I submitted for verification – how long does it take?
I submitted for verification – how long does it take?
I posted a link but I haven't made any sales - what am I doing wrong?
Reason 1: You aren't driving many clicks
This is an obvious one: if you haven’t generated any clicks, or very few clicks, then you will not drive any sales. Just posting an affiliate link doesn’t mean your audience will click your link.
Your audience needs to click your affiliate link for us to track them. If very few people, or no people at all, have clicked your link, you won’t see sales just yet.
The average affiliate conversion rate on link clicks is 5.00%. This means for every 100 clicks, you should, in theory, drive 5 sales.
Check the amount of clicks you’ve had in your Dashboard:
- Go to Dashboard
- Filter by the link in the dropdown menu
- Select the date range
- Press Apply
You can then view how many clicks you’ve had over a certain time period.
Reason 2: You're not linking to a product page or the product is out of stock
Successful affiliates reduce friction between discovery and purchase.
If you’re linking to a homepage, then the user journey is difficult. If you’re linking to a product that’s out of stock or maybe even the completely wrong product, then your audience just simply won’t purchase.
Test your affiliate links and put yourself in the eyes of the user. You’ve done all the hard work getting them to click, so why are you letting them down at the last hurdle?
There are some sure-fire clues to figure out the problem:
- Test your affiliate links – literally just click them and see where they go. If they go to a homepage and you’re talking about a specific product, then go and make a new affiliate link to the product you’re talking about
- Is the product actually in stock? Check your link
We also recommend viewing how well your links are performing. You can do this by:
- My Links
- Filter to the link
- Click the ‘i’ icon to explore the stats of that link
A pop-up will open with all of your link statistics:
You can also view your link performance by clicking the link name.
This will take you to the Dashboard and pre-fill your link filtering option.
Reason 3: Consideration of purchase
Consumers are savvy. They will take their time, shop around for the best price and then purchase when they are ready. This is called the consideration of purchase, or how long it takes the user to actually make the purchase.
This is why we use first-party cookies to track when a user has clicked a link. It allows us, the network, to track them for a finite amount of time and be notified when they make a purchase.
The timeline from click to purchase all depends on what stage the user is at in their purchasing journey. Sometimes it could be instant, sometimes it could be 20-days.
Be patient, wait it out and see what happens. Affiliate marketing isn’t all about instant sales.
Posts related to this article
Explore other posts related to this article below, or head back to Affiliate Support.
How often do commissions get paid?
Confirmed commissions are paid on the 15th of the month for the previous months billing cycle.