Links, Affiliates and Banners - tools to make you money!
Date: 20-11-2007 17:16 Views: 4356
Anyone can use their site to make money and MonkeyCMS comes with a variety of tools to help you do just that. You can track banners, links and define categorised affiliates and this tutorial shows you how to make the most of these features.
It's easy enough to post links to affiliated companies or hard code banners and links into your templates, but tracking of clicks on banners, links and affiliates enables you to make the most of your site's earning potential. It is very useful to see which are the most popular affiliates so you can either focus more on advertising them or alternatively try to boost those that aren't as successful. Likewise, some banners attract more clicks than others and being able to see just how popular a particular graphic is helps you encourage more clicks and sales.
MonkeyCMS comes with three sets of tools to track links, banners and affiliates...
Links
At the most basic, you can post a link on your site passing it through the clickedlink.php script. Every click is recorded by date and you can quickly see which links are the most popular.
All you need to do to make use of this feature is prepend any link with clickedlink.php?url= - it really is as simple as that.
You can view link statistics at any time from the admin interface by clicking Links > Links > Link Statistics - you can view the statistics for the current day, or even since you started recording click throughs.
Banners
Banners are different from links and are the most obvious form of advertising on most web sites. MonkeyCMS incorporates an easy-to-use banner manager and banner statistics application. There is also a simple function (bannerad) to quickly drop banners onto your site from any template with the minimum of fuss.
Banner Manager
The Banner Manager allows you to create new banners and modify existing banners. Navigate to the Banner Manager by clicking Links > Banners > Banner Manager - there are two options, Active or All, Active banners are those that are currently live on your site whereas banners that are currently not live (ie their active dates are outside of the current date) are only visible by clicking the 'All' option.
For now, the Active banners are of most interest. Below is a screen grab of the MonkeyCMS site banner manager - there is just on active banner at the time of the screen grab.
The Banner Manager gives some basic information that helps you identify banners at a glance. From the left, we have the active dates - the date they become live and the date that the banner is scheduled to end. Then we have the identifying name for the banner, it's 'area' and some basic statistics for the current month.
You can edit banners, delete banners and create new banners from this screen. You can also click on one of the displays or clicks links to view detailed statistics for the banner.
Editing or Creating a Banner
The Create and Edit process for any banner is reasonably similar. For this tutorial, we'll create a new banner by clicking on the New Banner link. If you want to edit an existing banner, either click on the descriptive title or the edit icon (
). Below is a screenshot of the blank New Banner screen.
There are a number of fields:
How are your banners performing?
To view how your banners are performing just navigate to Links > Banners > Banner Statistics. Here you will be presented on an overview of the current month's statistics. It will show you each banner, the number of times that banner has been displayed and the number of clicks that have been placed. If applicable it will also show a percentage conversion rate for each banner.
There is also a less detailed overview showing the total number of banner displays, clicks and the overall conversion rate for your site.
For more detailed statistics you have two options - one is a daily breakdown covering all banners, the other is a detailed look at one specific banner. To view the 'Daily' overview, just click on the 'Daily' link at the top of the statistics page.
Here you will be shown the number of displays and clicks for each day of the selected month. This will be displayed as both a table and in a graphical form (on servers configured to support the GD image library).
The final, and most useful option is the detailed banner breakdown - you can view detailed statistics for any banner by clicking it's name on the main banner statistics overview page.
This overview will display the banner itself, detail the daily statistics for the selected banner and will also display a detailed graph (where possible) showing both the selected banner's statistics and how they compare to your site's overall averages.
Displaying your banners
Banners are displayed on your site using the bannerad content function.
Affilates
Affiliates are another common form of internet advertising. In most cases you sign up to a central affiliate company such as 'Affiliate Future' or 'Affiliate Window' and they act as an agent for any number of internet-based retailers. There are a huge number of big name companies making use of the affiliate networks and marketplace and it's a good way of getting reputable advertisers for your site.
In most cases you would be paid a specific percentage, usually 2-5%, of each sale made by users who click your affiliate links.
MonkeyCMS allows you to track clicks for each affiliate - both general clicks to an affiliate and 'deeplinks' to affiliate product pages. You can also categorise affiliates to create a shopping 'directory' for your site and users.
Categories
Before you start creating affiliates and using them on your site, it is worth while thinking about how you want to organise them - for example, on an entertainment focussed site you might want categories for film, music and book retailers. Once you have decided on your categories you can create them in the 'Affiliate Categories' section of the admin control panel (Links > Affiliates > Affiliate Categories)
Affiliate Manager
Managing affiliates and links is done through the Affiliate Manager (Links > Affiliates > Affiliate Manager). The first thing you will be shown here is a list of your current affiliates along with a basic statistical overview for each. You can edit, delete and create new affiliates from this screen.
For this tutorial, we'll create a new affiliate, but to edit an existing one just click either the company name or the edit icon against that specific company. To create a new affiliate, scroll to the bottom of your affiliate list and click New Affiliate.
This will show the following screen:
There are a number of fields:
Affiliate Statistics
To track the effective of your affiliate campaigns, you can visit the Affiliate Statistics screen (Links > Affiliates > Affiliate Statistics). The default view on this screen shows the full list of your affiliates along with some basic statistics for the current month for each - the number of direct product clicks, the number of 'site' clicks and the total number of clicks.
You can jump backwards to earlier months by clicking the small < next to the current month displayed at the top of the page.
You can view more detailed statistics for any affiliate by clicking on their name. This will display a daily break down of all of the clicks for that affiliate along with a graphical representation (server permitting)...
You can also view a list of all direct product clicks by clicking on the number - either on the main affiliate overview OR on the daily breakdown screen. This enables you to view which are the most popular links for your users.
Displaying Affiliate links on your site
There are a number of functions aimed at affiliate links:
affiliatelist
affiliatecategories
featuredaffiliate
In addition, you can enter your own affiliate links into content using the 'Affiliate Helper' (
) which can be viewed from any Add / Edit Content screen.
The script handling affiliate link tracking is affiliatelink.php and it accepts two parameters - localaffiliateid and url - the first is the numeric ID for the affiliate assigned by MonkeyCMS and the other is the optional URL for a product on the affiliate site.
Closing Words
As with most aspects of the software, MonkeyCMS gives you a number of powerful tools to help improve your link tracking and increase your chances of making money from your site. However, it should be remembered that users want content first and foremost and no-one is interested in sites that are plagued with ads and popups.
Use these tools sparingliy and tailor your banners and affiliates to your audience and you could reap the rewards...
It's easy enough to post links to affiliated companies or hard code banners and links into your templates, but tracking of clicks on banners, links and affiliates enables you to make the most of your site's earning potential. It is very useful to see which are the most popular affiliates so you can either focus more on advertising them or alternatively try to boost those that aren't as successful. Likewise, some banners attract more clicks than others and being able to see just how popular a particular graphic is helps you encourage more clicks and sales.
MonkeyCMS comes with three sets of tools to track links, banners and affiliates...
Links
At the most basic, you can post a link on your site passing it through the clickedlink.php script. Every click is recorded by date and you can quickly see which links are the most popular.
All you need to do to make use of this feature is prepend any link with clickedlink.php?url= - it really is as simple as that.
You can view link statistics at any time from the admin interface by clicking Links > Links > Link Statistics - you can view the statistics for the current day, or even since you started recording click throughs.
Banners
Banners are different from links and are the most obvious form of advertising on most web sites. MonkeyCMS incorporates an easy-to-use banner manager and banner statistics application. There is also a simple function (bannerad) to quickly drop banners onto your site from any template with the minimum of fuss.
Banner Manager
The Banner Manager allows you to create new banners and modify existing banners. Navigate to the Banner Manager by clicking Links > Banners > Banner Manager - there are two options, Active or All, Active banners are those that are currently live on your site whereas banners that are currently not live (ie their active dates are outside of the current date) are only visible by clicking the 'All' option.
For now, the Active banners are of most interest. Below is a screen grab of the MonkeyCMS site banner manager - there is just on active banner at the time of the screen grab.
The Banner Manager gives some basic information that helps you identify banners at a glance. From the left, we have the active dates - the date they become live and the date that the banner is scheduled to end. Then we have the identifying name for the banner, it's 'area' and some basic statistics for the current month.
You can edit banners, delete banners and create new banners from this screen. You can also click on one of the displays or clicks links to view detailed statistics for the banner.
Editing or Creating a Banner
The Create and Edit process for any banner is reasonably similar. For this tutorial, we'll create a new banner by clicking on the New Banner link. If you want to edit an existing banner, either click on the descriptive title or the edit icon (
). Below is a screenshot of the blank New Banner screen.There are a number of fields:
- Description
The descriptive title for the banner. This should help you identify the banner from the main Banner Manager list. - Area
An integer - this allows you to specify different banner 'pools' for different areas of your site. You can have multiple banners in any area and they will be displayed at random from the pool when viewed. You could have area 1 as a standard 468x60 banner and area 2 for a 150x200 'skyscraper'. - HTML Ad?
You will be supplied with banner code in various forms - sometimes you might need to use a 'Shockwave Flash' banner, or a Javascript-based banner. If this is the case and you don't have a specific link / image to use then click the HTML Ad? box, this will change the next two fields from URL and Image to just HTML. - URL
This is the internet address you want users to be directed to when clicking a banner - in most cases this could be a link supplied by an affiliate company or just a direct link to a companies homepage. - Image
This is the image that will be displayed for the banner. You can upload an image to use now by clicking the Image Toolbar button (
) - HTML
If you have selected the HTML Ad? option above, this box is where you would enter the HTML code you have been supplied. - Active From
This is the 'start date' for your banner - if the current date is after this date then the banner will be displayed. This gives you the opportunity to schedule new banners to appear at a later date. The date should be entered in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS - so midnight on 1st January 2008 would be 2008-01-01 00:00:00. - Active To
This is the 'end date' for your banner - if the current date is before this date then the banner will be displayed. Again, the date should be entered in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. - Calculate Conversion
If this is checked, the statistics will show a percentage click-through rate. However, most banners added as plain HTML rather than with the URL and Image will be untrackable so this option shouldn't be checked in those cases
How are your banners performing?
To view how your banners are performing just navigate to Links > Banners > Banner Statistics. Here you will be presented on an overview of the current month's statistics. It will show you each banner, the number of times that banner has been displayed and the number of clicks that have been placed. If applicable it will also show a percentage conversion rate for each banner.
There is also a less detailed overview showing the total number of banner displays, clicks and the overall conversion rate for your site.
For more detailed statistics you have two options - one is a daily breakdown covering all banners, the other is a detailed look at one specific banner. To view the 'Daily' overview, just click on the 'Daily' link at the top of the statistics page.
Here you will be shown the number of displays and clicks for each day of the selected month. This will be displayed as both a table and in a graphical form (on servers configured to support the GD image library).
The final, and most useful option is the detailed banner breakdown - you can view detailed statistics for any banner by clicking it's name on the main banner statistics overview page.
This overview will display the banner itself, detail the daily statistics for the selected banner and will also display a detailed graph (where possible) showing both the selected banner's statistics and how they compare to your site's overall averages.
Displaying your banners
Banners are displayed on your site using the bannerad content function.
Affilates
Affiliates are another common form of internet advertising. In most cases you sign up to a central affiliate company such as 'Affiliate Future' or 'Affiliate Window' and they act as an agent for any number of internet-based retailers. There are a huge number of big name companies making use of the affiliate networks and marketplace and it's a good way of getting reputable advertisers for your site.
In most cases you would be paid a specific percentage, usually 2-5%, of each sale made by users who click your affiliate links.
MonkeyCMS allows you to track clicks for each affiliate - both general clicks to an affiliate and 'deeplinks' to affiliate product pages. You can also categorise affiliates to create a shopping 'directory' for your site and users.
Categories
Before you start creating affiliates and using them on your site, it is worth while thinking about how you want to organise them - for example, on an entertainment focussed site you might want categories for film, music and book retailers. Once you have decided on your categories you can create them in the 'Affiliate Categories' section of the admin control panel (Links > Affiliates > Affiliate Categories)
Affiliate Manager
Managing affiliates and links is done through the Affiliate Manager (Links > Affiliates > Affiliate Manager). The first thing you will be shown here is a list of your current affiliates along with a basic statistical overview for each. You can edit, delete and create new affiliates from this screen.
For this tutorial, we'll create a new affiliate, but to edit an existing one just click either the company name or the edit icon against that specific company. To create a new affiliate, scroll to the bottom of your affiliate list and click New Affiliate.
This will show the following screen:
There are a number of fields:
- Affiliate Company
The name of the company you are creating a link for - Site URL
The affiliate URL for the main front page of the affiliate site - Direct URL
This is the deeplink for a specific product on the affiliate site. At some point this URL would need to accept a product link and you must enter %%link%% at that point. For example the Direct Link URL could be:
http://www.someaffiliatecompany.com/?affiliateid=10000&url=%%link%% - Image
An image associated with the affiliate company (optional) - Categories
You can select one or more categories from those you defined earlier. Hold down 'Ctrl' to select more than one. - Description
An optional description for the affiliate company
Affiliate Statistics
To track the effective of your affiliate campaigns, you can visit the Affiliate Statistics screen (Links > Affiliates > Affiliate Statistics). The default view on this screen shows the full list of your affiliates along with some basic statistics for the current month for each - the number of direct product clicks, the number of 'site' clicks and the total number of clicks.
You can jump backwards to earlier months by clicking the small < next to the current month displayed at the top of the page.
You can view more detailed statistics for any affiliate by clicking on their name. This will display a daily break down of all of the clicks for that affiliate along with a graphical representation (server permitting)...
You can also view a list of all direct product clicks by clicking on the number - either on the main affiliate overview OR on the daily breakdown screen. This enables you to view which are the most popular links for your users.
Displaying Affiliate links on your site
There are a number of functions aimed at affiliate links:
affiliatelist
affiliatecategories
featuredaffiliate
In addition, you can enter your own affiliate links into content using the 'Affiliate Helper' (
) which can be viewed from any Add / Edit Content screen.The script handling affiliate link tracking is affiliatelink.php and it accepts two parameters - localaffiliateid and url - the first is the numeric ID for the affiliate assigned by MonkeyCMS and the other is the optional URL for a product on the affiliate site.
Closing Words
As with most aspects of the software, MonkeyCMS gives you a number of powerful tools to help improve your link tracking and increase your chances of making money from your site. However, it should be remembered that users want content first and foremost and no-one is interested in sites that are plagued with ads and popups.
Use these tools sparingliy and tailor your banners and affiliates to your audience and you could reap the rewards...