CHAPTER 6: After the Conversion, Track, Refine, Track, Repeat
Converting visitors into depositing customers is fantastic, but it’s not the end of the story. Players who have been converted are a well spring of information about how to be a successful affiliate marketer. After all, those players are your success stories. Top affiliates are continuously testing, tracking and evaluating data about their players and you should be doing the same, too.
Fortunately, there are a number of really great tools that come from a variety of sources to help you get this done. Here are some of the more useful online tools for tracking player and site metrics.
Google Goals and Funnels – With the goals and funnels tool set, users can track both specific conversion goals, such as sales or site registrations; and the paths, or funnels, that the users went through to get there. Google’s Funnel Tool provides users with a graphic visualization of how customers are going through their site. By doing this, site owners can narrow down their most effective content and landing pages. Google has a great funneling tutorial on their Analytics page.
Google Website Optimizer – This free tool from the search engine behemoth allows users to test out various versions of headlines, calls to action, and other content by having them served up to real site visitors. Website Optimizer is especially good for web masters who are trying to refine their ideas to find the most effective conversion techniques.
Heat Mapping Software – We mentioned earlier that a clutter free site that emphasizes only critical information is the most effective design. Heat mapping software, like Crazy Egg, presents a visual interpretation of which design elements on your sites are getting used the most. Knowing which elements of your site are getting viewed and clicked on the most allows you to focus your optimization efforts in the most effective manner possible. ClickTale is another great heat mapping program, as it provides one of the most comprehensive heat map packages available.
Split Testing – Sometimes called A/B Testing, split testing is what Google’s Website Optimizer does when it serves up two different versions of your site and compares them. But Google’s tool has some serious limitations, especially when dealing with WordPress sites. That’s where tools like WP Split Test Optimizer come into play. This third party application is designed to provide all the functionality of the Google tools suite, and then some to WP powered sites.
If you’re looking for an application that can both track links and conversions by country, as well as providing link cloaking services, take a look at LinkTrackr. This tool is uniquely suited to the international aspects of affiliate marketing and can help web masters focus content towards geographic hot spots.
FINALLY
Converting site visitors into depositing visitors should be considered an ongoing process. There’s definitely a beginning (determining your niche, value proposition and site design) but those are just the first steps. Successful affiliates treat their players as more than just numbers. If you value the visitors coming to your sites and provide them with a well-designed gaming experience, you’ll have no problems converting players.