This post will probably be of most use to affiliates just starting out who haven’t yet given much thought to measuring their success!
Even if you have a very small affiliate business it’s really important to make sure you know exactly how it’s progressing. I’ve found a few simple Excel spreadsheets to be invaluable in charting the progress of my business and planning how to move forward.
I decided to make available for anyone who wants to use them 3 spreadsheets (with graphs) that are altered versions of the ones I use to keep an eye on things. Here’s a list of what they keep tabs on, I’ve populated them all with mock figures so you can see how they chart things.
1. Monthly Sales
This spreadsheet tots up: –
- Income from each network.
- Expenses.
- Expenses as a percentage of turnover so you can keep an eye on your margins.
- Breaks results down into average daily profit ( I like to know how much I earn a day!)
The spreadsheet outputs the turnover, profit, and spend into a nice graph so you can see business progress at a glance.
I’ve found it useful for seeing the seasonal trends in my business and planning to iron them out with other revenue streams, charting the ebb and flow of income with different networks, to plan / forecast annual growth, and just downright reassuring when I’m unsure exactly how things are going.
2.Profit Targets
Just a simple spreadsheet featuring: –
- Target V’s actual profit (with graph).
- Percentage above / below target.
- Tot up of progress, average monthly profit, projected profit & target v’s projected increase for the year.
Good to keep an eye on progress, and also good to stop yourself moving the goalposts mid year. I like to sit down and work out what I’m happy with over the next 12 months. Once its in the spreadsheet it’s set in stone!
Individual Site Profits
For monitoring the progress of individual sites. This looks at: –
- Turnover broken down into individual merchants.
- Expenses.
- Monthly profit (and that average per day metric again!)
- Percentage of marketing spend of turnover (again to keep an eye on those margins)
- Monthly traffic.
- EPC per visitor to site.
- Visits through to merchant / CTR.
This one is probably the most useful of all. It’s really incredibly important to monitor which sites are contributing good profits and keep an eye on the ones that aren’t. I find that working out my CTR is really important – it lets me see any issues and address them quickly. Also, the site EPC is a fantastic metric. I use it to motivate myself and also to forecast how much I can increase my earnings by going out and finding similar traffic. I usually know how much work it is to put out X pages that bring in £xxx, so this is a great way to plan and effectively move forward to increase that cashflow.
I hope these help and if you have any questions on them please post below. No doubt I’ll have left some silly bit of Kirsty-esque maths in them that make sense to nobody but me. What can I say? I’m unique!
Contains all 3 spreadsheets. Right Click & Save Target As should get you a copy.