We often hear the word Transparency in this industry, but it may not always be immediately apparent what that means. When we’re talking about transparency in regards to our affiliate marketing software, we’re talking about what we see as the very basis of the relationship between merchants and affiliates. What it means is that we allow merchants and affiliates to see what each other is doing, in an effort to make it simpler to track progress and tailor marketing campaigns.

Transparency is a word that we want to emphasize when we’re at the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, coming up on January 17-19, 2010. We’ll be there to answer any of the questions that you might have about our software and how it can help your business grow.

Transparency is an integral part of the merchant-affiliate relationship. With this in mind, we have implemented tools that allow significant transparency in the dealings between merchants and affiliates. Our tracking and reporting features allow our partners to get the information that they need to make informed marketing choices to help them maximize their ROI. Having access to information that tracks the status of commissions provides the transparency that leads to greater trust and stronger relationships.

Our software is about more than just calculating commissions. The Share Results dashboard contains features that display these transactions in real time. This immediate transparency allows affiliates to analyze the performance of their campaigns and improve upon them, wherever necessary.

The Share Results affiliate marketing software solution was created with the goal of creating a balance in the partnerships between merchants and affiliates. Merchants typically have marketing departments whose job it is to research industry trends and develop creative that lead to the success of their marketing campaigns. Being able to share the results of their endeavours allows affiliates to take advantage of creative that can work to help them achieve higher volumes of sales.

With this in mind, our software allows merchants to give their affiliates instant access to creative. Through the high-level reports that all users of the system have access to, the successes of the campaigns can be tracked, and when it becomes apparent that a certain creative requires further effort, or is simply not working in a specific vertical, it can then be reworked or recreated until it is getting the return on investment that merchants and affiliates are seeking.

Data Tracking
Our software includes tools that track the entire range of actions taken on a website, from impressions all the way to sales. Seeing what actions are taken in respect to individual creative will allow merchants and affiliates to see which creative is performing best, as well as which ones might need to be improved upon.

Instant Access to Information
The information that affiliate managers and affiliates need when they log in to the system is instantly accessible on the dashboard. Anyone can see, at a glance, how their programs are performing as well as the commissions that have been earned. These reports can be further broken down into specific date ranges.

Frequent Reviews
We perform daily reviews of our software system to ensure that the data we are collecting is being tracked properly. Our dedicated affiliate managers look into tracking reports every day to check for any statistics that might be missing, or for any other anomalies. In addition, we perform external tracking tests for merchants, to ensure that all of the system activity is being reported accurately.

Status Alerts
Our software generates alerts that are viewable on the dashboard, for actions such as pending affiliate applications, pending transactions and fraud alerts. These allow merchants to see at a glance what is happening,, and allows them to more closely track the actions being performed, as soon as they happen. This provides transparency in all of the dealings between merchants and affiliates.

For more information about Transparency in the Share Results software solution, visit us at booth #413 at the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas January 18th and 19th, or contact us for more information. And stay tuned for the next instalment in our series on Transparency.