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iTunes Conversion Tracking
iTunes Conversion Tracking

With iTunes links, we can tell when a click leads to a sale and then surface that in your reports

Joey White avatar
Written by Joey White
Updated over 3 years ago

{UPDATE: iTunes Commissions Reporting, as well as iTunes Conversion Reporting, are no longer available as of December 17, 2020}


One of the greatest challenges in online marketing is understanding which of your efforts are actually leading to sales.  Questions like:
​"What social media platforms drove sales?"
​"What products are people actually buying?"
​"Which marketing channel has been most cost effective?"
..have plagued online marketers for years.

For iTunes & iBooks, our True Conversion Score (TCS) aims to close this attribution loop, and help marketers better understand their traffic and better determine which aspects of their marketing are working great, and which need improvement.
​

What is the True Conversion Score?

The TCS uses a variety of data points from each click, the link itself, and the info reported from the affiliate network to analyze the likelihood of a conversion. To get the most value from these scores, it is best to compare them between your different sources of data in a report. These are not "conversion rates" and provide little relevance as a standalone value.  

For example, in the screenshot above we could guess that the band’s website was about 50% more effective than the label’s website in promoting a specific product. Further we could quickly extrapolate that Twitter was about three times more effective than Facebook while both significantly outperformed YouTube.

Although the Partnerize dashboard does provide a "Conversion Rate" metric, it displays the total sales divided by total clicks and doesn’t actually pay attention to the specific items sold.  Our process is significantly more in depth:

  • We use three different data sets to calculate a score per click (not per link or per metric). This allows us to analyze every click, link, and sale (instead of in aggregate) to avoid “false positives” that would inflate values. This also allows us to assign the TCS value to each of the different attributes we report on (country, referrer, media type, device, etc.).

  • We also developed detailed rules to account for pre-orders, apps with in-app purchases, products that had “up sell” opportunities (click a link to a song, but buy the album instead), and items available in multiple formats (Ex. HD, SD or rental) to provide better insight.

How to activate Conversion Tracking:

1. If you have not done so already, add your iTunes affiliate token to the Affiliate page.
​2. On the Affiliate Page, under iTunes Affiliate Programs, click the yellow "Enable commission reporting" box and follow the instructions to add your Partnerize API keys.

3. Once enabled, jump to the Tools page and toggle ON "Conversion Tracking."
​4. On the Home page Performance report, be sure to select 'iTunes' from the 'All Links' drop-down menu.

You will now see your TCS scores begin to populate as your clicks start converting to sales!

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