With the right knowledge, merchants have a greater opportunity to manage campaigns. Finding out where programs are successful and where they might need work can mean the difference between a good business and a great one.

Using feedback acquired over the course of several years, Share Results has worked steadily with partners to provide a software solution that meets the needs of merchants and allows them to track program performance results.

The software (available as a stand-alone proprietary product or accessible to merchants who are part of the Share Results network) is equipped with a powerful dashboard tool that allows merchants to view performance statistics at a glimpse, enabling them to get the information they need to measure campaign performance.

The Traffic Report is a reporting option included in the Share Results software. It allows you to pull reports based on several different criteria, all of which are important to the marketing process. For example, a merchant can group their report by "Affiliate ID" to help assess how many affiliates are actually promoting, and whether or not they find value in using the marketing tools provided for their email or PPC campaigns, or banners they place at the top of their site. If you find that the numbers here are low, one area to explore is whether or not you have a competitive commission payout, because you may have great tools, but if the pay isn’t high enough, it may not be attracting enough partners to your program.

Generating a Traffic Report by "Creative ID" allows a merchant to evaluate what tools are generating the most clicks and whether or not they are converting. Merchants who place a registration pixel on their site will help affiliates to see those results in the report, because our software captures that data. The success of a creative may depend on where the affiliate has placed the tool. If it’s in a prime location on their website and you aren’t seeing any sales, then that is a fairly clear indication that interest in your product may be low and may require more brand exposure.

Using the Share Results software to generate a Transaction Report can help to determine how many affiliates are generating sales and just exactly where those sales are coming from. You’ll know that your product or service can convert if you’re seeing sales, but if you see little or no sales over a three-month period, then you need to evaluate elements of your program, like whether or not you have the right affiliates promoting your product or if you have enough dynamic marketing tools to help them promote. If you already have a lot of quality affiliates, perhaps you need to look at increasing brand recognition.

The Referring URL column toward the far right of the Transaction Report will allow you to see which web pages your affiliates are using to promote your products. Knowing exactly where the sales are being generated from can help you learn more about an affiliate’s campaign strategy.

The knowledge of how to measure program performance is out there, and we can help assemble it for you in such a way as it will make sense to you, and help you in your marketing strategies. For more information on how Share Results can help you as a merchant, or as an affiliate, feel free to contact one of our affiliate marketing managers. Or, feel free to email us at merchants[at]shareresults[dot]com.