JesseP

First off, big thanks to Jeoud for writing this article and breaking down the affiliate piece. An even bigger thanks for including GeoRiot in the conversation.

Do you have any tips on increasing conversions?

Here's the thing most people miss -- the "iTunes / App Store Affiliate Program" is really a combination of many, many different country-specific affiliate programs. The LinkShare program most refer to is specific for the US. There is also programs for CA and MX that are managed by LinkShare but require additional applications. You also have a completely different affiliate network (TradeDoubler) for the programs in Europe and yet another one (DGM Performance) for Australia/New Zealand. It's kind of complicated actually.

Most app developers see a sizable chunk of international traffic. But they are typically only using the LinkShare/US programs. This means that their conversion rate is going to be lower than it should be because all of the clicks are being counted but only the US sales get included. All the clicks from the international traffic is pushing your conversion rate down as international sales are not being counted by LinkShare.

So you'll likely find that your conversions will drastically increase when you match the right affiliate program to the person clicking on the link. Eg. Sending the person from the UK through a UK affiliate program link and the person from AU through the AU affiliate program link instead of sending everyone through the US program will quickly lead to much more realistic conversion rate.

And... {shameless plug} this is exactly what GeoRiot does -- we allow our clients to use multiple programs simultaneously and our service (among other things) matches each click to the geographically correct affiliate link.