For example:

Let's say that Affiliate #101 has 3 primary modes of promotion for their site.

A) The banners placed on their nicely designed, well trafficked site,

B) Endorsement style text links in their newsletter with 3000 subscribers and

C) a 6 line text ad in a complementary newsletter run by another web business.

They have decided to promote Merchant X's products in all 3 venues simultaneously. With SuperTrack's "sub ID" tracking feature, the Affiliate can assign each of the 3 different links for the 3 different audiences, a unique SubID# that will be tracked under their main Affiliate ID number. This way, both the Affiliate and the merchant will know exactly which link provided the most impressions, clicks and sales.

This tracking is vital to the success of the Affiliate's business, because without this capability, they may wrongly assume that the banner ad on the main page worked the best, when in reality the SubID tracking may prove that the newsletter text testimonial link was far more effective at producing sales. Additionally, he might discover that the partnership with the other website produced virtually no traffic and no sales, so he may elect to discontinue that relationship and find another, more productive one.

Like everything else with MYAP, the tracking codes needed to implement SubID functionality is quite easy. A regular Affiliate ID text link code looks something like this:

http://www.myAffiliateprogram.com/u/user/t.asp?id=1001

And the same Affiliate using a Super Track SubID would use a text code that looked like this:

http://www.myAffiliateprogram.com/u/user/t.asp?id=1001&sub=ad1

The report that both the Affiliate and the merchant can see on their respective Admin Pages, will list the SubID stats directly under the total stats for that Affiliate's activity. It's perfectly simple to see just what SubID is most productive so that the Affiliate's marketing strategy can be adjusted accordingly.

Now, you might think that it is only large, super Affiliate sites that need this kind of tracking, but that's not entirely true. Any Affiliate that is savvy enough to utilize 2 or more marketing methods for their business would benefit from this module.

Also, merchants who don't use SuperTrack have reported that Affiliates are joining the program under different names & getting different Affiliate ID#'s in order to track the performance of different placements. This presents a problem when the merchant needs to cut multiple commission checks for the same Affiliate. Or, when the Affiliate has earned commissions under one ID but has not met the minimum threshold for that ID, and therefore cannot be paid by the merchant for that activity. With SuperTrack installed, all Affiliate performance would be tracked under the "Master Affiliate ID#", so that only 1 check needs to be generated, and all performing ID's are combined under the main ID to meet the minimum payment threshold.

For another innovative way to utilize the SuperTrack feature, please read the companion article to this piece entitled, "Tracking Solutions for Non-Profits".

For additional information on pricing and integration of SuperTrack, click here now.