It may seem blindingly obvious, but do you actually know WHAT you are selling?
Yes … I said WHAT not WHO.
It is very easy to understand who the merchants are that you have success with, and Some networks will help you with the referring URL and of course you can use clickrefs to give you an idea of what link brought your visitor to the merchant … but what if they thought Nah… don’t like it … and then went on to buy something else? But are you using all the affiliate network tools available to help you find the popular products that may deserve your time in creating a dedicated domain for them and reap rich rewards with keyword rich domains and pages?
Make sure that you understand the tools made available by the networks that you work with and use them all to your advantage.
Taking Affiliate Window as an example, they provide a ‘Product Performance Report’ in your affiliate admin. This is only available for participating merchants, but it dows at least let you understand what the sustomers bought from those merchants, even if they followed an unusual course from your link.
Use those tools, learn from them and adapt to make the most of the information.
Looking at data such as that has often persuaded me to buy a new domain and capitalise on those products. You can do the same if you understand the visitor end point where they are prepared to open their wallet. Understand what information the network provides you … and don’t be afraid to talk to the merchant to see what is coming up next and what the next big thing is likely to be.
