SEO

How to Reclaim Your Keyword Data

Published

3 years ago

January 25, 2022

In Google Analytics, when you see “(not provided)” instead of the queries that led searchers to your website, this means Google is covering organic keywords data in the interest of protecting the privacy of searchers.

But no worries, this doesn’t mean you have configured your Google Analytics wrong or your data is lost. In this article, we’ll cover two solutions to the “not provided” problem and some tips on how to use your newly acquired keyword data:

Sidenote.

At the time of writing, Google Analytics 4, the successor of Universal Analytics, by default doesn’t show any organic keywords (or the “not provided” token) in the Acquisition report. To solve this problem, you can use the same solutions shown in this article.

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google designed to monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in the search results. On top of revealing organic queries that led to your website, you can use GSC to find and fix technical errors, submit sitemaps, see backlinks, and more.

To see your organic keywords data, you need to set up the tool. You can learn how to do this in our guide to setting up GSC.

Now, let’s see what type of data you will find in GSC. We’ll start with the main reason why you’d want to use GSC: You can see your organic keywords in the Performance report, which you’ll find here:

"Performance" tab to access Performance report

Once your data becomes available, you will see your keywords in the Queries tab located in the bottom panel:

Here’s what this data means:

Top queries refer to Google Search queries (i.e., keywords) that generated impressions of your website. This means whenever your website’s URL shows up in Google’s search results (this can be web search, image search, video search, or Google News), the keyword that caused that impression will be reported here.
Clicks are the number of clicks coming to your website’s URL from organic search results. Note this excludes paid Google Ads search results. Any click that takes the user outside of the search results is considered a click. And when someone clicks a link to a page, returns to the SERP (search engine results page), and then clicks on that page again, it counts only as one click.
Impressions are the number of times any URL from your website appeared in the search results. Note this does not necessarily imply the searcher has seen your website. This just means it has been displayed.

It may take a while for Google to start showing your data. But the good news is once your data is in, you’ll see up to 16 months of retroactive data.

Sidenote.

While GSC offers insight into the queries that led searchers to your website, it doesn’t show the entire data. The first limitation is that Google doesn’t show very rare queries (performed only by a few users; Google calls those “anonymous queries”). Secondly, GSC will only show you up to 1,000 keywords in its interface.

Other tabs in the Performance report will show you clicks and impressions for:

URLs of pages that were entered coming from the SERPs.
Countries where the search came from.
The type of device on which the search was performed.
Grouped data for specific types or features of search results (Search Appearance tab). This data is reserved for search results other than typical blue links, such as recipe galleries, review snippets, videos, how-to results, and more.
Dates (shown in Pacific Time Zone).

And so here it is. The first solution to “not provided” keywords is as simple as setting up GSC and waiting for your data to come in. But before we get into the second solution, let’s see what other things Google offers in the Performance report.

Starting from the top, we have the filters.

They allow you to display only data that meets certain criteria. By default, you can filter by search type and date. Additionally, the “Search type” filter allows you to compare sources:

You can also turn on additional filters for a particular query, page, country, or device.

Below the filters, you have the overview panel with another set of filters and a graph that dynamically displays the data set in filters and plotted against time. These filters also affect the data shown in the Keyword report. So if you tick the CTR filter, CTR data will be shown next to “Clicks” and “Impressions”:

Since we’ve already touched on clicks and impressions, let’s see what CTR (click-through rate) and average position are about:

CTR is the percentage of organic impressions that result in a click.
Average position is the average position of your site in the search results based on the site’s highest position whenever it appears in a search.

It’s worth noting that Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 users can integrate GSC data into Analytics to see all data in one tool.

To integrate your Google Universal Analytics with GSC, make sure you set up both services for the same property. Then access your Google Analytics and:

Choose your property (i.e., website you want to see data for).
Go to the Admin panel.
In the Product Linking section, choose All products.
Look for “Search Console” and click Link Search Console.
Follow the steps in the setup wizard to connect your GSC data with Universal Analytics data.

To integrate your Google Analytics 4 with GSC, make sure you have set up both services for the same property. Then access your Google Analytics and:

Choose your property (i.e., website you want to see data for).
Go to the Admin panel.
In the Product Linking section, choose Search Console Linking. If you don’t see that option yet, you may need to wait a few days; this is as the integration feature is still on the rollout.
In the Search Console linking panel, click Link.
Follow the steps in the setup wizard to connect your GSC data with Google Analytics 4 data.

That’s it for unlocking your organic keywords data in Google Analytics with the help of Search Console—our first solution. But that is not the end of your options for working with organic keywords. This brings us to the second solution for “not provided.”

As already mentioned, GSC has its limitations, with the most important being the 1,000-keyword limit. If you need to work around this limit, you can consider an SEO tool like Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT).

It is our free tool that allows you to improve your website’s SEO performance and get more traffic from search. AWT has four main advantages over GSC when it comes to organic keywords. It shows you:

All known keywords. No 1000-keyword limit here.
SEO metrics for pages and keywords.
A depersonalized SERP snapshot with competitive data.
SERP features for every keyword.

Also, the data concerning your website is available starting from the time our web crawler discovers and crawls your website. This means that with Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, you can access historical data older than 16 months (which is Search Console’s limit).

So let’s see how AWT works. Once you set it up, click on the “Organic keywords” widget in the project overview…

… and you will be directed to the Organic keywords report:

Organic keywords report results for Ahrefs' blog

By default, you will be presented with the following data (from left to right):

Keywords that searchers used to find your website—your solution to the “not provided” problem.
SF stands for SERP Features that appear in search results for a keyword.
Volume shows the number of average monthly searches for a keyword.
Keyword Difficulty (KD) gives an estimate of how hard it is to rank in the top 10 organic search results for a keyword on a 100-point scale.
Cost Per Click (CPC) shows the average price that advertisers pay for each ad click in paid search results for a keyword.
Traffic shows an estimation of the monthly organic search traffic that your target gets from a given keyword.
Change (next to Traffic) refers to the change in traffic between your selected dates.
Position is the top-ranking position of your target for a keyword.
Change (next to Position) refers to the change in position between your selected dates.
URL refers to the URL that is ranking in search results for a keyword.

Next to the URL data are two nifty tools that display competitive data about your keywords. The first one with the “line chart” icon shows the position history of the URL or URLs ranking for a keyword:

The second one shows you a depersonalized SERP overview for a keyword. Also, it allows you to view historical SERPs for a keyword.

SERP overview for keyword "affiliate marketing"

Above your keyword data, there are filters you can use to display data that meets certain criteria, such as the country where the keyword comes from, position in SERP, search volume, or search for a particular keyword.

As seen in the above screenshots, there’s a lot you can do with Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. Here, we’re only showing a fragment of the functionality related to organic keywords. In the video below, we go through other features that can help you in SEO and share how to set up the tool.

https://youtu.be/ipTk-qGrNlc

So there you have it—two different solutions to the “not provided” problem. Both are free to use. So go ahead and try them both without any commitments. You can even run them in parallel.

In fact, if you already have GSC up and running, it’s easier to set up Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, as you can verify your property in it using GSC. On top of that, you can see the GSC data overview right in AWT.

Line chart showing key data, e.g., total clicks and impressions

One last thing worth knowing about these solutions is they display data using different sources. Google displays data from its own services, and Ahrefs aggregates data from multiple sources.

Knowing which organic keywords bring traffic to your website is great. This is because you can use that knowledge to improve your SEO and grow your organic traffic. Here are three quick ideas to do that. Note that we will be using both GSC and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.

1. Optimize pages with underperforming keywords

Underperforming keywords are those keywords where you don’t rank in positions #1 or #2. The reason being most people click one of the first two search results. And if you’re not one of those results, you’ll miss out on a lot of organic traffic.

SERP overview showing Ahrefs' organic traffic is around 1.2K, lesser than top-ranking pages that get 3-4K

Ranking #6 for a competitive keyword is really good, but that position gives us less than half of the organic traffic that higher-ranking pages get.

To find your underperforming keywords using Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, access your Organic keywords report by clicking on the “Organic keywords” widget in the project overview. Once in the report, set the country you want to see data for. Also, set the Position filter to “3.”

In a flash, you will get a list of keywords that rank in position #3 or lower. These are the keywords that are underperforming.

Now you can browse through that list to create a shortlist of pages for optimization. A good practice is to use the SERP tool to see who ranks above you in the SERPs. That way, you can gauge the probability of outranking them. To illustrate, there is little chance for us to outperform Google for the keyword “google keyword planner.”

SERP overview for keyword "google keyword planner"

As for the optimization itself, here are a few ideas on what you can do:

2. Optimize pages with low CTR but high keyword ranking

If you remember from the previous sections, CTR is the percentage of organic impressions that result in a click to your website.

Generally, a page with a high ranking on the SERP should analogically have a high CTR. This is as people tend to click search results with high rankings. And the higher the CTR, the higher the traffic to your site.

But in some cases, pages ranking high can have a lower than average CTR. With the help of GSC, you can quickly find these pages, analyze the cause of their performance, and see if there’s a way to improve CTR.

To do this, go to the Performance report in GSC. Tick the Average CTR and the “Average position” filters. Then filter for keywords with average rankings below 3.1. This way, you will see pages that you already rank for in the top three.

Now sort the report by CTR in ascending order. Then look for keywords with lots of impressions but low CTR. Here’s an example of such a keyword.

Keyword "diy seo" with around 7.2K impressions but CTR is 2.1%

As you can probably guess, for position #3 in the SERP, the CTR here should be way higher. Meaning, we’re somehow missing out on a lot of potential traffic that could go to our article on DIY SEO.

In the case of this keyword, the cause of low performance can be seen just by analyzing the SERP. Our webpage, though ranking high, is “buried” under ads, a featured snippet, a video carousel, and a People Also Ask box. Those elements of the SERP probably get the most attention from searchers.

Google SERP showing many elements above Ahrefs' article

So a viable solution, in this case, is to try and optimize our article on DIY SEO to win a featured snippet.

3. Find easy keywords to rank for

As you may know, a single page can rank for hundreds of keywords. (We even did a study on this subject.) Some of the keywords can even cause a page to be ranked unintentionally. This means Google can associate a webpage with a keyword even if you haven’t specifically targeted the keyword with a page.

When that happens, this is a sign you should create new content optimized for that “unintentional” keyword. If so, you could get more traffic than what you currently receive. And the lower the KD, the easier it is generally to create content that will rank high.

You can look for low-difficulty keywords using the KD metric in Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. Just open the Organic keywords report and put something low like “20” in the KD filter. Then sort the results by volume to spot opportunities with the highest potential. Here’s an example from a blog on web design:

Low-difficulty keyword "tinder ui" in Organic keywords report

As you can see, the “tinder ui” keyword has a high search volume. But it doesn’t bring any traffic to the page that ranks for it because of the low position in the SERP. However, creating new, dedicated content targeting that keyword could help the blog rank higher and get additional organic traffic.

Final thoughts

In this article, we’ve seen two different solutions for incomplete keyword reports in Google Analytics (both Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4). Both Search Console and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools will provide insight into the organic keywords that brought people to your website and/or made your website appear in the SERPs.

But if you want to go beyond just knowing what your organic keywords are, I recommend keeping both of those free tools running in parallel. This way, you will have access to more data and can spot more opportunities for growth, as shown in the three SEO tips above.

And if you’re serious about growing organic traffic, tools like GSC and AWT are simply must-haves.

Want to learn more than just the SEO tactics mentioned here? Head to our complete guide on SEO.

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.

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SEO

Plot Up To Five Metrics At Once

Published

2 hours ago

September 7, 2024

Max

Google has rolled out changes to Analytics, adding features to help you make more sense of your data.

The update brings several key improvements:

You can now compare up to five different metrics side by side.
A new tool automatically spots unusual trends in your data.
A more detailed report on transactions gives a closer look at revenue.
The acquisition reports now separate user and session data more clearly.
It’s easier to understand what each report does with new descriptions.

Here’s an overview of these new features, why they matter, and how they might help improve your data analysis and decision-making.

▶ ️We’ve introduced plot rows in detailed reports. You can now visualize up to 5 rows of data directly within your detailed reports to measure their changes over time.

We’ve also launched these new report features:

🔎: Anomaly detection to flag unusual data fluctuations
📊:… pic.twitter.com/VDPXe2Q9wQ

— Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) September 5, 2024

Plot Rows: Enhanced Data Visualization

The most prominent addition is the “Plot Rows” feature.

You can now visualize up to five rows of data simultaneously within your reports, allowing for quick comparisons and trend analysis.

This feature is accessible by selecting the desired rows and clicking the “Plot Rows” option.

Anomaly Detection: Spotting Unusual Patterns

Google Analytics has implemented an anomaly detection system to help you identify potential issues or opportunities.

This new tool automatically flags unusual data fluctuations, making it easier to spot unexpected traffic spikes, sudden drops, or other noteworthy trends.

Improved Report Navigation & Understanding

Google Analytics has added hover-over descriptions for report titles.

These brief explanations provide context and include links to more detailed information about each report’s purpose and metrics.

Key Event Marking In Events Report

The Events report allows you to mark significant events for easy reference.

This feature, accessed through a three-dot menu at the end of each event row, helps you prioritize and track important data points.

New Transactions Report For Revenue Insights

For ecommerce businesses, the new Transactions report offers granular insights into revenue streams.

This feature provides information about each transaction, utilizing the transaction_id parameter to give you a comprehensive view of sales data.

Scope Changes In Acquisition Reports

Google has refined its acquisition reports to offer more targeted metrics.

The User Acquisition report now includes user-related metrics such as Total Users, New Users, and Returning Users.

Meanwhile, the Traffic Acquisition report focuses on session-related metrics like Sessions, Engaged Sessions, and Sessions per Event.

What To Do Next

As you explore these new features, keep in mind:

Familiarize yourself with the new Plot Rows function to make the most of comparative data analysis.
Pay attention to the anomaly detection alerts, but always investigate the context behind flagged data points.
Take advantage of the more detailed Transactions report to understand your revenue patterns better.
Experiment with the refined acquisition reports to see which metrics are most valuable for your needs.

As with any new tool, there will likely be a learning curve as you incorporate these features into your workflow.

FAQ

What is the “Plot Rows” feature in Google Analytics?

The “Plot Rows” feature allows you to visualize up to five rows of data at the same time. This makes it easier to compare different metrics side by side within your reports, facilitating quick comparisons and trend analysis. To use this feature, select the desired rows and click the “Plot Rows” option.

How does the new anomaly detection system work in Google Analytics?

Google Analytics’ new anomaly detection system automatically flags unusual data patterns. This tool helps identify potential issues or opportunities by spotting unexpected traffic spikes, sudden drops, or other notable trends, making it easier for users to focus on significant data fluctuations.

What improvements have been made to the Transactions report in Google Analytics?

The enhanced Transactions report provides detailed insights into revenue for ecommerce businesses. It utilizes the transaction_id parameter to offer granular information about each transaction, helping businesses get a better understanding of their revenue streams.

Featured Image: Vladimka production/Shutterstock

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SEO

Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Platforms To Maximize Sales In 2024

Published

22 hours ago

September 6, 2024

Max

Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Platforms To Maximize Sales In 2024

Affiliate marketing has been experiencing explosive growth in recent years, so it’s essential now more than ever for brands to run affiliate programs of their own.

It involves brands hiring affiliates to promote their products and services and rewarding them with a commission from every sale.

As such, affiliate marketing is an excellent low-cost and low-risk way for brands to drive sales and brand awareness without hiring an in-house advertising and marketing team of their own.

Affiliate marketing spending worldwide is estimated at around $14 billion in 2024 – and the industry is predicted to reach a worth of over $38 billion by 2031.

Affiliate Marketing And SEO

Affiliate marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) both share a common goal of attracting relevant and high-quality traffic to a site with the goal of increasing sales.

As such, both of these marketing activities shouldn’t be perceived as two separate, competing entities.

Instead, you should look at them as one and the same that work together in perfect harmony to increase website traffic and generate more revenue.

The most successful publishers in the affiliate marketing space combine the two to get the best of both worlds.

SEO affiliate marketing involves choosing the right products and affiliate programs that attract the most search traffic and offer the best commissions.

Publishers often make the most of affiliate marketing by creating content that adds real value for their readers and prioritizes their experience.

Publishers often do this by creating “Best of” or “Top X” oriented posts that address their audience’s needs and pain points, while, at the same time, allowing them to monetize their content by using affiliate links throughout the posts.

By adding relevant and contextual affiliate links in such posts, publishers foster an authentic user experience that puts their readers first.

This is one of the most significant advantages of affiliate marketing compared to alternative marketing methods such as sponsored posts.

Today’s consumers are increasingly distancing themselves from heavily business-oriented content, as it’s often perceived as inauthentic and disingenuous.

By focusing on high-quality content that adds value to readers and combining it with relevant and contextual affiliate links, everyone wins!

Additionally, Google rewards publishers who create original content and add real value for their readers.

They reward such publishers by placing them higher in search results and driving more traffic to them.

But, in today’s highly competitive and increasingly dynamic market, how can brands find the time to manage and grow their affiliate marketing program?

The answer is with the help of the right affiliate marketing software that streamlines the entire process.

Once upon a time, running a successful affiliate marketing program meant manually managing every aspect – a time-consuming and inefficient process.

Thankfully, these days, affiliate marketing software and solutions have evolved to offer all the necessary tools in a single place, which simplifies the whole process and enables brands to optimize their programs and focus on growth.

Therefore, brands need to utilize the right affiliate marketing software to stay competitive and maximize ROI in today’s highly competitive affiliate marketing space.

This article will go over what affiliate marketing software is and what makes a great affiliate software platform.

We’ll also review the top 10 affiliate marketing software platforms that brands can use to take their affiliate program to the next level.

What Is An Affiliate Marketing Software?

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing software is a comprehensive tool that facilitates all aspects of affiliate marketing program management.

It allows brands to track, manage, and grow their affiliate marketing campaigns.

Most affiliate marketing software platforms share standard features such as affiliate onboarding, collaboration with affiliate partners, affiliate tracking and reporting, and referral, cost, and commission payment management.

What Makes A Good Affiliate Marketing Software Platform?

Though most affiliate marketing software platforms share many of the same features, what sets apart the good platforms from the bad is what’s important.

For starters, the actual platform must have an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

An affiliate marketing platform can boast all of the best affiliate tools and features available.

Still, it’s a moot effort if the dashboard is complicated for most people.

Additionally, since brands usually utilize a variety of Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms for ecommerce and affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing software platforms need to offer tons of third-party SaaS integrations.

The best affiliate marketing software platforms offer robust tracking and reporting capabilities.

Brands need to be able to precisely track their affiliate sales and access real-time granular data to measure the ROI of their affiliate campaigns effectively.

Additionally, a good affiliate marketing platform will provide brands with all the affiliate tools they need to launch, manage, promote, and scale their affiliate programs, such as flexible commission management and customizable real-time affiliate tracking and reporting capabilities.

At the same time, they should offer their clients peace of mind by providing the highest level of fraud detection and other security features.

Lastly, the best affiliate marketing software platforms mean nothing if there isn’t quality customer service available 24/7 to back it up. Readily available customer assistance is equally important for brands as it is for affiliates.

Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Software

1. Refersion

Screenshot from refersion.com, August 2024

With over 60,000+ registered merchants, 6.6 million affiliates managed, and $2 billion in affiliate revenue tracked, Refersion is one of the leading affiliate marketing software platforms on the market.

Its robust and highly personalized dashboard allows brands to manage all aspects of their affiliate program, such as monitoring all aspects of their affiliate activity with extensive real-time reporting capability.

Refersion offers brands all the tools they need to scale and promote their affiliate programs, such as managing commissions, payouts, and providing simplified tax automation. It also offers easy integration with popular tools like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.

While Refersion does come with a higher price point than some competitors – starting at $99 per month – it’s hard to find a solution that offers the same level of top-notch affiliate tools, marketplace, and customer service.

Pricing:

The professional tier starts at $99/month (if paid annually) for up to 50 monthly order conversions.
The business tier starts at $249/month (if paid annually) for up to 200 monthly order conversions.
The enterprise tier is available with unlimited monthly order conversions – you’ll need to contact Refersion for pricing details.

2. Impact

Screenshot from Impact.com, August 2024

Impact is one of the biggest affiliate marketing software platforms for cloud automation.

Its signature product, the Impact Partnership Cloud, allows brands to automate their affiliate and influencer marketing campaigns. It offers a marketplace where brands can connect with a network of affiliates, influencers, ambassadors, and other possible partners.

The platform’s tools also include dynamic commissioning, reporting, advanced analytics, and third-party integrations for companies to track and manage their affiliate programs.

However, pricing is not readily available, and you must contact the Impact sales team for a custom quote.

Pricing:

Custom quotes are available upon request.

3. Tapfiliate

Screenshot from Tapfiliate.com, August 2024

For businesses primarily operating and generating their revenue on ecommerce SaaS platforms, Tapfiliate may be a great choice.

It features a range of automation capabilities, including an autopilot mode that can automate things such as onboarding new affiliates, sharing via social media, or even drip campaigns.

Tapfiliate easily integrates with major ecommerce players like Shopify and WooCommerce, and offers advanced tracking and reporting capabilities. However, most of the features are accessible only through the Pro plan, which starts at $149 a month – nothing to sneeze at.

Pricing:

The essential plan starts at $74/month for 1 team member and basic features.
The pro plan starts at $124/month for 5 team members and more advanced features.
The enterprise plan offers custom pricing for unlimited team members, unlimited tracking requests, a dedicated personal manager, and more.

4. Awin

Screenshot from Awin.com, August 2024

Awin, previously known as Zanox, merged with Affilinet in 2017 to become one of the largest affiliate marketing platforms, providing “unlimited access to over 1M vetted partners.”

It features a handful of marketing and reporting features you’d expect from such an extensive network, like tools for cross-device tracking, real-time reporting, and automated compliance management.

The platform’s Awin Access program is an interesting option for smaller businesses or teams newer to affiliate marketing, as it offers a straightforward setup process and flexible pricing to make joining the network easier.

Registration is free on Awin, but it uses a performance-based pricing model. This means brands pay a predetermined cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and specific pricing details are only available upon request.

Pricing:

Custom quotes are available upon request.

5. CAKE

Screenshot from getcake.com, August 2024

CAKE is another SaaS-based affiliate marketing platform, meaning you can access it from anywhere (with an Internet connection).

CAKE partners with a bunch of partners to offer a variety of streamlined and automated features. It’s known for its great tracking and reporting capabilities, which enable you to follow and optimize your campaigns in real time.

The platform boasts more than 500 advertisers, networks, and publishers across 50+ countries, and it offers 24/7 customer support to its users. It has customizable features, granular data analysis, and impressive fraud protection to give customers peace of mind.

Unfortunately, CAKE’s pricing is not readily available on its website. It also doesn’t feature any pre-made promotional tools for marketers, which doesn’t make it quite suitable for novice users just starting out with their affiliate program

Pricing:

Custom quotes are available upon request.

6. ClickBank

Screenshot from ClickBank.com, August 2024

ClickBank was one of the first affiliate platforms, launching all the way back in 1998. Since then, it’s grown to one of the largest affiliate marketplaces with over 200 million customers.

According to the company’s website, there are 300,000+ daily purchases made on ClickBank – and it boasts $4.2B in paid commissions.

ClickBank stands out for its native support for subscription services, which makes it easy for brands to create one-click, repeatable purchases. This allows them to provide monthly products without requiring manual monthly payments.

It also offers some of the standard features commonly found on most affiliate platforms, such as affiliate reporting, payments, commissions management, and third-party integrations. It’s quick and easy to list your products and set up affiliate programs on the platform.

However, compared to some of the other affiliate platforms on this list, it doesn’t offer a demo, free trial, or monthly pricing. Instead, ClickBank charges a one-time activation to list products on the platform and then a fee per sale.

Pricing:

One-Time Activation Fee: $49.95.
Transaction Fee: 7.5% + $1 per sale.

7. CJ Affiliate

Screenshot from cj.com, August 2024

CJ Affiliate is a well-known and reputable affiliate marketing platform. It offers access to hundreds of advertisers, publishers, and potential partners in one platform.

CJ Affiliate provides a customizable dashboard and a variety of reports and specialized tools, including advanced tracking and reporting capabilities. Most notably, it offers specialized tools, such as Deep Link Automation and Product Widgets, that enable brands to improve their affiliate program ROI.

While CJ Affiliate is a great choice for businesses of all sizes, it’s worth noting that the company doesn’t provide a free trial or demo, operates on a performance-based pricing model, and you’ll need to reach out for specific details.

Pricing:

Custom quotes are available upon request.

8. TUNE

Screenshot from Tune.com, August 2024

Designed for companies that require detailed tracking and analytics, TUNE allows brands to build, manage, and grow their affiliate partner networks through its proprietary marketing technology.

TUNE offers a flexible platform, which users can tweak and tailor to fit their needs. Within the platform, you have customizable tools, commissions, payments, and real-time affiliate tracking and reporting.

However, it doesn’t provide affiliate promotional tools like most other platforms, and there is no straightforward pricing listed on the website.

It does, however, list details on its different plans, including a Pro Plan with basic features up to an Enterprise Plan with features like custom integrations, premium support, enhanced fraud prevention, and more.

Pricing:

Custom quote available upon request.

9. LeadDyno

Screenshot from LeadDyno.com, August 2024

LeadDyno specializes in affiliate program promotion and perhaps offers the most promotional tools available in an affiliate marketing software platform.

LeadDyno offers tools that enable brands to create various promotional campaigns, such as email, newsletters, and social media campaigns, making it a wonderful choice for companies that want to expand the reach of their programs.

It provides a straightforward user experience that makes it easy to onboard affiliates, track your performance, and manage payouts. Extensive real-time tracking and reporting features give businesses the ability to monitor and optimize their campaigns.

Pricing is on the affordable side and LeadDyno offers a free trial – which not all tools on this list do!

Pricing:

The lite plan starts at $49/month for up to 50 active affiliates, one commission plan, one reward structure, and other basics.
The essential plan is $129.month and offers up to 150 active affiliates, three commission plans, and one reward structure, as well as other advanced features like a landing page, 1:1 call and video support, and more.
The advanced plan is $349/month and offers up to 500 active affiliates, unlimited reward structures and commission plans, and many other advanced features.
The unlimited plan is $749/month and offers unlimited active affiliates, unlimited reward structures and commission plans, and more.

10. ShareASale

Screenshot from ShareASale.com, August 2024

With over 20 years of experience, ShareASale has been around for quite some time. It’s a reliable solution for merchants and affiliates alike, and carries a variety of tools to help boost your affiliate marketing programs.

If you’re looking for an extensive network of affiliates and partners across a ton of industries, ShareASale is a good option for you. You’ll also get access to customizable affiliable management, real-time tracking, detailed reporting, custom banner, and link generation, and plenty more.

One thing to note: like a few of the other tools listed here, ShareASale uses a performance-based pricing model that includes a one-time network access fee and then transaction fees.

Pricing:

There is a one-time setup fee of $650.
Transaction fees: 20% of each affiliate commission, with a minimum of $35/month.

Wrapping Up

Great affiliate marketing solutions enable brands to easily launch and manage affiliate programs, as well as track referrals and sales made by their affiliate partners.

The best affiliate marketing software provides brands with all the tools needed to launch, promote, and grow their affiliate program.

At the same time, they provide customizable and easy-to-use reporting capabilities for real-time performance tracking.

Without reliable tracking and reporting tools, brands cannot effectively assess the success and profitability of their affiliate campaigns and partnerships.

More resources:

Featured Image: Panchenko Vladimir/Shutterstock

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SEO

Early Analysis & User Feedback

Published

2 days ago

September 5, 2024

Max

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has introduced a prototype of SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine.

The launch has sparked considerable interest, leading to discussions about its potential to compete with Google.

However, early studies and user feedback indicate that while SearchGPT shows promise, it has limitations and needs more refinement.

Experts suggest it needs further development before challenging current market leaders.

Study Highlights SearchGPT’s Strengths and Weaknesses

SE Ranking, an SEO software company, conducted an in-depth analysis of SearchGPT’s performance and compared it to Google and Bing.

The study found that SearchGPT’s search results are 73% similar to Bing’s but only 46% similar to Google’s.

Interestingly, 26% of domains ranking in SearchGPT receive no traffic from Google, indicating opportunities for websites struggling to gain traction.

The study highlighted some of SearchGPT’s key features, including:

The ability to summarize information from multiple sources Provide a conversational interface for refining searches Offering an ad-free user experience.
However, the research noted that SearchGPT lacks the variety and depth of Google’s search results, especially for navigational, transactional, and local searches.
The study also suggested that SearchGPT favors authoritative, well-established websites, with backlinks being a significant ranking factor.

Around 32% of all SearchGPT results came from media sources, increasing to over 75% for media-related queries.

SE Ranking notes that SearchGPT needs improvement in providing the latest news, as some news results were outdated.

User Experiences & Limitations Reported By The Washington Post

The Washington Post interviewed several early testers of SearchGPT and reported mixed reviews.

Some users praised the tool’s summarization capabilities and found it more helpful than Google’s AI-generated answers for certain queries.

Others, however, found SearchGPT’s interface and results less impressive than those of smaller competitors like Perplexity.

The article also highlighted instances where SearchGPT provided incorrect or “hallucinated” information, a problem that has plagued other AI chatbots.

While the SE Ranking study estimated that less than 1% of searches returned inaccurate results, The Washington Post says there’s significant room for improvement.

The article also highlighted Google’s advantage in handling shopping and local queries due to its access to specialized data, which can be expensive to acquire.

Looking Ahead: OpenAI’s Plans For SearchGPT and Potential Impact on the Market

OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood revealed that the company plans to integrate SearchGPT’s best features into ChatGPT, potentially enhancing the popular language model’s capabilities.

When asked about the possibility of including ads in SearchGPT, Wood stated that OpenAI’s business model is based on subscriptions but didn’t specify whether SearchGPT would be offered for free or as part of a ChatGPT subscription.

Despite the excitement surrounding SearchGPT, Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently reported continued growth in the company’s search revenue, suggesting that Google may maintain its dominant position even with the emergence of new AI-powered search tools.

Top Takeaways

Despite its current limitations, SearchGPT has the potential to shake up online information seeking. As OpenAI iterates based on user feedback, its impact may grow significantly.

Integrating SearchGPT’s best features into ChatGPT could create a more powerful info-seeking tool. The proposed subscription model raises questions about competition with free search engines and user adoption.

While Google’s search revenue and specialized query handling remain strong, SearchGPT could carve out its own niche. The two might coexist, serving different user needs.

For SearchGPT to truly compete, OpenAI must address accuracy issues, expand query capabilities, and continuously improve based on user input. It could become a viable alternative to traditional search engines with ongoing development.

Featured Image: Robert Way/Shutterstock

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