Report columns and data explained

A note about data reporting windows

• Impression and click data we capture directly via our Javascript plugin and click server, and these figures are updated daily
• Revenue, sales, order value and products bought data is imported from our 48,500 merchants according to their affiliate reporting processes, which can vary. While most data is imported in a 24 - 72 hour window, it may take up to a week for some merchants to provide this information, which can lead to reported figures varying slightly over time. Revenue, sales, and order value are available for CPA (Cost Per Action) revenues, but not for CPC (Cost Per Click) programs.

Data columns

• Impressions - the number of page impressions, as reported by our Javascript. This number may vary slightly from your own analytics such as Google Analytics, due to the way each script runs on page. If you are using our Link API, impressions data will not be captured/reported. Impressions data is used to calculate RPM. Note: Impressions data is via our new data platform, and is available from 1 Dec 2016 onwards.
• Clicks - the number of clicks as reported by our click server.
• CTR - Clickthrough Rate for the row (e.g. day, merchant, page). Number of clicks divided by page impressions. This is an important metric to understand whether users are engaging with your merchant links or not. In rare cases, it is possible for the CTR to exceed 100% when you have small amounts of page impressions and users may click from the page multiple times.  
• Sales - the number of sales, as reported by the affiliate network. See the note above about time windows and possible delays for sales/revenue to be reported. 
• Conversion rate - sales divided by number of clicks. Conversion rate is also a key metric to understand whether your audience is buying after reading your content.
• Order value - sometimes known as basket size. The total value of goods ordered by the user in their order. You can use order value to calculate average order value or AOV.
• Revenue - the earnings reported back. See the note above about time windows and possible delays for sales/revenue to be reported.
• RPM - Revenue per Mille (revenue per thousand impressions). This is a key metric to understanding page ‘yield’, and can help you compare Skimlinks/affiliate revenue vs other revenue sources. It is a powerful summary of your site revenue performance as it is affected by clickthrough rate and conversion rate. It is calculated by dividing revenue by impressions and multiplying by 1000.
• EPC - Earnings Per Click. It is calculated by dividing earnings by the number of clicks. This is a highly useful metric to compare the performance of merchants - as they may be offering different CPA rates, but what matters ultimately is if you are sending traffic to different merchants, how much you are earning if you sent them the same amount of clicks.  

Tips

• If you want to look at metrics such as EPC, RPM for comparison across articles on your site, its recommended to compare your data over a meaningful period of time e.g. 30 days. The reason being, there is usually a delay between clicks and purchases and you want to allow enough time for the commissions to roll in. This will allow these metrics to normalise and be better compared.  If you want to react more quickly to articles in their first day or two, you can look at commissions, but also look at click-based metrics such as CTR to understand clicks as a 'lead measure' for later revenues.