Affiliate marketing has quickly become one of the most popular forms of online marketing in recent years. Accessible, cost-effective and results-oriented, the tactic enables businesses of all sizes to experience the benefits of a global marketing campaign without incurring the exorbitant costs of one. As efficient as affiliate marketing is, however, it’s not without its complexities. In particular, there are a few unique metrics that need to be closely monitored to ensure that the affiliate campaign in question is performing optimally. Today’s article is going to walk you through a few of the most important of these metrics to arm you with the information necessary to conduct high-level analyses that set you up for a lucrative affiliate campaign.

Clicks & Impressions

Let’s begin with two of simplest metrics available. Any affiliate campaign lives and dies by the attention that it generates, so it’s imperative that you pay close attention to these stats. Simply looking at the number of clicks generated will give you an initial idea of your advertising engagement rates, while examining impressions will outline how often your affiliate ads are viewed by consumers. Together, these two statistics are a simple, accessible way to paint a preliminary picture of your affiliate marketing performance.

Incremental Revenue

The best affiliate campaigns are those that are capable of driving conversions all on their own. After all, if they’re doing little to offer independent value, then there’s little sense in incorporating the strategy into your marketing repertoire at all. Incremental revenue tracks precisely this phenomenon. The more customers brought to your business through the actions of your affiliates alone—that is, without the additional help of your SEO/SEM or social media efforts, for example—the more incremental revenue that is being added to your campaigns. Ultimately, you want this number to be as high as possible, as it will be what determines whether your affiliate campaign is truly pulling its weight, so to speak.

Reversals

It’s an unfortunate fact of business that for every sale made, there is the possibility of it being reversed. Whether it’s through a return, refund or chargeback, it’s critical that you measure the number of reversals being made to assess the health of your campaign. High reversal rates often indicate that the traffic being delivered isn’t of a sufficient quality—customers may be misled by affiliates desperate to try every tactic in order drive home the conversion and earn their commission.

ROAS—Return on Ad Spend

Everyone focuses heavily on the number of successful conversions, but the fact is your conversion rate means little if the conversions themselves aren’t offering you a steady stream of profit. Your ROAS is the key to uncovering precisely this. If, after dividing your sales figures by the amount spent managing and monitoring your affiliate campaigns, you’ve determined that your ROAS is too low, then it’s perhaps time to find different affiliate networks that can offer you the higher success rates you need to offset your losses.

Attributions

Marketing attribution simply refers to the chain of events that led to a successful conversion—customers are very rarely pushed to a purchase by just one advertisement. In fact, there are often many affiliates responsible for driving clicks and sales, even if only one of them gets the credit. Examining your attributions for each successful sale enables you to examine the length and health of your sales cycles, and gives you greater insight into the performance of your individual affiliates. With a clear idea of the value that each stop brings to the chain, you can put all of the other numbers on this list in greater perspective.

There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to affiliate marketing. With its own unique jargon and approaches, it can be difficult to glean the insights that you need to guarantee the delivery of successful campaigns. Today’s article has acted as an introductory guide to the most important metrics that you should be honing in on in the analyses of your affiliate campaigns, giving you a clearer idea of where to look, what to consider, and how to determine whether your campaigns are over or underperforming.