How Affiliate Tracking Works

The affiliate tracking software is mainly designed to effectively supervise and manage your affiliate marketing program. It displays statistical data associated with visitor activities, sales, and conversion rates. The affiliate tracking software is an integral part of the strategy because it determines the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing techniques.

There are various methods in affiliate tracking. This type of program continues to evolve to meet the changing Internet landscape. Common affiliate tracking methods include the following:

Simple direct URL links

URL query string tracking

Cookie tracking

Self-replicated pages

Sub-domain tracking

Database record match tracking

Each of these methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. But cookie tracking has emerged as one of the winners because it offers flexible and reliable tracking data. There are obviously certain cases when other types of tracking methods may be preferred.

Among the things that should be considered is the flexibility of the method (will it work with your shopping cart system?), the ease of administration, reliability of the statistics, and the security offered by the system. All these factors will have a significant impact on the performance of your website.