How to Increase Your Affiliate Link’s CTR

One of the ways by which affiliates measure the success or effectiveness of their online marketing campaign is through the Click-Through-Rate or CTR. To be more appropriate, it is or can be a measure of how interesting or enticing a campaign or product is, since it counts the number of clicks to a link or ad copy against the number of times it was shown or served.

Computing the CTR

The click through rate is measured by dividing the number of clicks to an affiliate link or ad by the number of times it was served. It is important to note that it measures the sheer number of clicks, and not of unique users or unique user clicks; thus, 10 clicks from one user still counts as 10 clicks.

Importance of CTR

Though it doesn’t accurately reflect how effective a campaign is because clicks don’t always translate to conversion (in the form of sales, registrations, downloads, etc.), it is a good way to gauge the attractiveness of an ad or link. Besides, it generates traffic to the affiliate link or site, which is actually the first goal in the campaign. After all, how can people purchase from your site without getting there? Even without conversion, the user is already introduced to your affiliate link so anytime he or she thinks of purchasing or even just checking out your promoted products, he or she already knows where to go.

How to get more people to click your affiliate link

Now that we’ve established why it’s important to increase your affiliate link’s CTR, it’s time to get those clicks and site traffic coming. Here are seven tips to add value to your ad or links and increase their CTR:

1. Provide ample information about the product that you are promoting.

Do your research and provide sufficient details on the products that you are trying to sell. People would of course want to know about the things that they’re purchasing, so make sure to provide them the information that you think they’d want to know. Blog about it on your site, add a link to the product info, or provide overview or tidbits on the actual ad.

2. Offer bonuses or deals.

People just love discounts and freebies, so don’t be surprised about how this strategy could really work wonders. By offering such bonuses and add-ons, people feel that they’re getting more than their money’s worth and are more inclined to go clicking, and eventually, buying.

3. Place your affiliate link where it can be easily seen.

A good place to put your link at is somewhere above the fold. This way, your link can be easily seen every time the page is opened, and users no longer have to scroll down just to be able to see and click it.

4. Insert your affiliate link to web content.

When you write articles and post them on your blog or submit them to various sites, carefully insert the link to your affiliate site such that it still turns out to be relevant to the article’s content. Create many different articles containing this link for more readership and chances at getting clicked. Submit them to different sites and watch more people get redirected to your site. This strategy is called content marketing.

5. Mask or disguise your affiliate link.

Create a page on your site or blog, which will be redirected to the affiliate link instead of inserting an obvious affiliate or ad URL that users could easily or blatantly avoid.

6. Ask your readers or audience to click your link or visit the affiliate page.

Direct calls to action still work, especially among interested users or potential buyers in your niche. Aside from subtle tactics or bait strategies, you can also directly ask your readers to do something after reading your work, like visiting the affiliate page to know more about something or find a solution to their problem.

7. Build and maintain a good relationship with your audience or readers.

Create a good reputation in your niche and make yourself trustworthy. Such confidence in knowing that you are no scammer makes users more comfortable in purchasing items from your affiliate site.

The click through rate, be it in display advertising or affiliate marketing, is just one indicator in measuring the effectiveness of an online campaign. There are other factors to look at, and the key to making them useful is carefully studying the results to see which marketing strategies are most effective in generating positive results.

Author Bio: Rod Tolentino is a musician, link development specialist for Affilorama, one of the world’s largest affiliate marketing portal, which offer online training materials through its blog, free lessons, forums and affiliate marketing tools. You can follow him on Twitter @roadywreck