Now let’s organize this data according to affiliates who have generated at least one sale in this time period (affiliates who are driving clicks and impressions are important as well, but we will exclude them from consideration in this exercise only). Export this data into Excel (or whatever open-source version of it you use). You’ll want to keep columns to identify the affiliate, and for their YTD sales. Add a third column for percent of total sales and put in the appropriate formula to calculate this value (this also isn't an Excel How To article). Finally, add a fourth column for Type of Site. Now we need to do some manual digging. Locate each individual affiliate site from your reports and decide what type of site it should be classified as. Some of the more common classifications will be: Coupons, Deals (yes, there is a difference), Blogs, Content, Reviews (yes, there is a difference between those three as well), PPC, Email, Social Media, etc. There are certainly other types of sites and marketing methods used by affiliates - the list here is meant to be representative rather than exhaustive. Customize your site classifications based on what you find in your program. As you decide on what category each affiliate site falls into, note that on the spreadsheet you have been building. A few important notes: 1. This exercise is not about minute detail. Rather, you want to create the best representative list you can. Don’t fret over a site classification if there isn't a perfect fit. 2. Yes, this is a time consuming process. It is also an important one due to the amount of information, clarity, and insights you will gain about the actual workings of your affiliate program. 3. Some affiliates use multiple promotional methods, site types, and marketing tactics. See Point #1 above. Once you've classified all of your affiliates, add another column to your spreadsheet and total the revenue generated by each classification. Now, run another formula to tell you the percentage of total sales that is being generated by each classification. With these two formulas in place, you can now see which individual affiliates contribute the most revenue to your program, as well as which classification of affiliate contributes the most revenue. You can
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