Tracking Pay-Per-Click Advertising with the Affiliate Marketing Module

[jarmstrong]

We've learned many things about Modular Merchant from our clients, who often come up with clever ways to use the software that we had never envisioned. One such trick is using the Affiliates Module to track traffic and sales conversions from pay-per-click advertising campaigns. While many online advertising companies provide their own statistics, this technique will allow you to compare the results from different companies side by side. In this article, you will learn how to set up affiliate accounts to track your ad campaigns so you can see which ads are generating click-throughs and sales.

Creating Affiliates
You may want to create affiliates for each advertising company you do business with, each advertising campaign, or for each site in your network. Any combination is possible, it simply depends on how you choose to organize your statistics.

To create an affiliate, click on "Affiliate Marketing" in the Modules section of your store's administration area, which will take you to the Affiliate Marketing Module main page. At the bottom of this page is a link to the affiliate registration page, where you can create a new affiliate. (See Figure 1.) This affiliate will just be used internally for your own tracking purposes, so you can fill in dummy data for all of the required fields.


Figure 1: Affiliate registration page

Creating Tracking IDs
Once the affiliate has been created, log into its account by clicking "Affiliate Statistics" on the Affiliate Marketing Module main page. (See Figure 2.) Then click the orange key icon for the affiliate. (Clicking the orange "key" icon will log you in to that Affiliate's account area.)


Figure 2: Affiliate statistics

Now that you are inside the affiliate's account, follow these steps to create Tracking IDs:
1. Click on the "Tracking IDs" link in the menu at the top of the page.
2. Click the "Create a New Tracking ID" button.
3. Complete the "Tracking ID" form fields to create and customize the tracking ID. Among these fields is an option for a "forwarding link". The "forwarding link" will determine the landing page the Tracking ID will load. For example, if "http://www.modularmerchant.com" is entered in this field, then the user will be taken to the Modular Merchant home page when a link including this Affiliate Tracking ID is clicked.

Once completed, your new tracking IDs will be listed in the "My Affiliate Tracking IDs" section of the page. (See Figure 3.)


Figure 3: Affiliate Tracking IDs

Using Your Tracking IDs with Your Ad Campaigns
Putting your new tracking IDs to work is easy. Each Affiliate Tracking ID has a unique URL associated with it. Following this URL will allow the system to forward them to the "forwarding link" assigned to that Tracking ID, while invisibly tracking the user's traffic and sales in your online store.

The unique URL for each Tracking ID can be viewed on the "Tracking IDs" page in the Affiliate's account area. Clicking the icon in the HTML column will open a popup displaying HTML code you can use in any webpage or pay-per-click campaign link. (See Figure 4.) When creating any online advertising, you will be asked what URL you want the ad to point to. Simply supply the code inside the href="..." attribute when viewing the HTML code for the appropriate Tracking ID. Then, when someone clicks on that ad, they will be taken to the landing page you specify, and their traffic and sales in your store will be recorded and credited to the Affiliate associated with that Tracking ID.


Figure 4: Example of affiliate tracking ID link

Conclusion
As with creating affiliates, you have a lot of flexibility when creating tracking IDs. For example, if you are using keyword-based ads, such as Google Adwords or Overture, you may want to create a tracking ID for each keyword you are bidding on.

In addition to the obvious benefits of affiliate marketing, the flexibility of Modular Merchant's Affiliates Module allows you to compare the results of your online advertising between multiple campaigns and companies, providing an easy way to see which ads are most effective. This can save you time and help you spend your advertising dollars more efficiently.