How Long Does It Take To Test An Affiliate Program

While some affiliates believe it only takes view days to test an affiliate program, it is actually not a question of time but, rather, a question of clicks.

Conversion rates for affiliate programs being measured in earnings per click or number of sales per click, what matters is how many clicks are needed for a test. Industry standards require around a 1,000 clicks to measure the effectiveness of an affiliate program, which depending on the size of the affiliate site, can be attained in a couple of days or a few months.

This rule is however flexible depending on the product tested and the affiliate site's theme. If the affiliate product is targeted to the site and its visitors, a sale can be expected for every 300 clicks or so. However if the affiliate offer is not related to the site promoting it, it will logically take more time to make a sale. It should as well take more time for low-traffic sites to make sales – it is however recommended for smaller websites to first start building traffic before being able to successfully promote affiliate offers.

In the case the test fails, there is still the option to test links on different pages and emplacements. Results might vary depending on if your link is located at the top or bottom of your page, if it's featured on your home page or on a targeted page, etc..

Continually testing and changing things is what gives Internet businesses an edge on brick-and-mortar businesses, so it would be a waste to not take advantage of this.