Understanding your affiliate metrics

Are you participating in the YouTube affiliate programme and do you want to get a clearer picture of your earnings? This article will guide you through tracking your affiliate performance directly from YouTube Analytics. Learn how to understand key metrics to optimise your affiliate marketing strategy and increase your earnings.

How to access affiliate metrics

You can access your affiliate metrics from YouTube Studio in two ways:

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. Select the Analytics tab from the left.
3. Proceed to tap on Revenue.

In the Revenue tab, click on the affiliate programme button. To proceed to view more metrics in advanced mode:

1. Select See more.
2. You are now in advanced mode.
3. To customise the report with different breakdowns, in the top left menu, click on Breakdown.

Alternatively, you can view your affiliate analytics by:

1. Navigating to the Earn tab on the left.
2. Proceeding to tap on Shopping.
3. Under the 'How you're doing' section, selecting See more.

Key metrics explained

Here are the key metrics that you'll want to focus on within YouTube Analytics to understand your affiliate performance:

1. Estimated revenue:
   • This is the estimated revenue that you've earned from qualifying affiliate sales within the observed time period. Please note that this is an estimate and pending final approval. The estimated revenue amount is subject to change due to returns and cancellations.
   • This metric gives you a general sense of how much money your affiliate efforts are generating.
2. Total sales:
   • This is the total number of sales attributed to your affiliate links.
   • This metric helps you understand how effectively you're converting clicks into actual purchases.

Note: Sales are measured at basket level (all products included in the transaction), and not only at tagged level (your tagged product).

3. Orders:
   • This is the total number of orders attributed to your affiliate links. An order may contain multiple items.
   • This metric shows how many orders have been made as a result of your shopping tag.
4. Product clicks:
   • This is the number of times that viewers clicked on your affiliate links.
   • This metric indicates the level of interest in the products that you're tagging.
5. Advanced mode:
   • This is an in-depth view of your shopping performance revenue data. This metric helps you better understand your products and identify performance so that you can make more strategic content decisions.

Note: When viewing your performance in advanced mode, you can customise the report with more data by adding breakdowns such as products or sellers. To add the breakdown, select Breakdown on the left side from the drop-down menu and click the Metrics menu to select the tick boxes for the metrics that you want to add, and then click Apply. Not all metrics are available with the breakdown.

Commissions explained

Understanding how commissions are tracked and finalised is key to seeing your earnings from YouTube affiliate links. Commissions can be reviewed in three different stages: pending commissions, estimated revenue and approved commissions.

Note: The data that you see for pending, estimated and approved revenue is always tied to the specific time frame that you've selected in your analytics, reflecting the status that earnings had within that period. Estimated revenue is calculated by subtracting returned products from your pending commissions.

• Pending commissions: Think of these as initial earnings recorded when a viewer clicks your affiliate link and makes a purchase. These commissions are 'pending' because they haven't yet been confirmed by the merchant. The time frame for pending commissions to become approved commissions can vary based on when the viewer initially clicked your link (this is determined by the merchant's attribution window). The 'pending commissions' that you see reflect all such potential earnings within the selected time frame.

Note: Pending commissions reflect a snapshot of potential earnings at the time of sale. This amount remains the same even when the commissions are later approved or paid.

• Estimated revenue: This is an estimate of what you might ultimately earn. It's calculated by taking your pending commissions earned from purchases in the selected period and subtracting the value of any products purchased through your links that have been returned. This gives you a clearer picture of your potential net earnings from recent activity. Bear in mind that the initial purchase might have occurred from a click made even before this window.
• Approved commissions: These are the commissions that have been reviewed and officially confirmed by the merchant during the selected time frame. This approval process happens after a merchant lock-in period, which is a time frame (typically 30–90 days) that allows for returns and validation of the sale. The approved commissions that you see in a selected period are from purchases that happened before the selected time frame, due to these typical lock-in periods.

Note: Approved commissions can include revenue from sales that occurred prior to the selected time frame.

The total approved commission earned within a specific month will then be included in your next payment cycle.

How Shopping earnings are processed

Note: Earnings are typically finalised and reflected in your account within a 2–3-month time frame. This allows for thorough processing, accommodation of returns and completion of administrative procedures.

Getting clarity on your earnings

To understand your earnings data effectively, remember that there's a typical 2–3-month delay before commissions are finalised as approved. The data that you see for pending, estimated and approved revenue is always tied to the specific time frame that you've selected in your analytics, reflecting the status that earnings had within that period.

For example, if you're viewing a broad period like 'last year', the pending revenue shown includes all earnings that were generated and had a status of pending during that entire time. It's important to understand that this view shows the status as it was in that period, not necessarily their current processing or payment status today. Those earnings shown as pending within the past time frame would then typically move through the approval process (becoming approved) 2–3 months after they were generated.

Note: The 'snapshot' that you see here, hence the 'pending commission' that has been approved or even paid would still show as 'pending commission' based on the selected time frame, not subtracted or moved to 'approved'.

For actionable insights into your recent performance, focus on shorter time frames like the last 7 or 30 days. In contrast, the approved commissions that you see usually reflect sales that occurred 2–3 months prior.

Regularly analysing your data across different time frames and looking at product-level performance within those ranges will provide a clearer picture of your earnings trends and help you optimise your strategies.