Did you know Awin provides merchants with a system to see how different affiliates compare to each other? Learn more with our introduction to an often overlooked feature of Affiliate Window (Awin).
Update (Aug 2023)
I previously reported that the Awin index scores had not been updated for several months. As of 16th August they have now been updated – I’ll let you know if it falls by the wayside again.
Awin performance ratings are basically a ranking system
Awin comes with a rating system to tell you how an affiliate compares against others. As an advertiser, you can see the performance rank for an affiliate in the various sectors they operate in to help understand how many sales they might make for you.
It is basically a ranking system – the largest affiliate in a specific sector is “1”, the second is 2, and so on. If an affiliate is rank “35” for “Mobile broadband”, it means there are only 34 publishers selling more than them.
You can find the index score in the “performance” tab of the advertiser profile:
Here is an anonymous example from a few months ago:
Categories like “white goods”, “Clothing” etc are based on the commission groups associated with each sale. Every now and again Awin ‘maps’ the commission groups to a common list of categories.
Over time the success of Awin Access will probably make those results a little bit more fuzzy because each Access merchant only has access to one commission group, making categorisation harder.
As an affiliate it is useful because merchants don’t always believe you when you say you make sales. If you can say “I’m the 30th best performing affiliate on Awin in this category” that can help break the ice. It can also give you a bit of a reality check – should you be saying “we’re the leading partner for x”, when your Awin index says 200 other affiliates are better than you?
Once you understand the volumes and scores for affiliates of various sizes, you can take a reasonably accurate stab at guessing how many sales an affiliate generates based on their score.
When I learn a score and approximate sale volume I record it in a spreadsheet. Once you have more than three numbers for a vertical you can actually draw a graph to predict volumes.
Be aware that seasonal events can skew the ratings. On one of my own account sales doubled during black Friday 2021, but the index rank actually dropped by 5 positions because the whole industry saw a similar increase.
It is also handy to see whether an affiliate is only strong in one vertical, like telco, or if they sell products from hundreds of merchants, like a voucher or cashback site.
Publishers can get a rank even if they don’t make sales – this example is for account that hasn’t made a sale for months so the score only comes from clicks and traffic.
If you are a merchant, it’s worth paying attention to this. You might think there are thousands of affiliates making sales in the mobile contract industry, but the example above proves that’s is not the case.
The scores drop off pretty quickly. When I first started I managed to be ranked 120 in my category from just 2 or 3 sales. Some sectors are more competitive than others but anyone outside the top 100 probably isn’t making a fortune. You can map this to predict how many sales any affiliate is making. Just start recording your scores and how many sales you made, and once you have a few results you can make a simple graph in Excel. The trend line will be a curve so the more data you have the more accurate you’ll be.
Merchant scores are less useful
Merchants also have performance scores. The problem for Access merchants is that very low numbers break the calculations somewhat.
At the time of writing the modestly sized mobile merchant I manage has an unbelievably high score of 96/100. I’ll happily take it, but it is just a quirk of the maths when you only make a few sales. If I decline a single sale the ranking will probably fall by 20%.
The merchant performance score doesn’t always have much value past identifying obvious issues when the score is very low (or very high).
An example:
A merchant that I used to manage switched agencies (not my fault!). Looking at their performance score a month later their “order approval” score jumped to 100%. They sold expensive bespoke furniture with long lead times and very high cancellation rates so this just wasn’t possible.
It was obvious that the new agency was approving every sale without waiting for cancellations or returns. Luckily we let the merchant know in time and saved tens of thousand pounds in incorrect commissions.
This article was written as part of the Beginners Guide to Awin Access. As it became longer it was moved to its own article. You can find even more information on this topic in the book Affiliate Management for Self-managed Programs, available on Amazon.