Q: I drive affiliate traffic through pay per click search engines straight to affiliate links without a landing page. How can I track which keywords are converting best?
A: It’s actually a fairly easy method. I’ll tell you what I do to track the effectiveness of my pay per click keywords in affiliate campaigns.
I use sub-IDs for each keyword. Most any affiliate network ought to offer the ability to do this – it’s a string of alpha-numeric characters that you add on to your affiliate link. I would suggest using each keyword as a sub-ID, so you can evaluate the reporting quick and easy.
For example, here is an affiliate link through Commission Junction to promote 1&1 Internet Web Hosting:
http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1544023-10365666
If I were running a pay per click keyword campaign to promote this affiliate program, here is an example of a link with a sub-ID I could use for the keyword “web hosting”:
http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1544023-10365666?SID=web_hosting
The structure of the sub-ID varies for each affiliate network (CJ calls it SmartRewards), so check with the respective affiliate network about how to create sub-IDs for their links.