Who is this article for?
This article will be useful to you if you are managing a partner referral program on PartnerStack and want more insight into your partners' links performance.
For an overview of the Performance tab, and for instructions on creating saved reports see the Prebuilt reports & creating custom reports support guide.
Link performance overview
The Link Performance reporting feature allows you to easily view the entire funnel of your affiliate/marketing program links and understand the conversation rates of these performance metrics. This includes clicks, unique clicks, signups, paid customers, new revenue, total revenue, and commissions.
Click on your "Performance" tab in your left-hand menu to get started and navigate to “Link performance”.
Link performance data
The Link performance report allows you to generate insightful reports on your partners’ affiliate links, referrer links, and landing page performances. You can analyze data such as clicks, unique clicks, signups, paid customers, new revenue, and commissions.
Link performance data columns:
- Link: The unique link generated for each partner
- Landing page: The destination or redirect page of the partner's link
- Referrer page: The webpage where the partner has placed their link
- Partner joined date: The date the partner joined their current group
- Link click date: The date the customer clicked on the partner’s link
- Link title: Name of the partner manager assigned to the partner
- Clicks: The number of clicks within the specified timeframe
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Unique clicks: The number of unique clicks within the specified timeframe
- Available only with new link infrastructure. You use V2 link tracking if you see a "ps_partner_key" and a "ps_xid" in your fully expanded links.
- If you see a "gspk" and "gsxid" in your fully expanded links and would like to switch to V2 links, reach out to your customer success manager or support at support@partnerstack.com
- Signups: The number of customers created within the specified timeframe
- Paid customers: The number of paying customers within the specified timeframe
- New revenue: The total revenue from a new customer created within the specified timeframe
- Total revenue: The total revenue amount in USD
- Commissions: The total commission earned within the specified timeframe
Link performance charts
When you first navigate to your Link performance page you will see a bar chart of your total revenue broken down by landing page, month over month, for the past year. Your link performance visualization can be tailored in a few ways.
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Adjust the data set by clicking the drop-down menu in the top-left
- Choose from: Clicks, unique clicks, signups, paid customers, new revenue, total revenue, and commissions
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Adjust your selected primary grouping by clicking the "# selected" dropdown
- Note: This chart will display the first 5 values. Change filters or sort columns to update.
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Adjust the chart visualization by clicking between the chart options
- Choose from: a bar chart, line chart, no visualization
Note: For chart visualizations to appear, a date range must be one of your two selected groupings.
Grouping Link Performance data
Link Performance data can be grouped into the following categories:
- Group by Link to assess performance metrics based on individual partner links
- Group by Landing page to access data based on the landing pages associated with partner links
- Group by Referrer page to access data according to the referrer pages where partner links are placed
- Group by Partner to assess their performance and contributions to the program
- Group by Measure Date (Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year): to analyze performance trends over varying periods
- Group by Partner Join Date (Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year): to evaluate performance since joining the program or current group
Two levels of grouping can be applied at a time.
Filtering Link performance data
The filtering option enables you to refine your link report data by:
- Link click date
- Group
- Partner
Multiple filters can be applied simultaneously, and multiple groups can be selected to segment your data for deeper analysis and insights. Click "Clear" to remove an applied filter.
Exporting Link performance data
Your performance data can be exported for further analysis.
To export your performance data:
- In your Performance tab apply any desired filters
- Click "Export data"
- In the window that opens, click "Done"
- You will receive an email within 30 minutes with a download link
- Click "Download CSV" in the email and ensure you are logged in to your PartnerStack account to complete the export
Troubleshooting Link performance data
If you encounter any issues while using the Performance reporting feature, check the following:
- Ensure your filters and groupings are correctly applied.
- Refresh the page if data is not loading properly.
- Contact our support team if you need further assistance or encounter persistent issues.
We value your feedback! If you have suggestions, or questions, or encounter any difficulties while using the reporting feature, submit your feedback directly in the app by clicking the “Leave feedback” button.
Link performance reporting FAQ
Q: Why do the link stats differ significantly from the partner performance report?
A: The variance in stats is a result of recent enhancements to our link infrastructure. Some statistics are now tracked from the date your account was upgraded to our new link infrastructure, providing more granular and accurate tracking of link performance metrics.
Q: Why there is only a domain in the “Referrer Page” instead of the exact page URL?
A: In August 2020, Google changed its default referrer policy to strict-origin-when-cross-origin. Firefox made the same change in March 2021 with version 87. Safari also follows the same policy. Meaning the referrer header for cross-origin requests will be reduced and you will see the top-level domain (TLD) only in the referral sources of web analytics.
The idea of this new policy is to reduce the potential of unexpected leaks of personal information as URLs on some commercial websites may contain sensitive user data. With the old no-referrer-when-downgrade the referrer shown is: https://myownblog.com/best-resources/
With the new strict-origin-when-cross-origin default, the referrer shown is: https://myownblog.com/
Q: Why some rows are empty in the Referrer Page column?
A: There are referrer policies and requests that are set on websites and don’t share that information. No-referrer, origin, and unsafe-url1 are the referrer policies where the referrer header is completely removed. It never shares the full URL even for same-origin requests and you cannot even see the domain name for cross-origin requests.
Q: How can we set the referrer policy on our website?
A: Strict-origin-when-cross-origin may be the new default on Google’s Chrome browser, but you can still pick a policy of your choice for your site. If no referrer policy is set by the individual website, the browser’s default policy is used.
Most non-commercial websites have no risk of leaking personal or otherwise sensitive data in their URLs. This includes blogs, personal websites, publishers and so many more. You can set the new referrer-policy with a <meta> referrer tag which should be placed in the <head> section of your website. Like this: <meta name="referrer" content="no-referrer-when-downgrade"/>