This is a guest post from AffiliateTips.com, a great resource for articles like this one and an affiliate directory with reviews on programs in all segments – like education affiliate programs.

As with any type of business, succeeding in affiliate marketing requires having access to information about your audience and your sales results. However, the affiliate reports generated by merchants and networks are often incomplete, which can seriously impair your ability to track your progress and make improvements to your affiliate marketing strategy.

While much of your competition relies on the reports provided by their affiliate networks, wouldn’t you like to have the competitive edge? Web analytics are the key to generating the vital information that you need to achieve real and lasting results in affiliate marketing.

What Is Web Analytics?

Web analytics is the study of website user behavior. The data used to track this behavior is gathered in a number of different areas, including the total number of site visitors, page views per session and link click-throughs.

Why is it so important to assess this information? By looking at how customers utilize your website, you can customize your content and marketing strategy to appeal to your target audience. This can dramatically improve website traffic, affiliate sales, online branding and overall profits.

Important Web Analytics For Affiliate Marketers

While the various statistics you choose to track depend largely on your business goals, there are a number of different data sets that you shouldn’t overlook. Fortunately, much of this information is relatively easy to understand, even for the novice statistician. As you develop your web analytics strategy, be sure that you understand the following numbers:

Total Page Views

This number provides important information about how many times your website was visited over a specified time period. Typically, you will want to keep a careful eye on daily, weekly and monthly traffic totals. Don’t be alarmed to notice major differences in total page views from day to day, week to week or even month to month.

However, use this information to establish traffic benchmarks and set goals for future traffic. When it comes to affiliate marketing, more traffic is usually better. If your numbers are low, start focusing on marketing strategies to attract new visitors to your website.

Entry Points

In addition to knowing how many views your pages received, it is also important to understand which pages served as “landing pages” for your site. Never make the mistake of believing that all visitors use your home page as a starting point. Optimize every page on your website to serve as a basis for exploring the rest of your site and for promoting your affiliate marketing offers.

Page Views Per Session

The number of pages each visitor looks at per visit is an important indication of the “stickiness” of your website. Essentially, your goal should be to keep viewers on your site in order to promote your affiliate offers. If web analytics reveal that your page views per session are low, focus on linking between related content on your site and improving navigation in order to motivate users to remain on your site.

Improving Your Affiliate Marketing With Web Analytics

Of course, web analytics will accomplish little, unless you learn how to use them effectively to benefit your affiliate marketing. In many cases, this may require a bit of experimentation on your part in order to find strategies that work best.

After you identify a potential problem using your web analytics program, start making changes to a few select pages. Then spend some time tracking the impact of those changes. This may take some time, but the information you gain will prove invaluable both now and down the road.

What are your hot buttons? Do you know where they are or how to find them? Finding your hot buttons is usually the job of a salesman or a marketing firm. The idea is that if you can find someones “hot button” they will be more inclined to find your product attractive. For instance, if I were selling an antibacterial dog shampoo I might market to a demographic of pet owners that find microorganisms disgusting. The dog-owning germaphobes’ hot button is the thousands of microorganisms that are living on Fluffy.

In order to control our finances we have to find our own hot buttons. We have to know what makes us angry and incites a passion to change. In order to make a committed change we have find those buttons, press ‘em down and not let go until the change has been fully made. You see, to do something crazy (from a materialism driven society’s point of view) like become debt free, you have to act crazy.

1) Find what makes you go crazy. What drives you nuts? What makes you angry? Chances are, whatever makes you angry is closely related to a vein of passion deeply rooted in your soul, your core values. If stupid people make you angry then you probably are an over-achiever, passionate about achieving excellence. Now, find what makes you angry about being in debt. Is it the insecurity? Is it the wasteful spending? Do you feel trapped and out of control? What makes you angry?

2) Find what makes your heart bleed. What makes you sad? What rips your heart out? In the same fashion as anger, empathy is closely related to the passion buried in the depth of your soul. When you see someone living on the street does it upset you? Do you flinch at the sight of an impoverished family? If you feel empathy for those in need then you may have the core value of generosity. What makes you sad?

3) Write it down and commit to it. Write down your hot buttons from step 1 and 2. Write down why you want to take control of your finances. Maybe it’s “I want more financial security” or “I don’t want to feel like a slave to debt.” Whatever it is, write it down. Finding your motivation, or your “hot buttons” is all well and good, but if you don’t write it down, you probably won’t commit to it (at least not for long,) and if you don’t commit to it then it really doesn’t do you much good.

4) Put it where you can see it, push it and don’t let go. After putting your hot buttons to paper, display them boldly where you will see them every day. Put it on your bathroom mirror, your fridge, or on the dashboard of your car. Every time you see your reasons to be financially free it will empower you. It will push you towards your goal. Push those buttons and don’t let go.