It’s a simple enough exchange: When you give the sandwich shop $10, you expect to get a BLT. When you give the furniture store a few hundred dollars, you get a couch or a coffee table.
But what about when a business pays an affiliate hundreds or thousands of dollars for an ad placement? The exchange is less immediate, but the advertiser still expects something for that money: return on investment (ROI) in the form of traffic, conversions, and revenue. If they see that ROI, they’re more likely to spend more on continued and future partnerships.
Streaming and gaming affiliates can prove ROI to sponsors with measurable digital tools and touchpoints for audiences to take action and visit advertisers’ websites. With the help of click and scan data from short links and QR Codes, affiliates can show sponsors measurable value in real time. Bitly integrations support centralized affiliate link tracking, QR Code scans, and analytics for sponsor clarity. If you’re an affiliate looking to prove ROI to advertisers, keep reading. We’ll explore why click and scan data matter, what you should measure, and steps you can take to better prove ROI.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
ROI: The key to successful affiliate partnership
Marketing budgets are notoriously tight, so every channel, tech, and tool needs to earn its keep, from paid social to the CRM. Not every tactic is measurable in real time, especially when a campaign influences metrics like awareness or brand perception—how do you measure those? But business leadership needs some indication that every thoughtfully spent marketing dollar pays off.
Affiliate and partner marketing programs require proof of value for brands to keep investing in a streaming or gaming affiliate program or, better yet, invest more in future campaigns. Clear, visible attribution is one of the best ways to show sponsors that their affiliate dollars were well spent because it reveals sales and revenue that came from ads on those platforms. When a marketer or affiliate program manager can point to the ways that a partnership directly drove business, they have a much stronger case for more budget for those efforts.
Sponsors don’t just want impressions or traffic, either. They need data that’s tied to real revenue and customer value—which hasn’t always been easy to come by. But with today’s tools and powerful integrations between digital touchpoints (like Bitly links and QR Codes) and your other marketing and analytics dashboards, it’s now possible to prove that an advertiser’s spend with your gaming or streaming affiliate is worthwhile.
How click and scan data can reveal true ROI
A seamless, user-friendly digital touchpoint helps audiences instantly take action on affiliate ads. Bitly links and QR Codes provide both, and they collect the data you need to demonstrate ROI.
Click data, as its name suggests, provides metrics around when someone visits a link from an affiliate ad and offers in-depth link tracking to enable attribution across channels. Scan data, tied to interactions via QR Code, tracks each time someone scans with their smartphone. Plus, with Bitly Analytics, you get even more details on each of these interaction types, like someone’s location or device type when they clicked or scanned.
You and your sponsors can create unique short links or QR Codes for each campaign, so advertisers can track exactly which website visitors converted from which ads. Combined with integrations from their other tools, sponsors gain granular reporting on the ROI from these partnerships in real time. Digital touchpoints also track offline-to-online engagement via QR Codes, like those shared at events, on merchandise or packaging, and in CTV ads.
4 key metrics to track for sponsor confidence
Any affiliate partnership is only as good as the conversions and revenue it brings in. Track these metrics to share tangible proof of value with sponsors.
1. Earnings per click (EPC)
While not every click will result in a sale and revenue, sponsors need to know the average sale that results from traffic that comes from affiliate ads. Streaming and gaming affiliates can provide click (or scan) data on the total clicks from a specific campaign to aid sponsors in calculating the average earnings per click. This number comes from dividing total revenue (using attribution data via UTM parameters or similar analytics) by total clicks to see the typical sale from each click. Multiplied across an entire affiliate campaign, EPC quickly reveals marketing returns. Average order value (AOV) can also reveal affiliate ROI, and you can segment this metric by region or referring channel with the help of Bitly Analytics data.
2. Conversion rate and funnel drop-offs
Impressions are only a small fraction of ROI. Conversion rate reveals that ads are being shown to not just anyone but to the right people. High conversion rates tell sponsors that a partnership is the right one and that the affiliate is a good match. When conversion rates drop or are low compared to other channels, ROI is likely low as well. Click and scan data help sponsors to quickly see what proportion of visitors turn into buyers and how often they drop out of the funnel. They can see value not just through volume of visits but through the quality of the traffic.
3. Customer lifetime value (CLV) and repeat purchase rate
What’s better than a customer who converts from an affiliate ad? A repeat customer from your affiliate. Within enduring partnerships, affiliates can help advertisers calculate the total customer lifetime value (CLV) of those who have converted from ads placed on their platform. The more repeat customers that find their brand through your platform, the stronger your case for continuing to partner. Encourage sponsors to review their highest-value customers or those with a high repeat purchase rate to see how many of them originally encountered them or decided to buy through your platform to understand the long-term impact.
4. Attribution insights
The customer journey is rarely, if ever, a straight line. Buyers’ paths to purchase often involve many channels, messy timelines, and multiple devices. Click and scan data play a valuable role in painting a picture of the complex pathway to purchase and where streaming and gaming affiliates fit in. Gather attribution insights from each campaign to help sponsors map multi-touch and scan-to-sale pathways to prove your partnership’s powerful role in driving purchases.
How Bitly integrations simplify ROI tracking
Collecting and reporting these metrics takes a lot of organization and coordination among both the affiliate’s and advertiser’s marketing tools. Bitly makes it all easier—integrations with CRMs, analytics solutions, and affiliate platforms unify tracking. With Bitly’s API and numerous connections with business intelligence tools, click and scan data feed directly into enterprise dashboards, so sponsors can see their return on ad spend (ROAS) in real time. Data siloes keep advertisers guessing about performance, but Bitly centralizes data collection and reporting for visible value from every affiliate short link and QR Code.
3 enterprise use cases that prove ROI in action
The opportunities for digital touchpoints—and ROI proof points—are endless. Here are just a few examples of how short links and QR Codes turn into traffic and revenue for your sponsors, and how they help you prove the value of their investments:
- Streaming and gaming sponsor campaigns. When your audience is already tuning into a favorite show or a content creator’s gaming livestream, connect them to sponsors with trackable short links. Share Bitly links as livestream overlays or affiliate chat links, or provide a QR Code onscreen viewers can scan in seconds. These tools help you connect click and scan data directly to sponsor revenue impacts.
- QR Code event activations. Fandom is a powerful force that drives loyal consumers to connect in person, which can be the perfect opportunity for affiliate partnerships. Place sponsor QR Codes on merch, booth signage, or event presentations to boost affiliate promotions. Bitly Analytics logs every scan, which also syncs to the CRM for ROI attribution.
- Cross-channel sponsor attribution. Offer your sponsors a multi-faceted approach to reaching their next best customer across channels, combining link clicks on one channel to QR Code scans from their TV or in-person ads. Unify tracking into a single dataset to show overall ROI and prove offline-to-online conversions. For instance, a QR Code scan might turn into an app download, which drives an in-game purchase.
ROI tracking doesn’t have to be overwhelming or intangible. Whatever affiliate campaigns your sponsors are looking to execute, digital touchpoints make audience action easy, while simplifying and streamlining reporting for your platform.
4 best practices for ROI reports that earn trust
Now that we’ve seen the potential of affiliate short links and QR Codes, how do you implement them well—and boost sponsor confidence in the process? These four best practices will turn your affiliate partnerships into lasting relationships and revenue drivers.
1. Lead with the sponsor’s brand
A high-performing affiliate campaign is a win for your platform, for your sponsors, and for consumers who encounter the right products and services for them. Boost your chances of audience clickthroughs and lasting awareness with branded touchpoints. Encourage your sponsors to create short links customized with their domain or QR Codes with their logo and colors that viewers will associate with the brand for deeper recognition and retention.
2. Keep attribution clean
The more detailed your attribution (via segmented campaigns and UTM-enabled links), the better reporting you can provide for even clearer advertiser ROI. Work with sponsors to make a plan for unique Bitly links segmented by affiliate (this should be a given!), campaign, and channel so they can review clicks and actions taken by each source. These divisions keep attribution well-organized and provide a strong signal of what’s working best.
3. Build actionable dashboards
Your streaming or gaming service isn’t just an ad platform—you’re a revenue partner. Instead of just providing data to your sponsors, serve as a consultant by walking through how they can use the data, which metrics to track and calculate, and where to look for ROI. Guide your partners to create dashboards that don’t just measure vanity clicks but that track metrics tied directly to conversion and revenue. By integrating Bitly Analytics with their other tools and CRMs, they can turn click and scan data into detailed tracking and powerful next steps.
4. Track value for the long haul
Campaign-level ROI is good; long-term advertising value is better. Track longer attribution windows using click and scan data and cross-channel metrics to show sponsors direct traffic and assisted or influenced revenue where your affiliate played a role. Point out where multiple data points can come together to prove where your platform increased customer LTV or where your platform helped sponsors reach the right audience at the right time to deepen trust and drive purchases.
Make every click and scan count for ROI
To convince and retain advertisers on your streaming or gaming platform, you don’t just need ROI—you need receipts. Trackable digital tools help you collect and report the data that gives your sponsors confidence to keep spending with you.
Bitly’s touchpoints give consumers a user-friendly way to take action on their next favorite product, while seamless integrations give enterprise marketers a user-friendly reporting experience. Unify metrics and prove ROI, revenue, and awareness at scale. Most people first knew Bitly as a link shortener, but the Connections Platform is so much more: It’s a true analytics partner for affiliates and sponsors alike.
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