What is CLICK-LOSS and why does it happen... the definitive guide. (8)
What is CLICK-LOSS and why does it happen... the definitive guide.
Some of the most frequently asked questions by newbie affiliates recently, are related to clickloss, what it is, why it's happening and how to combat it. I tried to search the forums but couldn't find a dedicated thread that would explain this phenomenon in great detail, so I thought why not write it myself? 
FIRST OF ALL, WHAT DOES CLICK-LOSS ACTUALLY MEAN?
In affiliate marketing, we are all using funnels that we are driving the users through, in order to convert them into leads/customers. A simple funnel could look like AD→LP→Offer.
But since we are all clever affiliates, we also employ some kind of tracker, to be able to analyze the data. And a typical affiliate isn't working with direct advertisers, but rather promotes the offers through various affiliate networks.
So a typical affiliate funnel is a bit more complicated and it usually looks like this:
AD→Tracker→LP→Tracker→AffiliateNetwork→Offer
Now, let's say that the stats at your traffic source shows they sold you 100 hits, but you trackers shows that only 80 landed on your LP, where 40 of them clicked on the CTA, but the affiliate network only shows 30 in their stats. These click discrepancies are called the CLICKLOSS.
WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN AT ALL?
There are several reasons for this, some are natural and nothing can be done about that. But in some cases we can lower the discrepancies and in other cases, it indicates that something fishy is going on with the traffic source.
NATURAL CLICKLOSS.
1. Let's take at the natural connectivity related clickloss first.
It has to do with how the Internet itself is setup in the first place. As you know for sure, any request that you make while surfing the web, has to go through several access points. The requests first goes to your local ISP, then it's routed to some national provider and travels through their backbone … The more distant the physical location of the server that hosts the content you want to access is, the more points the requests have to go through.
And since the tech isn't 100% fail-proof, problems can happen. The request can time out, it can hang for a while, there might be some problem and the request will get rerouted. To put it simple, the more access points are on the way, the higher the chance of some problem. Especially when speaking about the infrastructure in some less developed countries.
To give you an idea, I did a “tracert” command for two websites, one was google.com and the other one was a local news portal. As you can see on the screens below, google took 14 hops, while the local website only needed 8 (it timed out twice anyways, but request got rerouted quickly).
GOOGLE - More distant physical location of the server
SME - Local newspaper so close to my physical location
So in order to minimize the NATURAL clickloss, you need to make sure you are using a proper host with great connectivity. To reach the best connection times, it would be the best to use a host in the same GEO as your customers. But this would be too $$$ heavy as you would also have to host your tracker there. So let's just say, make sure your hosting is fast. Run some tests to find out what the loading speeds of your LPs are and try to get them under 1 second or less.
NOTE: Some GEOs are more prone to such natural clickloss, it has to do with the infrastructure. Based on my own experience, the largest loss is to be expected in some Asian and African countries.
2. Traffic type specific click loss.
Some traffic types are known for higher clickloss % than others. Generally speaking, we could say that the less intent to click there was, the higher the loss will be. Take POPs for example, it's an intrusive format that generally annoys people. So those with quick fingers (mouse) will kill the POP sooner than it has a chance to load. The traffic source will count such a hit, but since it was closed immediately, it might not show up in your tracker.
Another great example would be ADs in mobile apps or ADs that load over video content. Pretty much all of us miss-click sometimes and hit the AD itself instead of the X… But again, fast fingers come for the rescue and we all try to kill the new window/tab instantly.
These 2 reasons are more frequent in countries with poor connectivity, because the slower loading times give the users a bit more time to kill the ad before the requests reach the tracker. In GEOs with very fast connections, the ad still manages to load, so the click is counted by the tracker.
3. The game of numbers.
Another common reason for lost clicks, is the way that all the involved parties work with the numbers. The interests of traffic sources and affiliate networks are quite different. While the traffic source want's to show as high numbers as possible, affiliate networks prefer to show lower ones.
The reasons are quite clear. For traffic networks, it's better to show higher numbers. When they run CPC, it means more money for them directly. And even on CPM, their goal is to be know as a network with high CTR. Affiliate networks on the other hand want to be known as those with highest EPCs in the business, so for them, it's better to count less clicks.
So what happens is that traffic sources count every single hit, no matter if it's a “double-click” from the same person, bot click, some spider etc … and affiliate networks prefer to block bots and count just unique clicks or sessions.
THE “BAD” CLICKLOSS.
There are also situations where the high clickloss tells us something wrong is going on and someone is trying to scam us. It's usually happening at the traffic source level and the traffic network itself might be, or not, aware of it.
The most common reason would be BOT traffic, especially the “stupid” BOTs are causing this, because they are unable to pass through the redirects. So the traffic source counts the click, but it never reaches our landing pages.
Then there are traffic sources that are doing this on purpose, they simply inflate their click stats in order to charge you more or to make their numbers look better.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE CLICKLOSS?
There is pretty much just one thing to do here: Make sure your hosting is in order and the landing pages and the tracker itself is loading/working as fast as possible. Once you are fully optimized, there is nothing else to do here.
From this point on, it's just about whether the campaigns are profitable or not. If it works even with a bigger clickloss, then so be it. If the campaigns are not in profit even after throughout optimization, you will have to stop them.
Newbies often make one mistake, they think that they would become profitable IF the clickloss could be eliminated and all the traffic reported by the traffic source would actually hit their landing pages. Well, it's not possible, some loss will always be there. And what would it help if you could get the BOTs to reach your landers? It wouldn't help at all. On top of that, as I mentioned earlier, some of the numbers are inflated artificially so there is actually no real traffic to re-gain.
WHAT ABOUT THE ACCEPTABLE CLICKOSS %?
It's very hard to say what is an acceptable loss and what already indicates a problem. But let me try to give you some numbers, based on what I've seen in my campaigns. But please, take these numbers with a large grain of salt
- When I see clickloss under 10%, I rarely care about it. I do check the loading speed of my funnels regularly, but such low loss is kinda normal.
- When the loss goes up to like 20%, I know there is a problem somewhere, so I talk to the traffic source and ask others who have experience with the same GEO/traffic type. When the loss is between the tracker and the affiliate network, I talk with my AM to check whether all works fine.
- In specific GEOs and with specific traffic types, I've seen a loss as high as 50% and I was still able to profit. For example mobile carrier traffic in Thailand. I had experienced large clickloss in India or Egypt too.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to whether you are able to profit or not. Clickloss is just another annoyance of the affiliate marketing business. Got any questions about this topic? Ask below
Bumping this to get more eyeballs! There are so many threads that ask about clickloss. Now I have something to direct members to!
Going straight into this week's newsletter! 
Amy
Incredible thread Matej! You're a legend!
-Chris
Originally Posted by chris r
Glad you liked it!
Thanks for this concise explanation Matej! I had just launched some new mobile pop campaigns in Australia and was surprised to see nearly 50% less visits and costs in
This was confusing at first but at least now I understand where its coming from and how to deal with it (or rather just to deal with it lol).
Originally Posted by justinzing7
This explanation is really good! I have to admit i learned a couple of things from this article Awesome!
Great post! thanks for sharing!
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