Q: I use MyAP. I seem to be getting clicks, and now even a sale from affiliates, when I cannot even find our link or banner on their website. Is there a way to search a website for a banner/link? And have you any idea how this could be happening?
A: MyAP provides you with the referring URLs from the traffic sent by affiliates. Just enter in the ID of this affiliate from the merchant interface, and scroll down to the bottom of the “Contact Information” section.
There you will see a list of the actual URLs that have been sending traffic to the site. This URL list will provide you with a link to the page(s) that sent the traffic, as well as how many clicks came from each URL.
So if there is recent activity on the account, you should be able to see the biggest referring URLs and go straight to those sites to confirm that they are running your links.
In the event you cannot find referring URL information for a given affiliate, there are a handful of legitimate reasons why the referrer is not showed.
For instance, if the affiliate sends out an email newsletter and the end user clicks from a Web-based email account to the merchant’s site, there will be little or no referral data.
If all else fails, pick up the phone and call this affiliate.