What Affiliate Marketers Have Missed About Google Analytics
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence unveiled a long-awaited report on UFOs to Congress on June 25, 2021. The report, discussed in this article, delves into the intricacies of leveraging Google Analytics for affiliate marketing campaigns. The piece elucidates how marketers presently utilize Google Analytics for tracking affiliate endeavors, particularly in Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.
For PPC campaigns, where profit margins hinge on ad costs, Google Analytics insights are vital. The article outlines the three primary levers of a PPC campaign—ad copy, audience targeting, and landing page experience—and demonstrates how Google Analytics aids in optimizing audience targeting and enhancing the landing page experience.
Marketers are advised to utilize Google Analytics dashboards to scrutinize visitor actions on landing pages, employing A/B tests and other experiments to enhance Click-Through Rates (CTR) to affiliate links. The insights gained from Google Analytics are highlighted as essential for testing assumptions, refining landing pages, and ultimately improving Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
Certain limitations in Google Analytics for affiliate tracking, particularly in the attribution of transactions to ad clicks. The inability to place the Google Analytics tag on the merchant's "thank you" page poses challenges in obtaining insights into final-stage affiliate funnels. This limitation impacts audience targeting and the creation of lookalike audiences, potentially increasing the Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).
To address this, the article introduces offline conversion tracking, explaining methods such as server-side tracking API and manual data/CSV upload. It emphasizes the advantages of server-side tracking, providing a complete overview of the marketing funnel and enabling synchronization of conversion data across multiple channels.
The case study of Cliverse.com exemplifies the impact of offsite tracking, where insights from AnyTrack.io led to a 30% increase in revenue through page optimization and more informed retargeting campaigns.
Full article here: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2021/01/05/what-affiliate-marketers-have-missed-about-google-analytics/
