As an affiliate marketer, you may have hundreds — or even thousands — of affiliated links across your website, social media accounts, and other online properties. Inevitably some of those links will break over time, as merchandise goes out of stock, product lines change, and retailers update their offerings. In fact, our audit data shows that up to 10% of links are broken at any given time.
The problem is, broken links can’t help you earn affiliate revenue — even if they’re still getting clicks. Broken links also diminish the user experience, which can damage both your audience relationships and your SEO performance.
Until now, tracking down broken links was a time-consuming, manual process. So most publishers have no idea how many broken links they have or how much revenue they might be missing. That’s why we created a new report to help you get broken links under control.
The easy way to find — and fix — broken affiliate links
With the new broken links report in Sovrn Commerce, there’s now an easy way to find and fix broken links across all your content. This customizable report provides granular data on all the broken links across your online properties for a given timeframe (today, yesterday, last 7 days, last 30 days, etc.). Data points in the report include:
- Campaign ID
- Site name
- Destination URL
- Number of clicks in the chosen timeframe
- Status code (404 or 403)
Each report displays up to 3,000 broken links — and all broken links are flagged, regardless of whether they were created through our mobile app, Chrome extension, JavaScript snippet, or the Sovrn Commerce platform. Broken links with the highest number of clicks are shown at the top of the list, so you can easily prioritize which links to fix first. (You can find more details about the new broken links report in this article.)
And updating your broken links couldn’t be simpler. Just make the change once in the Commerce platform and it will be reflected anywhere you’ve used that affiliate link. Only Sovrn gives you the power to find and fix broken links in a flash — and manage links for all your affiliate networks in one convenient location.
How to use the broken links report
The broken links report can be generated on demand, any time you need it. Just click the “Reports” button in the Sovrn Commerce platform, select the site(s) and timeframe you want to investigate, and click “Broken links report.” A customized report will be delivered to the user’s inbox, showing detailed information on up to 3,000 broken links within the chosen parameters.
Pro tip: Each report is sent to just one user account, but Sovrn Commerce has no per-seat licensing fee — so you can create as many user accounts as you need, with no additional cost.
There are two primary use cases for auditing your links with the new Commerce broken links report.
- Unexpected performance dip: If a particular product, merchant, or campaign isn’t driving the revenue you expected, broken links may be the culprit. Simply run this handy report to see if any broken links need to be fixed.
- Part of your regular QA process: Reviewing the broken links report on a regular basis can be a great addition to your existing quality assurance process — whether that’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
Drive more affiliate revenue with Sovrn
Sovrn Commerce puts deep insights at your fingertips, so you’ll be better equipped to optimize your commerce strategy and make smart decisions for the future. The new broken links report is just one example of the robust reporting capabilities you get with Sovrn Commerce. Other key reports include:
- Revenue report: Granular transaction data within an hour of the transaction, so you’ll always know how much you’re going to earn. Report data includes product, merchant, revenue earned, transaction date, and more.
- CUID/UTM report: Link-level performance metrics based on the UTM tracking parameters and custom tracking identifiers (CUID) built into your affiliate links.
- Non-monetized clicks report: Insights into affiliate clicks that fail to earn revenue, often due to merchant restrictions on device type or click origin.
- Approved merchant report: A comprehensive list of affiliate merchants you’re approved to work with, including approved countries, estimated commissions, and estimated conversion rates.
- Merchants at risk report: Lists any merchant programs that have recently been paused or canceled, along with your earnings with these merchants over the last 30 days.
If you’re a current Sovrn Commerce customer, feel free to reach out with questions. Our support team is standing by to help you meet your revenue goals.
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