How to track leads from affiliates in Formidable Forms
Learn how to capture affiliate data with each submission of your Formidable Forms, so you can see which affiliates are generating the most leads, customers & revenue.
Are you struggling to track how many leads & customers you get from your affiliate program?
If so, it’s likely a big problem for your business. If you don’t know how many leads & customers you’re getting from your program, then you could be missing an opportunity to scale it up.
Fortunately, there's a solution.
In this article, we’ll show you how to use a tool called Attributer to capture affiliate data with each submission of your Formidable Forms. We’ll also show you a series of example reports you can run which will help you understand how your affiliate program is performing and how to grow it.
4 simple steps to capture affiliate data in Formidable Forms
Using Attributer with Formidable Forms allows you to track the leads and customers generated from your affiliate program. Let's take a look at how it works:
1. Add UTM parameters to your affiliate links
The first step is to add UTM parameters to the links you give to your affiliates.
So if you want them to send people attributer.io/integrations/formidable-forms, the link you give might look something like this:
attributer.io/integrations/formidable-forms?utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=bloggers&utm_campaign=john-smith
UTMs are totally customisable, so you can add whatever information you want to capture about your affiliates, but we would suggest using something like this:
- 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)
Programs like Trackdesk or Rewardful can help you automatically add UTM parameters to the links distributed to your affiliates.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
The second step is to add some hidden fields to the forms on your website.
The hidden fields you should add are as follows:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
Fortunately, Formidable Forms makes it super easy to add hidden fields and you can see step-by-step instructions here.
3. Attributer writes the affiliate data into the hidden fields
When a visitor arrives on your website via an affiliate link with UTM parameters, Attributer captures and stores those UTM details in their browser. This allows the parameters to remain intact even if they navigate your site or leave and return later.
Then when the user fills out a form, Attributer automatically populates the hidden fields with the affiliate information from the UTM parameters.
4. Affiliate data is captured by Formidable Forms
Finally, when a user submits a form on your website, Formidable Forms captures their information (like name and email) along with the affiliate data that was written into the hidden fields by Attributer.
What you can do with the data
Here's what you can do with the data once it's captured by Formidable Forms:
- Send it to your CRM: By sending the affiliate data to your CRM, you're able to run reports that show you how many leads you got from your affiliate program, how many became customers, how much revenue was generated, what the conversion rates were, and more.
- Export it to a spreadsheet: You can easily export the affiliate data to an Excel or Google Sheet and use it to create basic charts that show the performance of your affiliate program. Or you can connect tools like Looker Studio or Power BI to the sheet and build more advanced reports & dasboards.
- Add it to your email notifications: If you would prefer to run your business without a CRM, you can include the affiliate data in the new lead email notifications that Formidable sends. That way, you can see the source of your leads right from your inbox.
Why use Attributer?
Here's why Attributer is the best way to capture affiliate data in Typeform:
- Captures other attribution data -Attributer doesn't only track leads from affiliate links. It also provides data on leads coming from other sources, like Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, and Organic Search. This way, you can get a complete picture of where all your leads and customers are coming from, not just those referred by your affiliates.
- Remembers the data - Attributer keeps the UTM parameters saved in the user's browser. This means that even if someone browses around your site before filling out a form (or leaves and comes back later), the affiliate info will still get passed through.
- Captures landing page data - Attributer not only keeps track of affiliate data but also grabs the landing page URL (like https://attributer.io/blog/best-formidable-addons) and the landing page group (for example, /blog). This way, you can easily see how many leads and customers are coming in from all the different content on your site (like your blog).
3 example reports you can run when you capture affiliate data in Formidable Forms
When you capture affiliate data in Formidable Forms and send it over to a CRM or a reporting tool, you can put together all kinds of reports to see how your affiliate program is doing.
I've created a bunch of these reports over my 15+ years in marketing, and I’ve shared three examples below that I think are super helpful.
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 to see 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 Ads or SEO, and see which channel is actually performing best.
2. Customers by Affiliate Type
This report shows how many new customers have come from your affiliate program. It breaks it down by the different types of affiliates, including bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, and social media influencers, who helped bring in these customers.
By identifying which type of affiliates are most effective, you can find ways to grow your program. For example, if you find that bloggers are generating the most leads and customers, you may want to focus on recruiting more bloggers rather than seeking additional YouTubers or podcasters.
3. Revenue by Affiliate
This table shows the new customers and revenue generated by your affiliate program. It highlights how each affiliate is contributing.
You can easily see which affiliates perform best, allowing you to focus on supporting high-performing affiliates while considering how much effort to give to those who need extra help.
Wrap Up
If you've been looking for a way to capture affiliate data with each submission of your Formidable Forms, then Attributer could be the answer.
On top of that though, it will also provide information on leads that come from other channels as well, including Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Search, Organic Social, and more.
Not only can it help you understand the performance of your affiliate program, but it can help you understand which channels are bringing the most leads & customers and where your biggest opportunities to grow really are.
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!
Get Started For Free
Start your 14-day free trial of Attributer today!
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.