Why should you give affiliates access in GA? 

Affiliates are data driven marketing specialists. They work a lot to understand the traffic they generate and how to optimize it for conversion. Google Analytics is one of the best tools to understand how users navigate through a website and how they convert. By having access to this data, affiliates can further optimize their websites or campaigns so that in the end they generate more sales for you.

Here’s what George Dobritoiu from Drimus has to say about how much this step helped their affiliate program:

Giving Google Analytics access to our affiliates helped our affiliate program substantially. Those who do affiliate marketing through CPC need as much information as possible so they can be profitable. That’s because the cost of clicks is constantly raising and their commission is dependant upon external factors.

This doesn’t mean you have to give them access to all of your website data. There is a way to give them access ONLY to the traffic they bring to your store. Read below how you can do this.

What are the main steps to do it?

1. Create a Copy of the Google Analytics View of all your traffic

a. In Google Analytics go to the Admin Section

b. In the Admin go to the View Section

c. Select View Settings

d. Click on Copy View

e. Name the View with the user name of the affiliate you want to give access to

f. Click on Copy View

Before getting started on the next step you should know the 2Performant affiliate_id of the affiliate you want to give access to. The affiliate can find this code in the Settings Section of his 2Performant account.

2. Filter the View only for the traffic of the affiliate

a. In Google Analytics go to the Admin Section
b. In the Admin go to the View Section
c. In the View Section select Filters

d. Click on the Add filter and leave the option Create Filter selected

e. Name the Filter with the name of the affiliate you want to give access to
f. On Filter Type select Custom
g. Select the Include option

h. Choose the appropriate dimension for filtering based on your Redirect Parameter settings in 2Performant

i. If they are set for Google Analytics, choose the Campaign Source dimension for filtering and in the filter pattern enter the unique code of the affiliate

ii. If you have utm_campaign = %%affiliate_id%% choose the Campaign Name dimension for filtering and in the filter pattern enter the unique code of the affiliate

i. Click on Save to apply the filter to the View

Note that filters take up to 1 day to take effect. Also, filters do not include historical data. The affiliate will be able to analyze the traffic only from now when you apply the filter. Previous data will not be included.

3. Grant the affiliate read access

a. In Google Analytics go to the Admin Section
b. In the Admin go to the View Section
c. Select User Management

d. In the top right-hand corner click on the blue ”+” button

e. Enter the email address of the affiliate
f. In the permissions section choose the tick for Read & Analyze
g. Click on the blue add button

Note that the above steps give the affiliate permission to read only the data related to the traffic he sends, not your full website data.

That’s it! Now the affiliate can read and analyze data related to the traffic he sends to your website using the full power of Google Analytics!