Affiliate Marketing Tips Blog from LinkTrackr

Improve Landing Page Conversion Rates with A/B Split Testing

by Gobala Krishnan

iStock_000004945226Small Whether you’re selling your own product online or trying to make a living as an affiliate marketer, there are two very important skills you must master if you want to get an unfair advantage over everyone else and make more money with less traffic.

Those two skills are:

How to create an effective landing page
How to split test your landing pages

A “landing page” is basically your “sales page” or “lead capture” page. No matter what you call it, the sole purpose of this page is to convert as many visitors as possible to a sale or a lead.

Instead of sending traffic to your blog or company’s home page, driving them to an effective landing page will help you make much more money online with less traffic. If you’re familiar with Google Adwords, then you should already be familiar with the concept of using landing pages. An effective landing page in Google Adwords will result in a better “Quality Score”, which in turn gets you cheaper clicks and better overall performance of your campaigns.

A Landing Page is A Work in Progress

Too many marketers I know create a single landing page, and stick with it the rest of their lives. They don’t bother to find out the conversion rate of the landing page, and if they can improve it.

The truth is that landing pages are always a work in progress. Super affiliates and top marketers are always tweaking their landing pages, making minute changes that can potentially make them thousands of dollars in the long run.

Even if you manage to improve your conversion rate by 1%, the long term impact is worth the effort. In highly competitive markets, all the big players are testing their landing page conversion rates and you have to as well if you want to even survive in those markets.

How to Do a Simple A/B Split Test

With LinkTrackr, we provide you with the tools you need to perform simple but effective A/B split tests that you can use to get more sales and optins from your landing pages.

Do do a simple A/B split test, you’ll need two web pages – page A and page B. As the name suggest, you will be pitting page A (the control) against page B (the test).

The winning web page becomes the new control page, and the losing page is replaced with another page in a new test. You can of course create more than two pages, but let not make it more complicated than it really needs to be.

Recently I did a test for Mega Money Emails, a product that gives you pre-written ClickBank autoresponder emails you can plug-n-play with Aweber or any other autoresponder service.

I created two landing pages. Both were identical except for the highlighted text in the main headline of the sales copy.

Headline Page A: Profit-Pulling
Headline Page B: Instant-Profit

splittest-1 splittest-2

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting either landing page to outperform the other significantly. I was shocked when I viewed the results of my Mega Money Emails campaign 24 hours later.

How Much is A Word Worth?

splittest

As you can see, Page A with the words “Profit-Pulling” converted at 5.67%, while Page B with the words “Instant-Profit” converted at a low 0.8%. That means page A performed 708% or seven times better than page B.

At $0.46 per click, Page A also brings in more revenue than Page B at just $0.05 per click.

Of course this is just a preliminary observation and I can only declare the winner after about 300 clicks per page, but isn’t it shocking how one word can make such a huge difference in landing page conversion rates?

If you aren’t already split testing and trying to improve your landing page conversion rates, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. The truth is, there’s only that much traffic you can buy or get. The key to gaining a competitive edge in your niche market is not more traffic, it’s more conversions.

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LinkTrackr Contest – Win an Apple iPad 64G with 3G + WiFi Worth $839

by Gobala Krishnan

apple-ipad-1 Yahoo.. it’s our first contest for 2011 to announce the much-awaited arrival of LinkTrackr version 2.0!

In just six months, we’re turned a useful software into an awesome marketing system that every smart Internet marketer should have as part of his / her arsenal. Today, I can say without a doubt that LinkTrackr is the best link cloaking and link tracking software on the Internet.

We’re so excited, we want everyone to hear about LinkTrackr. This contest is open to everyone, anywhere. Read this post to find out how you can win a brand new Apple iPad 64G with 3G and Wifi – worth $839!

All you need to do to stand a chance of winning is:

Create an honest review of LinkTrackr to explain how it works and why online marketers would benefit from using it.
Confirm your entry by pasting the entry token below before or after your review on the same blog post.
Fill up the contest entry form using the link at the bottom of this page to confirm your review

Creating an Honest User Review of LinkTrackr

The best way to do this is to get yourself a free LinkTrackr account if you don’t already have one. Then create a review with your own original words.

Some simple contest rules:

All reviews created before the date of this post (7th February 2011) will not count, so you need to create a new one to qualify.
Reviews must be in English, and 300 words minimum, and created on a real blog (no autoblog or spam blog)
You’re welcome to use your own LinkTrackr affiliate links in the review
No copy & paste: If you merely copy and paste text from the LinkTrackr website or from reviews created by others, your entry will be rejected. Must be original text.
If you’ve done a review before, then just create a new review as an “update” to announce our new features such as A/B split testing, and conversion tracking.
You’re welcome to download and reuse our existing screenshots, but don’t link directly to them.

Put The Entry Token for This Contest on Your Post

To signify your entry, you must copy and paste the following (including the link back to this post) exactly as below:

This post was created for the LinkTrackr February 2011 Contest where you stand a real chance to win a brand new Apple iPad 64G with 3G + Wifi worth $839.

Blog posts without the entry token above will not be considered.

Fill Up The Contest Entry Form Below

Contest has ended so the form has been removed. Winners will be notified soon below.

How Winners Are Selected and Notified

The best 3 reviews will be the winners
The main winner will be paid via an Amazon Gift Card worth $839.00.
Two consolation prize winners will each receive a $30 LinkTrackr account credit
Contest ends on 24th February 28th February, and winners will be announce here and via email

So go ahead and write your review of LinkTrackr now. Don’t forget that you will also earn 40% recurring commissions when people read your review and signup for LinkTrackr using your affiliate link.

A total of three winners will be notified via email and their blog posts linked to below, so that’s a free backlink to your website as well!

Here Are The Winners…

Drum roll… here are the winners. I know that choosing the “best” review can be subjective, but I’ve just based my choice on the amount of effort put in, actual usage of LinkTrackr, and user interaction. While there were other good submissions, here are the winners:

First Prize (iPad): Abhik from itsabhik.com for a great review (extra points for video)
Second ($30 LinkTrackr Credit): Donted from Donted.me for great user interaction!
Third ($30 LinkTrackr Credit): Mahesh from MaheshKukreja.com

Congratulations to the winners, I will be contacting you with instructions to claim your prizes!

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ClickBank Review – Digital Products Affiliate Network

by Gobala Krishnan

You will find a lot of positive ClickBank reviews out there because most affiliates probably made their first commission promoting a ClickBank product. But which ClickBank review is accurate?

ClickBank outs itself as the largest affiliate marketplace for digital products, having paid out over US1.7 billion in affiliate commissions since it’s inception more than 13 years ago. Right from the start, ClickBank has received it’s fair share of praises and loyal fans. However, it has also been the subject of controversy, with some people going as far as referring to it as a “scam”.

In this ClickBank review, I hope to cover as much as possible about how ClickBank really works, and why it’s worth your time. [click to continue…]

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PeerFly Review: CPA Affiliate Marketing Network

by Gobala Krishnan

PeerFly is a CPA (Cost Per Action) affiliate network, and it’s free to join. Like most other CPA networks, PeerFly also offers CPS (Cost Per Sale) programs. However, the bulk of it’s offers are CPA offers from various merchants looking to get new leads.

Overall, PeerFly appears well set-up, with clean and easy to understand navigation. Most importantly, they have tons of CPA offers you can choose from, and quick access to the payout / performance of each.

In terms of affiliate tools, PeerFly also seems to do much better than most networks. The one feature I find extremely useful is that they allow you to place your own tracking pixels to each offer, so that you can use your own tracking software (like LinkTrackr) to track conversions.

However, most PeerFly offers are geo-targeted, so you’ll need to be able to perform geo-targeted advertising. A good way to do this is via Google AdWords or FaceBook Ads of course. Without geo-targeted advertising, you’ll just be wasting a lot of money.

Signup Here: PeerFly

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LinkTrackr Version 2.0 – What’s New?

by Gobala Krishnan

Our team has been working hard over the past two months to produce a new and improved LinkTrackr Version 2.0 – and it’s definitely worth the wait. Just login to your account to day to see how version 2.0 looks and feels like.

(Please clear your browser cache, and logout / login again if you don’t see the changes)

If you’re not a LinkTrackr user yet, you can signup now and get access to all these features right away. So… what’s new?

Brand New Analytics Package – All Accounts

Previously, you could only get stats for total clicks, campaigns, and the raw referrer data. With version 2.0 however, we’ve improved how this data is grouped and presented to you.

You can now also see the total traffic by campaign, referral source, and browser type. You get the most important information right where you want to find it, with more detailed analytics available when clicking on the full stats page.

Referrer Tracking

The end result? Better intelligence on your marketing campaigns that help you make smarter choices as an affiliate or Internet marketer. You can now easily see where your clicks are coming from, and drill down to individual pages of that particular site.

The new analytics feature is available to all members in any plan.

Brand New Dashboard & Improved Usability – All Accounts

Our new and improved home page gives you a “big picture” of how your entire marketing system is working, with Top 10 categories for traffic, referrers, campaigns and browsers.

LinkTrackr Version 2.0

Plus, we’ve also added a “Getting Started” mode that is activated by default, to help new users get started faster. You can switch to Video Tutorials Mode is you need step-by-step guidance, or turn on Normal Mode if you’re already a pro. The next time you login, you’ll be logging in to your preferred mode.

One of the most important improvements (that you will never notice) is the overall usability optimization of version 2.0. The only time you will realize the difference is when you’re able to do things faster and more efficiently, with fewer clicks and steps than before.

Yup, this is an “invisible” feature that gives you a highly optimized database, faster responses times, and a more user-friendly interaction. Our goal is to make is easier for you to get your work done, without having to wrestle LinkTrackr into submission!

The new dashboard and improved usability applies to all accounts.

Brand New Conversion Tracking – Pro and Xtreme Accounts

Although you can use TID affiliate tracking in any plan, our new Custom Conversion Tracking is a life-saver for anyone using LinkTrackr to market their own products. By placing a simple conversion tracking code in your “Thank You” pages, you can now track multiple conversions across multiple domains.

Conversion Tracking

Plus, you can also track your conversion rates and total conversion amount. Using this feature, you can even track email marketing clicks and conversions. If you’re an affiliate but can negotiate with the product owner to put in your conversion code in the “Thank You” page, then you can use this feature to track affiliate conversions as well.

To get the sales conversion tracking feature you must have a Pro or Xtreme account. You can upgrade your account from the account area.

Brand New Landing Page A/B Split Testing – Xtreme Accounts Only

If you’re selling anything online, you should be familiar with the concept of landing pages. A “landing page” can be an optin page (squeeze page), a full sales page, a video page or even a PPC page for Google AdWords.

One of the most important questions with any landing page is “What is my conversion rate?”. Once you figure that out, the most important question then becomes “How do I improve my conversion rate?”.

Most established marketers know that a small tweak in your landing page can result in massive improvements on your conversion rate, which in turn can result in a significantly higher profit in the long term. That’s why we decided that A/B split testing is an absolute must-have for LinkTrackr.

AB Split Testing Software

With LinkTrackr’s split testing feature, you can test as many different landing pages as you want. Together with the conversion tracking code, you’ll be able to easily see which landing pages convert better.

To get the A/B split testing feature you must have a LinkTrackr Xtreme account. You can upgrade your account from the account area.

Thank you to all LinkTrackr Evangelists and users for giving us valuable feedback on what you expect from LinkTrackr. Although we’ve only been around since July 2010 (eight months), we’ve very quickly developed LinkTrackr into one of the best (if not the best) tool for marketers.

Please feel free to let us know what you think of the new version. If you want to send us a testimonial, just submit it here and it will be used on our main page.

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Affiliate Link Cloaking with Cpanel Redirects

by Gobala Krishnan

Cpanel redirects is a cheap and easy way to create cloaked affiliate links. To get started, you will of course need a cPanel account, which you should get automatically when you obtain web hosting from most providers.

In your cPanel account, just click on Redirects.

cpanel-link-cloaking-1

Then, create your cloaked affiliate link like the example below.

cpanel-link-cloaking-2

cPanel redirects should be “301 Permanent” redirects, and you should always choose “Redirect with or without www”. You can use this method with just about any type of affiliate link.

However, until cloaking your affiliate links with LinkTrackr, you will not be able to view your click stats, use campaigns, or tracks conversions.

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Ad Swap Link Tracking with LinkTrackr

by Gobala Krishnan

Adswaps are a great way to build up your email list quickly. In a typical ad swap, two marketers mutually agree to promote each other’s products on a specified date and time. Usually, both have similar amount of subscribers or reach, and promote free products as a way to get more optin subscribers.

The key component of any ad swap is tracking the amount of clicks your partners send you, and this is where LinkTrackr plays a crucial role.

Using the campaign feature, you can easily create a primary link to promote your product or optin offer, and give each ad swap partner a unique link. For example, if I wanted my ad swap partners to promote our web hosting service, I would create a link like this:

http://gobala.linktrackr.com/hosting

Then, I would give each ad swap partner the same link, but with their names as the campaign. Here are two examples:

http://gobala.linktrackr.com/hosting-gobala

http://gobala.linktrackr.com/hosting-john

This way, I can easily track the amount of clicks and traffic I get from each ad swap partner in my LinkTrackr dashboard. I can also see traffic spikes using the graphical reports, so I know when the emails were sent out and how many emails were sent.

stats

In our new stats feature being released soon, you can even see the percentage of traffic each ad swap partner has sent.

Another key advantage when you use LinkTrackr to do ad swaps is the viral marketing element. By leveraging on FaceBook and Twitter, you can multiply the amount of traffic actually sent by an ad swap partner.

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Custom Home Page for Better Branding

by Gobala Krishnan

If you’re not already aware, we’ve recently enabled “Custom Home Page” for all except free accounts.

Previously, when a user types in your LinkTrackr account name they get to the login page. With the custom home page option, you can now choose to send them to a revamped “Home” page provided by LinkTrackr, or any other URL that you want.

custom-home-page

Here’s how the new home page looks like:

home-page

In many ways it’s similar to the default 404 error page template, with the addition of the login form at the bottom. Of course, you can also choose to redirect users to an external URL, for example your blog or a link in your account. If you do this however, you need to manually type in the login URL for your account as follows the next time you want to access it:

http://yourname.linktrackr.com/login

Custom home pages works with all your custom domain names too. Have fun with this new feature!

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Affiliate Link Cloaking with Simple HTML

by Gobala Krishnan

Although getting a free affiliate link cloaker account with LinkTrackr is the fastest and easiest way to cloak or mask your links, you can also use simple HTML to do it manually. It’s called the “meta refresh” method and here’s how it works.

First, you need to open up NotePad and enter the following code:

<html> <head> <title>Link Name</title> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.linktrackr.com"/> </head> <body> </body> </html>

(To avoid mistakes, just copy the code above and replace the variables accordingly)

In this example, the code tells a web browser to “refresh” the page and redirect the user to http://www.linktrackr.com after 0 seconds.

You can change it to one or two seconds if you want to display some text before redirecting the user to your affiliate link. The Link Name isn’t really required but it does help to put in the name of the product or program that you’re promoting.

Then, save the file as whatever.html – of course you’ll replace “whatever” with the name of the link you want to create. Then, upload that file to your web hosting account. You can either place it inside the root folder (public_html or www), or create a new folder for it.

All you need to do is know the URL to it, and place that URL in your advertising campaigns.

In truth, this tactic is more accurately known as link masking, not link cloaking. Cloaking a link actually requires framing the content of the target URL within your own page, like what you can do with LinkTrackr. Also, manual link cloaking with HTML does not give you any form of tracking whatsoever.

However, if you need a simple and effective way to cloak your affiliate links, try the HTML link cloaking method above.

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