Tracking an Affiliate Program or campaign

Transcription

1 Tracking an Affiliate Program or campaign Introduction How affilinet s tracking works 1. A publisher places an affilinet link/creative on their website; this directs users to an advertiser s website. 2. Visitors to the Publishers website view or click a creative, these views and clicks are counted, if a click occurs the users is referred to the advertiser website. At this point the ID of the publisher and a number of other variables are recorded and kept until an action (lead or sale) takes place. 3. If an action occurs within the cookie period defined by the advertiser, action data is sent to affilinet. The action is saved in affilinet s database and shows in statistics as open. Periodically the advertiser must review these open actions deciding which can be confirmed and therefore earn a commission. 3 rd party integration affilinet is fully integrated with all the leading 3 rd party tracking solutions: DoubleClick DART for Advertisers Atlas Advertiser Suite MediaPlex MOJO Ad server And many others... Additional tracking using parameter forwarding If an advertiser has the technical resource their side it is possible for affilinet to pass dynamic parameters into destination URLs. This for example might allow an advertiser to insert extra data into its website analytics application. Please contact your affilinet account manager if you are interested in using this feature. Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 1

2 Contents 1. Standard tracking with affilinet Programs & campaigns with multiple rates Hybrid Programs & campaigns Multi-currency Programs Click-out Tracking Programs rewarding on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) De-duping using a referral parameter / switch... 8 A- Standard tracking with affilinet Tracking cookies which are set and read by affilinet are valid for 60 days by default (this can be changed). They are classed by Internet browsers as 3 rd party cookie, as standard they do not collect any personal data. Tracking via a cookie is the most reliable and fairest method to manage affiliate partnerships. In its simplest form, to implement this, the advertiser just has to place an affilinet tracking pixel / beacon its order confirmation page. Referring the user to the advertisers website When a user clicks on a publisher link they get referred via an affilinet redirect to the appropriate advertiser s web page. At this step the tracking cookie is set. Sending a action to affilinet In the confirmation or thank you page of the order system at least one affilinet tracking pixel / beacon needs to be integrated. Basic code for Pay-Per-Lead/Sale programs & campaigns Example 1: Fixed commission / Pay-Per-Lead actions ADVERTISER-ID&mode=ppl&ltype=1&order=ORDER-ID" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 2

3 Example 2: Variable commission / Pay-Per-Sale actions ps&ltype =1&price=ORDER-VALUE&order=ORDER-ID" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> Variable Dynamic? Type http(s) No Alpha https must be used when the tracking pixel is shown via an SSL connection ADVERTISER-ID No Numeric Supplied by your Account Manger ORDER-ID Yes Alpha numeric Unique value generated by the Advertisers website ORDER-VALUE Yes Numeric Shopping basket total (including VAT) generated by the Advertisers website. Please use. As decimal and do not pass a currency symbol This invisible 1x1 pixel graphic transfers data to affilinet. Affilinet then checks the user s browser to see if a tracking cookie exits, if it does an action will be registered on the affilinet system. Validation of actions For one reason or another, sometimes actions driven by the affiliate channel cannot be approved. Registered actions are displayed in affilinet platform as Open. The commission for an action is paid to affiliates only after the advertiser has validated it, the action is then marked as confirmed. It is very important that advertisers validate sales carefully, particularly towards the end of each month. At the start of a new month, any actions validated in the prior month are then locked and cannot be changed or cancelled. At this stage the advertiser has committed to paying affilinet for these actions and affilinet has committed to paying affiliates. Validation options The advertiser is able to: Confirm all the actions automatically. Validate actions via the login manually and individually according to its criteria (within 45 days). Batch confirm or cancel actions using a.csv,.xls,.xlsx, or XML file which is uploaded via the advertiser interface. Order validation can also be automated by using affilinet s Advertiser Web Services. Ask your affilinet account manager for more details Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 3

4 B- Programs & campaigns with multiple rates An advertiser that sells various products and services may attain different margins of profit on each. In order to maximise return on investment (ROI) affilinet offers advertisers the ability to pay affiliates different commissions for different actions. This is available for both fixed commission and variable commission actions. Example 1: Fixed commission / Pay-Per-Lead program with multiple rates ADVERTISER-ID&mode=ppl&ltype=1&order=ORDER-ID" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> ADVERTISER-ID&mode=ppl&ltype=2&order=ORDER-ID" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> To implement multiple fixed rates the advertiser will need the technical ability to conditionally show several affilinet tracking pixels on their website. Each of these tracking pixels will contain the variable ltype= the = is followed by a number from 1 to 150 depending on the lead-rates setup in the affilinet rate management system. Take for example an online retailer that sells mobile phones, they may want to offer 20 commission (ltype=1) for handset A and 25 of commission (ltype=2) for handset B. It is up to the logic on the advertiser s website to show ltype1 when handset A has been sold and ltype2 when handset B has been sold. Example 2: Variable commission / Sale program with multiple rates ps&ltype=1&price=order-value&order=order-id" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> ps&ltype=2&price=order-value&order=order-id" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> Each of these tracking pixels will contain the variable ltype= the = is followed by a number from 1 to 150 depending on the lead-rates setup in the affilinet rate management system. Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 4

5 C- Hybrid Programs & campaigns Some advertisers need the ability to pay out on both variable and fixed commission actions. An example of this might be an operator in the travel sector which sells both short and long haul flights (two sales rates) but also pays affiliates a commission for signups to its newsletter (a lead rate). Affilinet can currently offer a combination of up to 150 different lead rates and up to 5 sales rates. As previously mentioned to work in this way the advertiser will need the technical ability to conditionally show the various tags. Example: Hybrid program with multiple rates ps&ltype=1&price=order-value&order=order-id" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> ps&ltype=2&price=order-value&order=order-id" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> ADVERTISER-ID&mode=ppl&ltype=1&order=ORDER-ID" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 5

6 D- Multi-currency Programs Advertisers trading internationally may operate a multi-currency website and wish to reward publishers for orders in currencies other than the platform default. To enable this affilinet offers a currency conversion feature; to set this up the advertiser must contact their affilinet account manager and implement a custom version of the affilinet tracking pixel / beacon. Example: Variable commission / Sale program with one multi-currency rate ps&ltype=1&price=order-value&order=order-id&curr=currency-code" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> To implement this feature, the advertiser will need to be able to identify which currency is being used during check out and substitute the variable CURRENCY-CODE with one of the values below: Currency CURRENCY- CODE Currency CURRENCY- CODE US dollar USD Japanese yen JPY Bulgarian lev BGN Czech koruna CZK Danish krone DKK Estonian kroon EEK Pound sterling GBP Hungarian forint HUF Lithuanian litas LTL Latvian lats LVL Polish zloty PLN New Romanian RON leu Swedish krona SEK Swiss franc CHF Norwegian NOK Croatian kuna HRK krone Russian rouble RUB Turkish lira TRY Australian dollar AUD Brasilian real BRL Canadian dollar CAD Chinese yuan CNY renminbi Hong Kong HKD Indonesian IDR dollar rupiah Indian rupee INR South Korean KRW won Mexican peso MXN Malaysian MYR ringgit New Zealand NZD Philippine peso PHP dollar Singapore dollar SGD Thai baht THB South African rand ZAR Euro EUR Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 6

7 E- Click-out Tracking Click-out tracking is primarily aimed as advertisers which fall into the category of super affiliates or partners (they don t actually sell anything). They want traffic to their webproperty and then they want to push it off to another advertiser as soon as possible A click-out program is always a pay-per-lead program. On the click-out advertiser s website a location for the tracking pixel has to be defined. Normally this happens via an interstitial or pop-up page when the consumer leaves clickout advertisers site (the click-out). Example: Fixed commission / Pay-Per-Lead click-out action ADVERTISER-ID&mode=ppl&ltype=1&order=ORDER-ID" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> F- Programs rewarding on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) Rewarding on customer lifetime value involves the advertiser paying an affilinet publisher a commission every time a customer they referred transacts with the advertiser. This is a common approach in the gaming industry. In order to implement this feature the advertiser will need the technical ability to capture data affilinet forwards to the destination URL upon a user click through. Example: Customer lifetime value (repeat) variable commission / Pay-Per-Sale action Prior to the original order affilinet will transmit the publisher ID via the parameter ref to the advertisers destination URL net&ref=publisher-id (the parameter name ref can changed by affilinet). Upon page load the advertiser will either store this information in a cookie or pass it page to page in the session. Upon the publishers first action being generated, the advertiser stores the source (affilinet) and the publishers ID against their records for the customer. If this customer generates a further action at a later date the affilinet tracking pixel / beacon has to be reloaded using data from the advertiser s database. This new action normally uses the same order / lead ID as the first action linked to the customer, perhaps their account number. The new ID can be created by adding a date and or timestamp behind the ORDER-ID. This is an example pixel / beacon implementation ADVERTISER-ID&mode=pps&ltype=1&price=ORDER-VALUE&order=ORDER-ID+DATE- TIME&ref=PUBLISHER-ID" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"> Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 7

8 G- De-duping using a referral parameter / switch De-duping of traffic source is an important consideration when an advertiser runs paid for marketing activity across various online channels. For example if a advertiser runs activity with affilinet and a second affiliate network there is a chance that a consumer may click on banners from affiliates of both networks. If this occurs and the advertiser has the tracking pixel / beacon of both networks on their sites they could pay for the same sale twice, both networks will think they got the last click. This issue can be resolved by one of two approaches: 1. The advertiser opens an account with a third-party technology provider such as DoubleClick (which affilinet is fully integrated with) which can decide which network generated the last click) which will conditionally serve each affiliate networks conversion tracking pixel / beacon. 2. The advertiser creates their own proprietary setup using cookies set from their sites domain, plus a bit of conditional scripting running on the final confirmation page. Based on the information stored in a cookie the advertiser s site will decide which affiliate network (or other traffic source) generated the last click a given user made. Example: Customer lifetime value (repeat) variable commission / Pay-Per-Sale action Prior to the original order affilinet will transmit the publisher ID via the parameter ref to the advertisers destination URL et&ref=publisher-id (the parameter name ref can changed by affilinet). Upon page load the advertiser will store this information in a cookie. In case of questions or further information regarding tracking or setting up a affiliate program please contact our affilinet account management team: advertiser-uk@affili.net Should you already have an advertiser account you can find further information in our Support Portal under Help > Support Portal. Technical Information about Tracking November 2010 Page 8