How to track leads from affiliates in Fluent Forms
Learn how to capture affiliate data with each submission of your Fluent Forms, so you know which affiliates are generating the most leads.
Tracking the number of leads and customers you get from your Affiliates is difficult. Tools like Google Analytics make it easy to see how many website visitors you have, but they can’t tell you how many leads and customers were generated.
But by capturing affiliate data with each form submission and sending it to your CRM, you’re able to run reports that show exactly how many leads you got from your affiliate program, which affiliates generated the most customers, and more.
In this article, we’ll show you how to capture affiliate data in Fluent Forms and give you a few examples of reports you can run to show exactly how your program is performing.
4 simple steps to capture affiliate data in Fluent Forms
With Attributer and Fluent Forms, you can easily keep track of all the leads and customers coming from your affiliate program. Let’s dive into how it works:
1. Add UTM parameters to your affiliate links
To get started, you need to add UTM parameters to the links you give your affiliates.
For example, if you want them to send people to attributer.io/integrations/fluent-forms, you could use a link that looks something like this:
attributer.io/integrations/fluentforms?utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=bloggers&utm_campaign=john-smith
UTMs are totally customisable so you can add whatever information you like, but we would suggest something along these lines:
- UTM_Medium = Affiliates
- UTM_Source= Bloggers (or the type of affiliate this is, such as bloggers, podcasters, youtubers, etc.)
- UTM_Campaign= John-Smith (or the name of the specific affiliate)
If you are using affiliate management software like Trackdesk or Rewardful then they can automatically add UTM parameters to the links distributed to your affiliates, and our free UTM builder can help you create UTM tagged links.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
The second step is to add a series of hidden fields to the Fluent Forms on your website.
The hidden fields that Attributer requires are:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
Fluent Forms can make this super easy, and you can see step-by-step instructions here.
3. Attributer writes the affiliate data into the hidden fields
When a visitor comes to your website through an affiliate link with UTM parameters, Attributer captures and stores the UTMs in the visitor's browser. This means the information stays intact, even if they browser around your site or leave and return later.
Then when users fill out a form, Attributer automatically fills in the hidden fields with the affiliate info taken from the UTM parameters.
4. Affiliate data is captured by Fluent Forms
Finally, when someone submits a form on your website, Fluent Forms captures the affiliate data that Attributer wrote into the hidden fields, along with the information the lead entered into the form (like their name, email, etc).
What you can do with the data
Now that the Affiliate data is being captured by Fluent Forms, let's have a look at how you can use it:
- Send it to your CRM: Whether it's Salesforce, Hubspot, or Pipedrive that you use, you can send the affiliate data to your CRM and use it to run reports that show how many leads you get from your affiliate program, how many become customers, how much revenue is generated, etc.
- Export it to a spreadsheet: If you'd prefer to send the data to a spreadsheet, you can use the Fluent Forms add-on or a handy third-party tool like Zapier. Once your data is in, you can easily generate charts and graphs in the spreadsheet or use more advanced tools like Looker Studio or Microsoft Power BI to build full-on dashboards.
- Add it to your email notifications: If you’d rather run your business without a CRM, you can easily add the affiliate data to the email notifications that Fluent Forms sends whenever a form is submitted. That way you'll be able to see where your leads are coming from right from your inbox.
Why use Attributer?
Here's why Attributer is the best way to capture affiliate data in Fluent Forms:
- Captures other attribution data - While Attributer makes it easy to track leads coming from your affiliate links, it can also provide information about leads who find your business through other channels like Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, or Organic Search. This way, you get a full picture of where your leads and customers are coming from—not just the ones from your affiliates.
- Remembers the data - Attributer saves the UTM parameters in the user's browser. This means that if someone browses around your site before completing a form (or if they leave and come back later), all the affiliate data from their first visit will be remembered and passed through.
- Captures landing page data - Attributer also collects the landing page URL (like https://attributer.io/blog/best-attribution-tools) and organises them by landing page group (like /blog). This way, you can easily run reports that show how many leads & customers you are getting from your content (like your blog).
3 example reports you can run when you capture affiliate data in Fluent Forms
When you capture affiliate data with each form submission and send it to a CRM or reporting tool, you can generate some pretty useful reports that show how your affiliate program is performing.
Throughout my 15+ year career, I’ve generated hundreds of these reports, and some have really stood out to me as particularly useful.
Here are three reports that I think are super effective for tracking affiliate programs.
1. Leads by Channel
Attributer tracks where all your leads come from, not just those from your affiliate program. This enables you to create reports (like the one above) that show how many leads you’re getting from different sources.
This information can help you compare your affiliate program's performance to that of other channels, such as Paid Search or Organic Search, and see where your biggest opportunities for growth really are.
2. Customers by Affiliate Type
This report shows how many new customers your affiliate program has generated, broken down by the different types of affiliates that brought in the customer, such as bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, and social media influencers.
By discovering which affiliates are making the biggest impact, you can unlock new ways to grow your program. For instance, if you find that bloggers are bringing in the most leads and customers, it might be a good idea to focus on recruiting more bloggers instead of looking for additional YouTubers or podcasters.
3. Revenue by Affiliate
This table shows the number of new customers and revenue your affiliate program has brought in, organised by each affiliate’s contributions.
It lets you see how each affiliate is doing, so you can easily spot the stars who are really making an impact.
This way, you can continue to support your top performers while figuring out how to give a little extra love to those who might need it.
How Attributer helped William Russell scale their affiliate program
William Russell is an insurance company that helps expats find the right health and life insurance. It has built a successful network of affiliates over the years that brings in plenty of leads, but it was facing a bit of a hurdle. Its affiliate management program wasn’t connected to its CRM, making it tricky to track how many leads were turning into customers and how much revenue their affiliate program generated.
Everything changed when they discovered Attributer.
They began adding UTM parameters to every link shared with the affiliates. Then when someone clicked the link and came to their website, Attributer would capture the UTM parameters and store them in the visitor's browser.
Finally, when they completed a form on the William Russel website, Attributer wrote the affiliate data (taken from the UTM parameters) into hidden fields on the form, where it was captured and sent to their CRM.
They were then able to run reports in their CRM that showed the number of customers who came through their affiliate program, the revenue generated, the conversion rates, and even the average deal size.
With these insights, they could compare their affiliate program to other marketing channels like Google Ads and Facebook Ads. They were ultimately able to see that their affiliate program was actually their most profitable channel, and that helped them get buy-in to scale it.
"By using Attributer, we're able to track the amount of customers & revenue that come from our affiliate program, as opposed to just website visitors and leads. This has shown us that it's our most profitable channel and has helped us scale it"
William Cooper - Marketing Director @ William Russell Insurance
Wrap Up
If you've been looking for a way to capture affiliate data with each submission of your Fluent Forms, then Attributer could be the answer.
Best of all, it’s free to get started with Attributer and usually takes less than 10 minutes to set up. So start your 14-day free trial today!
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About the Author
Aaron Beashel is the founder of Attributer and has over 15 years of experience in marketing & analytics. He is a recognized expert in the subject and has written articles for leading websites such as Hubspot, Zapier, Search Engine Journal, Buffer, Unbounce & more. Learn more about Aaron here.