There are several ways to track conversions on affiliate websites however most solutions are very limited to track full path of user conversions.

Let’s overview available solutions.

Third-party tracking tool

There are many tracking tools available that allow you to track conversions on your affiliate website. These tools usually provide a tracking code that you can add to your website, and they will track some conversions from point A to B. Some popular tracking tools include Google Analytics, Omniture, and Mixpanel.

Some solutions like cost2profit are dedicated specifically to affiliate websites. They allow website owners to track online conversions starting from external sources of traffic, through an affiliate website up to a third party landing page with an affiliate product, where sales finally takes place. In the case of cost2profit, please note that a traffic is monitored among 3 completely non-related sites A->B->C. cost2profit measures different sources of traffic incl. emails, banner adds, hyperlinks, video hosting pages like YouTube, social media ads and even offline recommendations.

cost2profit tracks conversions for affiliate website owners

cost2profit tracks the whole user path – every conversion that takes place on the graph

Affiliate tracking links

Many affiliate programs provide tracking links that you can use to track conversions between your website and affiliate product landing page. These links typically contain a unique identifier that allows the affiliate program to track conversions back to your website. Unfortunately this solution lacks information about where exactly the user comes from to your website. Was it yesterday Facebook post or maybe one of banner ads from a third party website?

Custom tracking parameters

You can also add custom tracking parameters to your affiliate links to track conversions. For example, you could add a “source” parameter to your links to track where the traffic is coming from, or a “conversion” parameter to track conversions. This solution is however very limited as conversion can only be tracked between an affiliate website and a landing page with an affiliate product or an affiliate link redirection to a landing page. In order to increase conversion a user must be “warmed” (educated, served with reliable information, before a user converts into a lead or sale).

Conversion pixels & postbacks

Conversion pixels are small pieces of code that you can place on your website to track conversions. These pixels are typically provided by the merchant or advertiser, and they allow an advertiser track conversions that happen on your website.

Postbacks work similarly. They are a kind of API, which facilitate communication between two parties.

Server-side tracking

Another option is to use server-side tracking to track conversions. This involves sending a server-side request to the affiliate program’s server whenever a conversion happens, and the affiliate program’s server will track the conversion. This method is more reliable than client-side tracking (such as using tracking pixels), because it is not subject to interference from things like ad blockers or users disabling cookies.

Summary

Regardless of which method you use, it’s important to make sure that you are accurately tracking conversions on your affiliate website. This will help you understand which campaigns are performing well and which ones are not, so you can optimize your marketing efforts and increase your income from your affiliate website.