What Are Sub-ID’s and How Do I Use Them?
Author: glend
Sub-ID’s are function that affiliates can use within MyAP V8 affiliate programs. They help you to track your links more effectively and provide you with easy information on which ones are the best performing.
You have an ‘Affiliate ID’ which differentiates you from all the other affiliates within a program, but this doesn’t help you in finding out which of YOUR links are performing the best. Yes, you can get a report that breaks down your links by the various banners you’re using but what if you are using the same link on two different pages, or even the same page? How do you pinpoint which exact link is performing better than the other one?
By using sub-ID’s you can find out how every single link is performing seperately.
MyAP V8 gives your Affiliates the ability to use Sub-ID tracking. This feature allows them to append each of their links with an ID of their choice (alpha-numeric up to 25 characters).
A normal Affiliate link:
http://www.myap.com/widgets/t.asp?id=1001
An Affiliate link with a Sub-ID:
http://www.myap.com/widgets/t.asp?id=1001&sub=home
To use a Sub ID, the affiliate must first log in to their Sub ID management area and add the Sub ID through the interface there. Then, add ‘&sub=CODE’ to any affiliate link (limited to 25 characters), in both the image tag and href link:
Regular Image Link with No Sub-ID:
<a href=”http://www.myap.com/widgets/b.asp? id=1001&img=banner.gif”> <img src=”http://www.myap.com/images.asp? id=1001&img=banner.gif”> </a>
To Track the Sub ID ‘abc123′:
Image Link with Sub-ID:
<a href=”http://www.myap.com/widgets/b.asp? id=1001&img=banner.gif&sub=abc123″> <img src=”http://www.myap.com/images.asp? id=1001&img=banner.gif&sub=abc123″> </a>
If the affiliate link is just a text link then you only need to add the Sub-ID function to the href.
Regular Text Link with No Sub-ID:
<a href=”http://www.myap.com/widgets/b.asp? id=1001″>TEXT</a>
To Track the Sub ID ‘abc123′:
Regular Text Link with Sub-ID:
<a href=”http://www.myap.com/widgets/b.asp? id=1001&sun=abc123″>TEXT</a>
How Can I Use The Sub-ID’s
With Sub-IDs in place, you and your Affiliates can track multiple, specific placements using only one ID. Reports can be viewed by ID number, and then broken down by specific sub-ID.
You can set up a whole range of specific affiliate links using unique sub-IDs so you can track exactly which links are performing. You may link to one merchant 4 times on one page, so you can set up 4 sub-ID affiliate links, eg.
. &sub=topmerchantlink
. &sub=navmerchantlink
. &sub=bottommerchantlink
. &sub=bannermerchantlink
Now you can review your reports and break them down further by seeing which link is the best performing one. Maybe the affiliate link you have at the bottom of the page (bottommerchantlink) hasn’t produced any clicks, with Sub-IDs you can find this out and then either replace the link with another merchant, change the link or remove it.
Sub-IDs give you alot greater knowledge about which individual links are working and allows you to make changes based on this information.
It should also be noted that if you are striving for XHTML 1.1 Transitional perfection, then you should amend the ‘&sub=abc123′ code so the ‘&’ reads correctly by making it an ASCII code, eg. you would then write your Sub-ID code as this: &sub=abc123
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