If you are a blogger and do any type of affiliate marketing, you need to track clicks. Not only clicks but more importantly conversions. Unfortunately, the commonly used Pretty Links doesn’t have this functionality, and if are doing any serious revenue outgrow it quickly.
Most affiliate marketers (most businesses for that matter), don’t track conversion rates. Without question this is the number one thing you must do in order to be successful within affiliate marketing.
I looked at many competing services. They either seemed to be a WordPress plugin and lacked conversion tracking, or had conversion tracking but was difficult to use. So in my pursuit of a link management system that supported conversion tracking is when I found ClickMeter.
What Is ClickMeter?
ClickMeter is a hosted service that allows you to manage your marketing links (affiliate links) and social media links in one place. Though if you are wanting to use it just for link shortening you should use their sister service Rebrandly.
Unfortunately for bloggers there is no WordPress plugin to easily add affiliate links to your blog. Though that’s not the primary reason you get ClickMeter. You get ClickMeter because you want to track conversions of your affiliate links.
ClickMeter allows you to not only measure clicks but more importantly conversions. You have the option to either embed a pixel on the merchant’s site, or the more widely used postback option. You have many options to integrate and extend ClickMeter to suit your specific needs. Unfortunately, I wish some functionality was part of ClickMeter’s service.
Summary
Larry's Take
Pros
- Easy To Use — Overall one of the easiest to use affiliate tracking services.
- Powerful Reporting — There are many ways to display the data captured by ClickMeter. You can also export data via their API and CSV files into Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
- Powerful API — As a super affiliate this is perhaps the best feature of ClickMeter. You can extend the functionality and integrate with third-party services with their webhooks (what they call piggyback) functionality.
- Many Redirection Options — You can redirect by country, device, and perform A/B testing. If you are looking for a redirection option, ClickMeter more than likely has it.
Cons
- Does not track UTM Codes — Out of the box, ClickMeter cannot track UTM parameters. Though with their custom variables you can do create this functionality.
- Conversion Tracking Setup Can Be Confusing — While ClickMeter is powerful, to setup server-to-server conversion tracking can be confusing. They need to support more affiliate networks to automate this process.
- Out-of-date documentation — There are minor annoyances in their documentation and setup (ie. no mention of support of SSL for their postback link but do support it).
- No WordPress Plugin — ClickMeter does not offer a plugin to integrate with their service (though you can use my free plugin).
- No Method to Block Google — Because there’s no method to block links from Google it’s not recommended to directly place ClickMeter links in the wild. It is recommended to create a reflection page on your site which masked and block Google from indexing your affiliate links.
- No Landing Pages — Unlike Voluum, ClickMeter lacks landing page functionality. Though IMHO I would rather dedicated other services that better implement that functionality.
Screenshots
ClickMeter Conversion Tracking
Perhaps the most important feature is their conversion tracking. Super affiliates realize that tracking products is critical for success. I’ve said I wanted to track conversions as if they were my own products. You can use ClickMeter to track and manage affiliate links all in one place.
You can’t use Google Analytics to do this either. Google Analytics only has the capability of tracking per click, but because it’s tracking using Javascript is not 100% accurate. In addition, there is no way to track conversions using Google Analytics. What you need is a tool like ClickMeter to get a report back on each conversion.
ClickMeter’s tracking can be a little confusing, but powerful once you get it setup. Watch my video below for a demonstration of how to set up a server-to-server postback link. As you can see it requires three steps to get conversion tracking.
- Adding subid with server-to-server unique ID
- Creating a conversion tag in ClickMeter
- Adding the postback conversion code from ClickMeter in the merchant’s affiliate system.
If you are interested, I have created functionality that adds to ClickMeter to make conversion tracking easy and automated. Contact me for details.
ClickMeter Pricing
ClickMeter’s pricing like most SaaS is a monthly fee. Though they do offer annual discounts. for 12 month subscription, you get 2 months free and for 24 months prepayment, you get 6 months free. The lowest price starts at $19 per month.
| Cost | Events | Datapoints | Storage | Domains |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $19/mo | 5,000 | 500 | 1 year | 1 |
| $29/mo | 25,000 | 2,500 | 1 year | 1 |
| $49/mo | 50,000 | 5,000 | 1 year | 1 |
| $99/mo | 200,000 | 20,000 | 2 years | 10 |
| $119/mo | 300,000 | 30,000 | 2 years | 10 |
| $149/mo | 500,000 | 50,000 | 2 years | 10 |
| $199/mo | 1,000,000 | 100,000 | 2 years | 10 |
| $349/mo | 2,000,000 | 200,000 | 3 years | 100 |
| $449/mo | 3,000,000 | 300,000 | 3 years | 100 |
| $649/mo | 5,000,000 | 500,000 | 3 years | 100 |
As you can see, they have options from the beginner to the enterprise customer and everything in between. I recommend for most you can start with the cheapest plan and migrate up as you grow.
ClickMeter Alternatives
There are many ClickMeter Alternatives to choose from if ClickMeter isn’t what you are looking for.
| Name | WordPress Plugin | Conversion Tracking | Starting Price | AAWP | Yes | No | $42 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ClickMagick | No | Yes | $27/mo |
| Improvely | No | Yes | $29/mo |
| Lasso | Yes | No | $19/mo |
| LinkTrackr | No | Yes | $17/mo |
| Pretty Links Pro | Yes | No | $59/year |
| ThirstyAffiliates Pro | Yes | No | $49 |
| Voluum | No | Yes | $69/mo |
Out of the list, in my opinion, the only viable ClickMeter alternative is ClickMagick. Though for me, lacks some must features that ClickMeter has. In a ClickMeter vs. ClickMagick comparision ClickMeter wins for me.
ClickMagick does not have a public API and does not have a webhook (what ClickMeter calls piggyback) to integrate with other services like Woopra in my case. In addition, ClickMeter has custom variables in which you can track data that’s important to you. As a super affiliate, those are features I must have in my link management system.
Summary
I have yet to find a better affiliate tracking service and recommend ClickMeter. I not only recommend but have been using their service for years on this blog and for my customers.
Though that’s not to say it’s perfect. I think the best analogy is they are the best horse in the glue factory. There are features and functionality that could be made easier. Unfortunately, ClickMeter is currently the easiest to use link tracking service.
Though this is the reason why I extended their functionality via their API. If you are looking to track conversions down to the traffic source and even button, then ClickMeter is your best option. Though out of the box, ClickMeter cannot do this natively and must extend its service with perhaps some custom programming.
In my case I have extended ClickMeter’s functionality and offer some add-ons to use in conjunction.