I’ve scaled many affiliate programs, and earned over $1M as an affiliate marketer.
And now, I run Endorsely, an affiliate tracking software for SaaS companies to help them scale their affiliate programs.
What I have learned, and I can tell you with 100% certainty: EPC is the single most important metric to track in affiliate marketing.
So, what is it?
EPC stands for "Earnings Per Click."
Earnings per click is the average amount of money earned for each click on an affiliate link.
For affiliate marketers:
EPC answers the critical question: "How much can I expect to earn for each visitor I send to this offer?"
For affiliate managers:
It reveals how attractive your program is to potential affiliates and how well your entire conversion funnel performs.
If you don't have a high enough EPC, affiliate marketers will not want to promote your offer, and they’ll promote your competitors instead.
How to Calculate EPC: The Formula and Real-World Examples
Calculating EPC is straightforward:
EPC = Total commissions earned ÷ Number of clicks
Here’s an example:
An affiliate sends 200 visitors to your product through their tracking links. Those visitors generate $500 in total commissions for the affiliate.
The EPC calculation would be: $500 ÷ 200 clicks = $2.50 EPC
This means the affiliate earns $2.50 on average for every click they send to your offer.
There’s also some other types of EPC that some affiliate networks use:
7-Day EPC & 30-Day EPC
7-Day EPC: This measures earnings per click over the previous 7 days.
For example: $350 in commissions from 500 clicks over the past week = $0.70 EPC (7-day)
30-Day EPC: This covers a full month of performance.
For example: $1,200 in commissions from 1,000 clicks over the past month = $1.20 EPC (30-day)
All-time EPC: This gives you the historical average since the beginning of the program.
One critical thing to understand: when affiliate networks like CJ Affiliate, ShareASale, Impact, or PartnerStack display a "network EPC," they're showing a blended average across all affiliates.
This doesn’t mean YOU will get this EPC. You might have a higher-quality audience, better traffic source, or be sending traffic further through the funnel, where they’re more ready to buy.
For example, a program might show a network EPC of $0.80, but you could be earning $3+ per click.
What is a "Good" EPC?
You might hate this answer, but...
It depends.
A good EPC varies significantly by industry, product type, price point, sales cycle, and even traffic source.
That said, at Endorsely, we’ve analyzed hundreds of affiliate programs across different verticals and can share some real benchmarks to guide your expectations.
Let's start with SaaS, since that's our focus at Endorsely:
SaaS Industry EPC Benchmarks:
- Below $0.50: Struggling program, needs serious optimization
- $0.50-$1.00: Average performance, but difficult to recruit top affiliates
- $1.00-$2.00: Solid performance, attractive to most affiliates
- $2.00+: Excellent performance, highly attractive to premium affiliates & paid ads scaling
The $1 threshold is particularly important in SaaS. I discovered this firsthand while growing Lasso's affiliate program before starting Endorsely.
When our EPC was under $1, recruiting and activating affiliates was more difficult. They were simply not as motivated to spend time promoting Lasso.
Things changed massively when the EPC hit $1.20-$1.25.
New affiliates were easier to onboard and activate, and existing affiliates began proactively promoting us without us needing to pay sponsorships or needing us to prod them to create new content.
I describe the strategies we used to increase EPC in the "How to increase EPC" section later in this article.
Beyond the raw numbers, here's how to interpret your EPC:
- Compare to competitors: What's the EPC benchmark in your specific niche?
- Track trends over time: Is your EPC improving or declining?
- Segment by affiliate type: Different types of affiliates achieve different EPCs
- Consider traffic quality: Some traffic sources naturally produce higher EPCs
Remember, EPC is relative. A $0.80 EPC might be outstanding in some niches but poor in others.
Why EPC is Important in Affiliate Marketing
Here's why EPC matters so much:
For Affiliate Marketers
If you're an affiliate, EPC directly impacts your bottom line. It tells you how effectively you can monetize your traffic with a particular offer.
Let's look at a real example that illustrates why commission percentage alone can be misleading. Imagine you have a blog with 10,000 monthly visitors and are considering two different SaaS products:
Product A:
- 40% commission on a $50/month product
- 1.5% conversion rate
- EPC calculation: $50 × 40% × 0.015 = $0.30 per click
Product B:
- 20% commission on a $100/month product
- 3% conversion rate
- EPC calculation: $100 × 20% × 0.03 = $0.60 per click
Despite Product A offering double the commission percentage, Product B will earn you twice as much money for the same traffic. This is because Product B converts twice as well and has a higher base price.
When promoting Product A to your 10,000 visitors, you'd earn approximately $3,000 in commissions. With Product B, those same visitors would generate about $6,000.
When I was growing my affiliate sites, I would regularly abandon high-commission offers after discovering their actual conversion rates were poor. The raw commission percentage looks attractive on paper, but the EPC tells the real story about earning potential…
For Affiliate Managers
What makes EPC so valuable is that it combines multiple performance factors into a single, easy-to-understand number:
- The quality of your offer
- The effectiveness of your landing pages
- Your conversion rate
- Your average order value
- Your commission structure
If you're managing an affiliate program, your EPC directly impacts:
- Affiliate recruitment: Top affiliates evaluate programs primarily based on EPC
- Affiliate activation: Higher EPCs motivate existing affiliates to actively promote
How to Increase EPC as an Affiliate Manager
Here are the exact strategies we’ve used to increase EPC and make our affiliate programs more attractive to affiliates:
1. Improve Your Conversion Rates
Nothing impacts EPC more directly than your conversion rate. Even a small improvement here can dramatically increase your EPC.
Here’s some quick wins you can use to increase your conversion rates:
- Make your sign-up flow as short as possible to minimize drop-off
- Add more social proof, testimonials, case studies (you can use tools like Senja that make this easy)
- Create specific affiliate landing pages that include trust elements from the influencer
- Exit intent offers to convert users who are about to leave
- Add more visuals and videos on your landing page to show the visitor exactly what they’ll get when they sign up
2. Increase Average Order Value
The math is simple: higher order values = higher commissions = higher EPC.
You can do this by:
- Funneling people towards your annual plan (rather than monthly) so affiliates get a larger payout upfront
- Upsell to higher plans once they’ve purchased their original plan (and crediting the affiliate for the lifetime of this sale)
- Improve your pricing page to better communicate the benefits of your higher-priced plans
3. Optimize Your Commission Structure
We increased our commission structure from 20% to 30% at Lasso, which immediately lifted EPC and made affiliates more willing to promote.
You can also do things like this:
- 25% base commission for all affiliates
- 30% for affiliates who generated 5+ sales per month
- 35% for our top performers (10+ sales per month)
This encourages affiliates to activate and send more sales to get higher commissions.
4. Provide High-Converting Assets
Many affiliates don't have the time or resources to create custom promotional materials. By providing high-converting assets, you can significantly improve their results.
I recommend creating:
- Ready-to-use email sequences with proven conversion rates
- Custom banner ads in multiple sizes with strong CTAs
- Product comparison charts showing our advantages
- Video demos that affiliates can embed directly
- Case study templates affiliates can customize for their audience
If you are a SaaS company wanting to grow your affiliate program – at Endorsely we’ve built an Assets area where you can easily upload all your banners, swipe copy, videos, and more for your affiliates to access.
5. Custom Affiliate Landing Pages
Generic landing pages waste the trust and context that affiliates build with their audience.
These custom pages can convert significantly better, especially if the affiliate has an audience that is very engaged with them.
6. Promo Codes
Some promotion channels (podcasts, social media mentions, live streams) don't work well with traditional tracking links. And platforms like Twitter and Linkedin reduce reach if you add a link.
Promo codes solve this problem.
You can create promo codes with custom codes, for example ENDORSELY10 if Endorsely was an influencer, where their audience gets 10% exclusively.
This encourages customers to sign up as they get a unique discount from the influencer they trust – and makes it more motivating for affiliates to promote your brand since they feel special with their unique offer they can give their audience.
We’ve built promo codes into Endorsely, so you can create these within 15 seconds for the influencers promoting your SaaS.
How to Increase EPC as an Affiliate Marketer
I've generated over $1M in affiliate commissions as an affiliate marketer in a range of industries, and these are the seven strategies that have consistently delivered the highest returns:
1. A/B Test Your Affiliate Traffic
The most successful affiliates treat their promotions as experiments, constantly testing to find what converts best.
When I was building my affiliate sites, I religiously tested:
- Different content formats (reviews vs. tutorials vs. comparisons)
- Call-to-action placements and wording
- Above-the-fold vs. in-content affiliate links
- Various trust signals and positioning approaches
2. Create Higher-Converting Content Types
Not all content formats convert equally well. Based on my experience, here's how they typically rank from highest to lowest EPC:
- Video Reviews & Tutorials: These build maximum trust and understanding before the click. My YouTube affiliate content consistently generated 2-3x higher EPCs than written content for the same products.
- Comparison Posts: "Product A vs. Product B" content attracts people who are already considering a purchase, leading to higher conversion rates.
- Problem-Focused Content: Content that addresses specific problems your audience faces and positions the product as the solution.
- Resource Lists: "Best tools for X" type content. These have good volume but typically lower EPCs due to dividing attention across multiple products.
3. Strategically Place Affiliate Links in Long-Form Content
Where you place your affiliate links dramatically impacts your EPC.#
Through extensive testing, I discovered these high-converting placement strategies:
- The 20% Rule: Place your first affiliate link after you've delivered at least 20% of your content's value
- Feature → Benefit → Link: Always structure content to explain a feature, demonstrate its benefit, then provide the affiliate link – in that sequence.
- Decision Points: Place links immediately after addressing common objections or decision-making criteria.
- Natural Flow: Integrate links where they feel like a helpful resource, not an interruption.
4. Align Links with Emotional Buy-In Moments
Timing is everything in affiliate marketing. The moment when someone clicks your link should align with their peak emotional readiness to buy.
I've found these emotional triggers create the highest-converting moments:
- Problem Amplification: After you've helped readers fully feel the pain of their problem
- Solution Revelation: Just after introducing the solution that alleviates that pain
- Proof Delivery: Immediately following testimonials or case studies
- FOMO Creation: After creating a sense of urgency or exclusivity
5. Implement Exit-Intent Strategies
Most visitors won't convert on their first visit. But that doesn't mean they're lost forever.
I've recovered countless "almost conversions" using these strategies:
- Exit-Intent Popups: Offer additional value (checklists, discounts, case studies) in exchange for an email address as visitors are about to leave.
- Retargeting Sequences: Create dedicated email sequences for people who showed interest but didn't convert.
- Content Upgrades: Offer enhanced versions of your content that require email signup, allowing you to nurture potential customers.
6. Focus on High-Converting Offers
Not all affiliate programs are created equal. The most successful affiliates ruthlessly optimize their portfolio based on EPC performance.
My approach:
- Track EPC for every affiliate program I promote
- Conduct monthly portfolio reviews
- Gradually shift more content toward higher-performing offers
- Abandon programs with consistently low EPCs despite optimization efforts
7. Leverage Program-Provided Resources
Many affiliates ignore the promotional resources provided by affiliate programs. This is a huge mistake.
The best affiliate managers have tested these materials extensively. They know what converts. Let them guide you towards what works – you can even email them and ask, and they’ll be glad to help.
Tools to Track EPC
After years of struggling with various tracking solutions while scaling affiliate programs, I built Endorsely to help SaaS companies better track the EPCs that affiliates were getting from the traffic they were sending them.
Why I Created Endorsely for EPC Tracking
When growing other SaaS affiliate programs, I got frustrated with the existing software. It didn’t show me anything beyond the top-level EPC.
I wanted to know which affiliates were sending HIGH-QUALITY customers who weren’t churning.
That’s why with Endorsely we invented our own hybrid metric we use: blended EPC-LTV.
This helps affiliate managers see who to focus on – not from who is sending the most customers (that might churn after 1 month), but who is sending the highest-quality customers with the best LTV.
You can sign up to Endorsely for free here
FAQs
How is EPC different from EPC/click, EPC/visitor, and EPC per 1000 clicks?
While they sound similar, these metrics have important distinctions:
- EPC (Earnings Per Click): The standard calculation of total commissions divided by total clicks.
- EPC/click: This is the same as standard EPC.
- EPC/visitor: Earnings divided by unique visitors rather than clicks. This accounts for visitors who click multiple affiliate links.
- EPC per 1000 clicks: EPC multiplied by 1000, useful for low-commission products where the per-click earnings might be small decimals.
When comparing programs, make sure you're looking at the same metric to avoid misleading comparisons.
Is EPC the same as "average order value" (AOV) or "conversion rate"?
No, though they're related:
- EPC combines conversion rate, AOV, and commission rate into a single metric, for how much every click you send it worth.
- AOV is the average amount customers spend when making a purchase.
- Conversion rate is the percentage of clicks that result in a completed sale.
Can EPC ever be negative?
Yes, EPC can be negative if a program has significant refunds, chargebacks, or clawbacks that exceed new commission earnings during a specific period.
This typically happens with:
- Products with high return rates
- Programs that pay commissions upfront before trial periods end
- Seasonal businesses during off-peak periods
Negative EPC is a serious red flag that requires immediate investigation and action.
What's an "EPC spike" and how do I investigate sudden swings?
An EPC spike is a sudden significant change (up or down) in your program's EPC.
These can often be signs of affiliate fraud, and so if you are an affiliate manager and seeing some affiliates with spiking EPCs, you should check this to make sure everything is above board.
How can a program with a smaller payout outperform a high-commission rival?
This apparent paradox happens regularly in affiliate marketing. A program with lower commission percentages can achieve higher EPCs through:
- Higher conversion rates
- Higher average order value (AOV)
- Better funnel and customer journey
- Recurring commissions
What's a good EPC on the Amazon Associates program?
Amazon Associates typically has lower EPCs than many other programs due to its lower commission rates, but benefits from high conversion rates and customer trust.
Based on my own experience and industry data:
- $0.10-$0.20: Common for general product reviews and low-commission categories
- $0.20-$0.35: Good performance for most product categories
- $0.35-$0.50: Excellent performance, typically in high-ticket items or high-commission categories
- $0.50+: Exceptional performance, usually achieved with very specific high-value product focuses
The key to success with Amazon Associates is volume and conversion optimization rather than maximizing EPC. Many top Amazon affiliates focus on high-traffic, buyer-intent keywords rather than pure EPC optimization.
