How to use call tracking to optimize affiliate marketing campaigns

Say you’re a company looking to invest in performance marketing, you’re looking at different options, and come across the possibility of affiliate marketing to drive new leads. I mean, what's not to love? You get another business to support your lead generation efforts and help you with some of the heavy lifting. But how can you use call tracking to further optimize affiliate marketing campaigns?

If your customers are coming to you via the online world; all stages of the customer journey can be tracked. You’re able to clearly see who helped with that customer journey to reward them, and seamlessly spot where any revenue has come from. But what if picking up the phone is one of the biggest steps on your customer’s journey? How can we keep track of that journey, so we’re rewarding the right people and keeping track of our customers? 

This is where the Infinity and Awin partnership comes into play.  

How does Infinity help Awin’s customers optimise their affiliate marketing campaigns?  

Infinity gives Awin’s clients clarity on which affiliate channels (i.e., the businesses you’re paying to refer new leads to you) are driving the best results. Specific phone numbers are generated and tracked within the Infinity Hub. These are allocated to individual publishers, so, when a customer picks up the phone, Awin’s clients know exactly which affiliate channel drove that call.   

So, when you need to see which affiliate partners are driving the most revenue, you’re able to see an accurate picture. Revenue attribution with Infinity and Awin is seamless and straightforward. Awin’s customers can focus more time and resources on the affiliate channels driving the right results and identify the ones not performing as well, and better allocate budgets.  

How we work together 

Infinity provides tracking numbers which feature on each publisher, CSS, or Brand Partner to track calls directly from each affiliate website. Infinity captures the type of call i.e., whether it’s a sales call or a general enquiry, the outcome, and the value of each call as well as the volume and duration to trigger specific goals and conversions. 

When Infinity Tracking JavaScript is installed on a client’s website, it dynamically replaces the phone number for each concurrent visitor. The key driver in this scenario would be to understand affiliate links driving calls from the advertisers’ website.  

The main benefit of this is accurate attribution and the ability to optimize based on publisher performance within the Awin Platform. In addition, by adding the call data as a conversion point, it opens up more opportunities for the adoption of new publishers. Infinity will track both typical user journeys, calls direct from affiliate sites, and affiliate links that are driving calls from the website itself. 

Some examples of how we help businesses cover blind spots 

Only 11% of journeys can be classed as ‘online only’, and many marketers face the challenge of losing visibility over what happens once a customer picks up the phone. It’s also important to note that a customer picking up the phone is a much higher intent lead than an online visitor. The proof’s in the pudding; inbound calls are 10-15 times more likely to convert.   

Call Tracking gives marketers full visibility on calls and conversions generated from affiliate campaigns, enabling them to connect the dots between online and offline journeys. They also get a ton of insights into what’s happening on the calls with Conversation Analytics. Getting this unfiltered truth sheds light on the common queries customers have, their pain points, and the language they use.  

Armed with this intel, marketers can better tailor messaging and PPC bidding to make sure they get the right leads coming into their pipelines. There’s also much more reassurance around allocating budget to the activities that are going to drive high-intent phone enquiries and conversions.  

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Helping Vodafone optimise their affiliate marketing campaigns

Affiliate marketing is one of Vodafone’s biggest digital channels, and many of Vodafone’s broadband sales happen over the phone.  

Vodafone used Infinity’s Call Intelligence software to accurately map which affiliate channels were driving the calls that converted, helping them nail attribution and map the customer journey. Vodafone also used Conversation Analytics to spot the calls where high-intent terms were used that would indicate a conversion. Having this seamless affiliate attribution in place has broadened the scope for Vodafone to now also promote products only available over the phone via affiliate channels, meaning more leads in the pipeline.  

‘Infinity work closely across the Awin agency and advertiser portfolio to enable call tracking and extend visibility of the Awin platform. This gives visibility on call reporting metrics such as length of call, as well as keywords, and conversions. More recently the partnership has been strengthened through collaborative pitching between agency partners, Awin, and Infinity which has resulted in multiple new client wins and existing clients bringing call tracking under their performance marketing activity successfully.’ - Jess Brown, Awin Agency Partner  

If you're keen to start using call tracking to optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns, why not start a conversation with us today? 

Originally published in Prolific North