Do you use affiliate tracking links with sub-campaign identifiers?

[MichaelCorfman]

Every affiliate that sends traffic to a site uses a tracking link with a code that identifies the affiliate sending the traffic. But affiliate links can generally also include a code that further qualifies the traffic sent by an affiliate. Such codes are frequently called sub-campaign codes. When an affiliate program supports sub-campaign codes in tracking links, the program will generally provide the same level of detailed information for each sub-campaign as is provided for the overall activity of the affiliate.

Affiliates can use sub-campaigns for a variety of purposes including:

• Website Source: Identifying the specific website from which traffic originated.
• Traffic Type: Differentiating between traffic sources like PPC, email marketing, social media, or organic search.
• Content Optimization: Identifying which blog posts, landing pages, or banners generate the most sales.
• Keyword Performance: Tracking the success of different keywords in paid advertising campaigns.
• Call-to-Action (CTA) Analysis: Comparing the effectiveness of different CTAs within the same campaign.
• User Segmentation: Tracking different user types, such as small businesses versus enterprise clients.

For this weeks poll I ask whether and now often you use sub-campaign identifiers in your affiliate links. Besides voting in the poll, please share the reasons you do or don't use sub-affiliate links. And if you use them, please share the what you use them for and the practical impact they have on decisions you make running your affiliate business.

Michael

[Xeltravo]

Hi Michael,
Yes — I do use sub-campaign identifiers regularly, and they’ve made a big difference in optimizing performance.
For me, the main value lies in granular attribution. I typically set up sub-IDs to separate:

• Traffic sources (e.g., SEO vs. social vs. paid),
• Specific pages or content types (e.g., reviews, guides, or comparison pages), and
• Ad creatives or CTAs (especially for testing conversion angles).

Having that data allows me to quickly identify which content or traffic channel actually drives revenue — not just clicks. It’s also been extremely useful when negotiating commission structures or allocating ad spend, since I can back decisions with clear data.
That said, I don’t use sub-IDs for every link. For evergreen organic pages, I often rely on analytics tracking instead of cluttering URLs. But for paid and email campaigns, sub-campaigns are non-negotiable — they’re what make scaling sustainable.
Would be interested to hear how others manage naming conventions or automation for sub-IDs — that’s still an area I’m refining.

[newcustomeroffer]

Yes, on some bigger programs or if we're A:B testing something. For smaller programs generally not worth the effort as any results wouldn't be statistically significant if testing.

[Pokerface]

Yes, we do and within StatsDrone we even pull this data from programs where available to measure performance of campaigns and sub-campaigns.