Track Affiliate Links to Improve Mom Blog Sales

By Wendy Piersall from Mom Blogging For Dummies

A Sub-ID, SID, is a bit of text that you can add to most affiliate links that will be tracked throughout the sales process. As you start getting more established with using affiliate links, you’ll find instances in which you want to know more specifics about how a sale took place.

Especially if you use the same link on many different pages, you’ll want to know which of those pages generated commissions for you. The easiest way to do this is by creating a SID. When the sale is complete, the affiliate network can tell you which link generated a sale by telling you which SID you used.

Because SIDs are optional, they aren’t created automatically in your links. You have to add them yourself, putting them into the SID field as you create your affiliate links. In affiliate networks, you can add unlimited SIDs to your links.

Amazon is a bit more limited, because it doesn’t offer the use of SIDs to its affiliates. Instead, it offers the capability to create multiple tracking IDs. This accomplishes the same purpose, but Amazon limits its Associates to 100 tracking IDs per account.

Here’s how to create a new tracking ID in the Amazon affiliate program:

Log in to your Amazon Associates account.
From your Associates Dashboard, click the Account Settings text link in the upper right corner of the page.
Under the Account Information section, click Manage Your Tracking IDs.
Click the Add Tracking ID button.
Type in a new tracking ID name in the text field and click the Search button.

Name the new ID in a manner that makes it easy to remember what it’s for. If you want to use this tracking ID to track your links only in your Photography category, for example, name it something like JillPhoto. When a tracking ID is taken in the system, then no other associate can use the same ID. So basic names such as “photo” won’t be available.
If the tracking ID you selected is available, then click the Continue button to confirm the creation of the new ID.

If the name you want is already taken, Amazon will suggest alternative names for your ID that are similar to your original request. You can either select one of these or search for a new ID using the previous steps until you find one that’s available.

When your new tracking IDs are available in Amazon, you can choose from any of your tracking IDs when you create your Amazon affiliate links. To do this, select the name you want to use in the Tracking ID drop-down list in the upper-left corner of the page.

Any links you create while this selection appears will have the appropriate tracking ID in your affiliate link code. You can change this at any time. If you do not select an ID name in the Tracking ID drop-down list, then your links will be created with your default ID.