Affiliate Tracking and Attribution: How to Measure Affiliate Marketing Performance

How Affiliate Tracking Works

Despite being a bit confusing, the process is quite straightforward.

1.     Affiliate receives a special link. This link includes ID to identify who sent the user.

2.     User clicks on the link. In the process, a cookie is saved in the user’s browser, or the information is saved on the server-side.

3.     User makes a transaction. For example, buys a product or registers on the site.

4.     Your platform connects the action with the click. Checks if there is a cookie or click ID saved and assigns the sale to the proper affiliate.

5.     Commission is tracked.

Some of the popular ways of tracking transactions are cookie tracking, server-to-server (postback) tracking, and coupon code tracking. The majority of businesses nowadays use several of those.

Common Affiliate Tracking Challenges

The moment your numbers don't seem to add up, you can rest assured. These issues are fairly common.

Privacy concerns in browsers

Modern browsers such as Safari and Firefox restrict third-party cookies, which affects the ability to track users properly and makes some purchases impossible to attribute to an affiliate.