You’ve been there. It’s the end of the month or the end of the year, and you want to know how your brand and its affiliate marketing strategies are doing. You’ve got a general idea, but you know that to do a complete analysis, you’re going to need a little help.
That’s where KPIs come in.
KPIs, or key performance indicators, are measurable metrics that demonstrate how well your brand is performing against your key objectives and priorities. They can also help prove your ROI. I guess in the most obvious way I can put it, KPIs are a key indicator of your brand’s performance.
You know, for only a three-letter acronym, they’re kind of a big deal. But why are they so important? The definition of KPIs partly answers that question, but here are a few more reasons:
- They measure the success and health of your brand
- They measure the progress you’re making consistently month-over-month and year-over-year
- They allow you to identify holes in your strategy, solve problems, and take opportunities
- They analyze patterns and trends over time
Another fact about KPIs—they’re absolutely vital to affiliate marketing. In fact, they’re everything. In affiliate marketing, we’re always working to make sure that our strategies are effective and that we’re seeing steady improvement across all metrics. And the way we do this? Measuring KPIs.
The thing is, though, keeping track of all of them can be a daunting task. Just think about it. You’ve got revenue, click traffic, and conversion rates, just to name a few. How can we keep track of all of these while determining where we’re succeeding or where we need to improve?
Well, believe it or not, there was a time that our parent company, Advertise Purple, used to do them manually. According to Sydney P, one of their Senior Marketing Strategists for Strategic Partnerships, it used to take about an hour to write just one KPI.
But, now? Those days are long gone. Purply has changed the game with one of its most iconic and essential features—automated KPI reports. Hold the phone. Did you say… automated? Why, yes. I did!
What these reports do at their core is aggregate all of the data from our clients in one easy-to-access, centralized place. This makes it quick and easy to see what’s going on in any affiliate program. Rather than mining through data and making manual calculations, you can find all performance-related information almost instantaneously on Purply. So, what do you say we give those calculators a rest?
Still, you might be wondering, what are the other benefits of Purply’s automated KPI reports?
When I asked Purply’s Vice President of Product, Rowland H, here’s what he had to say: “KPI reports give Purply’s SaaS clients the monthly reporting they need to evaluate and communicate all the successes as well as all the holes in their program on a rolling monthly basis.”
Whether it’s calculating your program’s performance changes month-over-month or year-over-year, honing in on which affiliates have improved in performance, or accessing countless other insights, Purply’s KPI reports can provide you with pertinent information in mere moments.
Outside of those, the ability to see trends per vertical and determine which affiliates are top producers of traffic or revenue within a particular vertical are other offerings you can lean on.
“From a SaaS standpoint, that’s why Purply is so useful,” Sydney adds. “It’s going to give you access to all of the vertical trends that you might want to look into so you can get a better understanding of the current positioning of your vertical and what publishers are doing well within it. Not only that, but it’s going to give you an overarching viewpoint of your program compared to others in the same verticals.”
Seconded, Sydney. And all of these insights are valuable because they allow for data-driven recommendations to be made. Instead of relying on instincts and calculators (shoutout to Texas Instruments for any 90’s kids here), Purply can provide you with accurate information that you can use to steer your affiliate marketing strategy.
It’s about as simple as that. But before we wrap up, I’ve got one final question that maybe a few of you have as well. How can you make the most of this report and use it to your advantage?
- Set targets at the beginning of each year, quarter, or month and utilize the KPI reports very regularly to measure your progress towards those goals
- Use and track a combination of KPIs in the report to identify month-over-month or year-over-year holes, then explore some of Purply’s other features—like campaign, affiliate partner, and commission suggestions—to ensure that your primary targets are hit
- Get curious and explore what’s happening within your vertical as a whole
Well, folks, that’s Purply’s KPI reports for you. I hope you got to learn some cool stuff! For whatever you’re measuring with your KPIs, just know you’ve got support from us. This is just one of many intuitive features Purply offers to its SaaS clients, so if it piqued your interest at all, you can learn more here.
