Tracking Your Affiliate Partners and Website Earnings
Years ago, the word organization and I did not belong in the same sentence (some days they still don't, but I'm so much better than I was before LOL). I really couldn't even tell you how much I even actually made from affiliate marketing in the early days… I only knew that I made more income than I spent on things in life and that I spent quite a bit.
I had no idea what each site in my arsenal was making either, so for all I knew, some were losing money and the others were making up for it. I would need to use an affiliate link and end up spending an hour looking for which network had the advertiser or what my login at the network was. Indie affiliate programs had me constantly resetting my passwords.
But then I started using an excel sheet to get it all organized. It might not be the most advanced way to track these things, but it works for me. :)
Tracking Affiliate Partners & Programs
I use a spreadsheet to keep track of every affiliate program I work with. I track the following in that document:
- Program name
- Main merchant website address
- Dashboard or network website address
- Dashboard or network username
- Dashboard or network password
- Name of my contact at the program (if any)
- Email of my contact at the program (if any)
- Twitter handle of my contact at the program (if any)
- The original uncloaked affiliate link for the program (to create new cloaked links when needed)
- My cloaked link for that program (why I cloak affiliate links)
- The link to my review of the program or product (if any)
- The product niche
- The product commission rate
- Whether or not I have a special commission rate (helps me know who I still need to ask for a higher payout if I'm doing a lot of sales for a product)
- How the program pays me (direct deposit, check, Paypal, etc.)
I also list the link to my post on creating SID codes for the bigger affiliate networks for easy reference. You can get a free copy of the template for the above spreadsheet here. I keep the spreadsheet updated as I add new merchants.
Tracking Affiliate Website Earnings
I use spreadsheets to track each website I own individually. It helps me know where to put my efforts, especially when I'm pressed for time. The below is what I track (note, I include all contextual and display advertising programs as “advertisers”):
- Website name
- Website address
- Date creatives were last updated
- SID code used for that website (I use the same SID for all programs for that site)
- A list of the merchants I affiliate with for that site
- Earnings from each merchant for that site by month
- Gross yearly earning totals for each merchant
- EPC for each merchant by month and yearly CPC average
- Gross yearly affiliate income for each month with all merchants combined
- A list of the advertisers I affiliate with for that site
- Earnings from each advertiser for that site by month
- Gross yearly earning totals for each advertiser
- Gross yearly advertiser income for each month with all advertisers combined
- Gross total monthly earnings – all in
- Gross total annual earnings – all in
- A list of expenses (things like domain registration, hosting, promotional costs, development costs, etc.)
- The net income the website generated – all in – by month
- The net income the website generated – all in – for the year
You can get a free copy of the template for the above spreadsheet here. I update this spreadsheet once a month. I have a lot of websites, so it takes me a full day to do so. But I've found it's helped me increase my website earnings (by knowing what is performing and where to focus) enough to warrant the time.
They may not be fancy, but they get the job done.
15 Comments
Please note – I use affiliate links on this site. This means I might earn a commission if you click on a link and sign up for something.
I’ve been looking hi and lo for all kinds of tracking software to help me keep my life and business more organized, but I kept coming back to spreadsheets.
Go figure… :)
You are waaaaay better at spreadsheets though, Rae; I might have to borrow your template.
Glad to help Ana!
So I came to this site through Entreproducer.com – and within 20 seconds I find this post. And I download the spreadsheets which have INSTANT value to my business.
Wow. I’m hooked already.
Looking forward to getting more goodies from you soon. :)
Ryan
PS. Of course I signed up for the mailing list. No brainer.
Thanks Ryan – hope I don’t disappoint ;-)
Thanks for the share Rae, you must have known that I was headed this way. :-)
If only you could see how unorganized I allowed myself to get over this past few months. I’ve honestly been kicking myself in the ass for not getting a solution in place to put a stop to it. Now you gave me that kick in the ass by giving me the jump start I needed to get things back to the way that they used to be.
Hey James – we all get unorganized sometimes – myself included! Glad I could help you get things back on track. :)
Thanks for the templates. I’m a spreadsheet fiend but am new to the affiliate game – these helped me know what to track. I’ll be spending the next few days creeping your site for even MORE great information. Thanks again!!
You’re welcome Gillian – hope you find a lot of info you can use!
Rae,
First and foremost, your About section is refreshing. Secondly, thank you for sharing these spreadsheets. New to blogging, affiliate marketing, all things WordPress, and everything in between (as of Sept. 2013), I’m jumping in with both feet.
I’m so thankful to have found sites like yours to help me along in my journey of figuring sh!t out. Amazing. Thank you.
Thanks Maggie and you’re very welcome!
This is SO awesome and helpful, thank you! I started out with a spreadsheet but stopped updating it after awhile and now I’m a mess! As much I hate to do it, I know that I need to take a day or two to just get organized so that I can see what’s working and what’s not.
Is there an web application that can do this for you? One that connects to the major affiliate programs like CJ, Linkshare, ShareAsale, etc.. and pulls all your revenue data, clicks, and other tracking all in one centralized dashboard?
The spreadsheet is awesome but just trying to eliminate some manual entry work. Thanks!
Nothing that I’ve found that I felt was all-encompassing.
Have you tried affjet.com ? It connects with major affiliate networks and brings in transactions and revenue data. I don’t think it does clicks or costs yet though, but I think clicks are being worked on, so perhaps not quite as all-encompassing as a spreadsheet but almost there!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I just started my own little blog and I am with just a couple affiliates but I love to stay organised, and your spreadsheet is the best I’ve seen! Thank you so much for this!