Experts Edge – Affiliate Tracking Tips for 2022

Ready for some top affiliate tracking insights? The Adcash Experts Edge series is back in action! And, this week, we got chatting with Dmitry Romanchuk, Head of Marketing & Partnerships at Adplexity, a leading competitive intelligence platform for tracking, analyzing, and optimizing world-class offers. 

So tell us about Adplexity? 

Adplexity is an ad intelligence tool that has been running since 2016. It was developed by affiliates to help other affiliates accurately track and analyze the best campaigns on the global market. Practical competitor analysis and customized campaign searches are more accessible than ever using the Adplexity platform despite the changing affiliate sector.

We’re constantly adjusting and adapting to new market trends and hold a solid presence in over 85 countries and counting. When it comes to Adplexity, what you see is what you get. The platforms up to the minute data analytics tracks and pulls all the world’s top-performing campaigns from various sources and delivers them back to you on one easy-to-navigate platform.

What are the main features of the Adplexity platform?

It all comes down to our real-time database. This end-to-end algorithm allows us to track thousands of different campaigns from every corner of the world, and all in real-time. 

Our data is what truly sets us apart from the competition. The system works instantaneously where if you, as an affiliate marketer start a campaign, we’ll be able to pull it up on our side the moment it goes live. 

Our clients are exposed to the latest and greatest campaigns in real-time, around the clock, where they can analyze the biggest trends and get to grips with what their competitors are doing in real-time, with no delays. 

We also track and specialize across a wide variety of different traffic sources. When you log into the Adplexity platform, you’ll have the choice of analyzing campaigns from a range of top traffic sources.

Mobile 📱 

We run mobile traffic for pop, banner, and in-app traffic sources, across 75 countries and counting. You can log in anytime and use the platform to accurately track the most profitable ad campaigns on a wide variety of mobile ad exchanges across every significant geo imaginable.  

Desktop 🖥️ 

You can also uncover the most profitable campaigns for desktop spanning all primary popup traffic sources with the option to download any landing page you come across, including associated images, CSS, and javascript. 

Native 🔥

Keep Track of Your competitor’s most profitable offers on Native Traffic Sources by analyzing campaigns running in over 32 countries. You can search by keyword, advertiser, publisher, or your choice of 100+ affiliate networks. 

Push 🚀

Track and analyze high-growth push traffic sources running across  80+ different geos and regions while uncovering profitable campaigns on 10+ of the best push traffic sources.

#ProTip. Native has seen a massive resurgence in the last few months and, to date, is doing better than other geos that we’ve seen. For $249 a month, you can get exclusive access to all the latest competitive insights for Native traffic, including cutting-edge data from 7 different native networks, access to all major devices and browser activity across the world, and the ability to download any native landing page you like quickly. 

Do you have any advice for first-time affiliates?

Consistently, accurately, and regularly monitoring your campaigns should always be top of your list. Make sure you’re logging in and viewing running campaign performance at least every two days. Monitor your competitors regularly to see what they are bringing to the table and how you can get these elements into your campaign in a unique and attention-grabbing way. 

Keep in mind that competitors can also make mistakes, and your goal as an affiliate marketer should be to draw from the good stuff and leave out the rest. And, most importantly, a lot of affiliates will copy their competitor’s campaigns word for word and hope for the best. This is never the way to go.

Keep in mind that you’ll always be a step behind another affiliate if you piggyback off of what they have already put out to the world. They will always get the lion’s share of traffic with an original campaign. By the time you take the same campaign and “rip and run” with it, the content will be outdated, people will have most likely already seen it, and you’ll only generate a fraction of the conversions that the original campaign brought in. 

The goal is to take the best elements of a competitor’s campaign and treat it as a guideline. Then, go off and create something unique, creative, captivating, and, hopefully, entirely original. Always learn from your direct competitor’s mistakes. Analyze where they fell short and avoid falling into the same trap. You can generate more profit if you create your own content rather than directly copying from someone else. 

Would you recommend any verticals or ad formats? 

It does depend on where you are in your online advertising journey. For anyone who is just starting, pop and banner traffic is an excellent way to go. These ad formats are easier to set up, cheaper to buy, and dont need as much optimization effort and revisiting as other formats.

If you’re well into the affiliate marketing journey, I would recommend running campaigns on Native. As mentioned, Native has seen a boom in activity in recent months, and if you can use them strategically with the right offers in place, your conversions may start to climb sooner than you think. 

When it comes to verticals, we’ve seen consistent results across Nutra and related sub-verticals. People are still at home and not fully able to move around the way they used to. With restrictions still looming across most major geos, people are heavily investing in products and services that bring “on-the-go” self-betterment, health, and vitality into their homes. Any campaigns that fall in with health and wellness, beauty, exercise, and eating plans stand to do well. 

A word of caution? Avoid verticals that fluctuate too much. While offers around crypto have proven to be very profitable for some affiliates, they can be a nightmare for others. Stick with the products and services that stand the test of time and are not too heavily dependent on changes in trends, markets, and adoptions rates. 

Any Final Affiliate Thoughts? 

Always remember that affiliate marketing should be a full-time job. If you want to get the best possible results, you will need to put in consistent time and effort to perfect your campaigns and generate the highest possible engagement. 

In the wake of Covid-19, many people tried their hand at affiliate marketing,  thinking the industry is easier than it is. While the affiliate sector is massive, so is the competition. There is money to be made, but it doesnt come without hard work, sacrifice, and a little investment on your part. Invest your campaign budget back into the tools you need to be effective in affiliate marketing. 

When generating your next campaign, make sure you have the right competitive intelligence tools, optimization software, landing page builders, and ad network on your side. Read up on the latest trends in affiliate marketing, learn from and interact with seasoned affiliates on forums like STM and AffLIFT, and never settle.

When you get it right, affiliate marketing can give you the freedom you need to work for yourself from anywhere in the world. But it’s the consistent affiliates who can pivot with the changing times that genuinely build a legacy for themselves.

And, one last thing? Don’t get caught up in doing too much research. Yes, there are many resources out there that you can grow and learn from as an affiliate, but when it comes to affiliate marketing, it’s the practicality that counts. Create a campaign, test it out, target it to the right traffic, and learn from your mistakes where needed.

That’s it for now. Thanks to Dmitry and catch you on the next  Experts Edge. 

As always, feel free to reach out to your dedicated Advertiser Manager and/or support team for tried and test campaign setup/optimization tips. We’re always around and always happy to help. 

Leave a comment in the description below and tell us who you’d like to hear from next. 

Bye for now.