
What KPIs are essential for measuring affiliate performance?
1. Total Revenue Generated
- Measures how much sales value affiliates have contributed
- Helps assess the program’s financial impact on the business
- Important for determining overall ROI of affiliate campaigns
- Useful for comparing affiliate performance with other channels
- Guides commission budget planning and resource allocation
2. Number of Conversions (Sales or Leads)
- Tracks how many completed actions resulted from affiliate referrals
- Can include trial signups, demo bookings, purchases, or form submissions
- Helps identify top-performing affiliates and offers
- Assesses the quality and intent of traffic driven by affiliates
- Key for goal tracking in B2B and SaaS IT campaigns
3. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Indicates how effective affiliate content is at driving traffic
- Compares link impressions to actual clicks
- Helps evaluate the quality of affiliate placements (blogs, videos, etc.)
- Identifies creatives, headlines, or CTAs that perform best
- Guides content optimization for higher engagement
4. Conversion Rate
- Measures the percentage of visitors who take action after clicking an affiliate link
- Helps evaluate landing page effectiveness and audience-product fit
- Useful for comparing performance across different affiliates or content types
- Indicates how well affiliates are targeting qualified prospects
- A low rate may point to misaligned messaging or poor user experience
5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Represents how much is spent to acquire each customer through affiliates
- Helps determine profitability and efficiency of the affiliate channel
- Useful for setting commission thresholds and optimizing payout structures
- Compares favorably against paid ad channels for performance benchmarking
- Ensures affiliate investments remain scalable
6. Active Affiliate Count
- Tracks how many affiliates are currently driving traffic or conversions
- Helps assess engagement and program health
- Monitors recruitment success and retention over time
- Identifies inactive affiliates who may need support or reactivation
- Useful for forecasting growth potential and scaling strategies
7. Average Order Value (AOV)
- Reflects the average value of purchases driven by affiliate links
- Indicates whether affiliates are targeting higher-tier clients or large accounts
- Helps align commission rates with product margins and sales goals
- Useful for analyzing which affiliates bring in premium customers
- Supports upselling strategies through affiliate content