If you wanted to track keyword conversions in GA to be able to identify which are the best converting keywords from organic traffic sources, as an affiliate would you be required to place google analytics code on the merchant site?
Does your merchant allow you to have your own analytics code on their site? To be able to track traffic on Merchant site you need to have GA code.
I am not referring to tracking traffic on the merchant site. I want to track keyword conversions on my own site, but the visitor is directed to the merchant site to make the sale.
Its a difficult task to track keywords conversion for an outgoing link, as the link is not the part of your own website. To be able to track this, you will require to create a intermediate page(on your website) before the user is sent to your merchant site. This page need to have your GA code. Before redirecting to the merchant website, load this for a fraction of a second so that the browser get time to load your tracking code. Then set this intermediate page as a Goal in GA; selecting the goal type URL Destination. In your GA click on Keywords under Traffic Sources. You will get the list of keywords that visitors have used to enter your website. Then select the Goal tab, you will get to know which keywords lead to your merchant website. You will have to know some programming to do so. Hope so this will solve your problem
Thanks for your reply, this is the best information I have seen on the topic so far. Lets say you didnt want to track conversion rates, but just wanted to know what keywords searchers were using to find your site before clicking on an affiliate link. If you add onclick javascript code to the affiliate links, then in the content reports in GA click on entrance keywords for the affiliate links you are tracking, would this be a solution?