A Question for Affiliate Network Owners!

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rskolnik

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Aug 22, 2006
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I am hoping that the owners and/or executives of Affiliate Networks are members of WickedFire and will share their thoughts with us all on this question.

Affiliate Networks assign each Affiliate Marketer on their network with a unique "Affiliate ID Number" upon registration. The "Affiliate ID Number" and "Sub ID" is used for analyzing that affiliate's traffic to an offer at the "front end" of the conversion process. Why don't Affiliate Networks also deliver the required code/programming to each of its Affiliate Marketers allowing for the "Affiliate ID Number" and any "Sub ID" to be pulled from the "Thank You" or "Confirmation Page" at the end of the conversion process? This type of functionality is easy to accomplish and will enable all Affiliate Marketers to better track every conversion to its conclusion. Affiliate Marketers can also track and pay any "Sub Affiliates" to help push our offers. It seems that the Affiliate Network that adopts this approach will create a rock solid trust with its Affiliate Marketer Members and differentiate itself from other less
progressive Affiliate Networks in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Your thoughts?

PS. I am optimistic that this type of functionality will start to appear in subsequent revisions of Affiliate Network software.
 


Um, using sub tracking ID, you can already incentivise offers for your own members.

Maybe I am not understanding what you are suggesting, but I think everything you mentioned is covered wiith current systems.
 
yup it already works like that.

say you are selling flowers.
one of the ways you are selling flowers is by doing ppc advertising for search terms in the "valentines day" niche. so this is a seperate ad campaign set up and you are sending clickers to an affiliate url. the affiliate url also has a sub id in there title "adwords-vday". in your affiliate reports, you will be able to see all the stats for traffic from "adwords-vday" as well as how many converted.

if you have other campaigns promoting the same offer, you can track these with different sub ids. for example, xmas, birthday, graduation, anniversary. so you've got loads of different campaigns pointing to the same offer, but you're able to track each down to the sale. and, the more you break it down the more work it is, but, you could have a different sub-id for every single keyword if you wanted so you knew which keywords converted. you should use keyword groups though.
 
Full Cycle CTR

The sub id functionality that exists now is at the "front end" of the click. Yes... You drive traffic and can track ppc CTR/keyword CTR using various sub id's, etc. I am referring to affiliate networks providing a mechanism to track the offer conversion at the "confirmation/thank you page" level or at the "completion of the offer". This will allow affiliate marketers to track the "full cycle CTR" of their efforts from "traffic driven" through "offer completion." Right now, affiliate marketers have to rely on affiliate network stats to tell them how many people actually completed the offer. Why can't we track that too. It sure would help us.
 
rskolnik said:
The sub id functionality that exists now is at the "front end" of the click. Yes... You drive traffic and can track ppc CTR/keyword CTR using various sub id's, etc. I am referring to affiliate networks providing a mechanism to track the offer conversion at the "confirmation/thank you page" level or at the "completion of the offer". This will allow affiliate marketers to track the "full cycle CTR" of their efforts from "traffic driven" through "offer completion." Right now, affiliate marketers have to rely on affiliate network stats to tell them how many people actually completed the offer. Why can't we track that too. It sure would help us.
Click to expand...

FULL ACK.

i mentioned that in another post where i posted my numbers and findings, that i am losing about 10% - 20% somewhere along google to affiliate offer.

having this kind of tracking script would be awesome and the only reason that this is not implemented (like with google analytics) must be, that most affiliate managers are just fine with having this opportunity for leakage in the system.
 
Affiliate Networks would benefit by having this functionality made available to its affiliate marketer members. I am not sure why no one will address this issue from the Affiliate Network owner's POV.
 
subid tracking and hairy unwashed balls

I agree wholeheartedly that this is VERY important functionality.

As a publisher myself, as well as a network owner, I am constantly frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the current software platforms available.

At MillNic Media we use DirectTrack. The same platform as CPAEmpire, ClickBooth, Copeac, Leadclick, etc etc etc. DT does claim to have subid tracking, but sadly the implementation is cumbersome and ineffective. To top it off it just flat out doesn't work a good majority of the time as well.

We at MillNic are addressing this problem in several ways. We are building out our own proprietary tracking system based on miles of GOOD code that we have developed over the years to track our own campaigns, as well as looking at alternate affiliate software third parties that care about providing support, uptime, and functionality that actually functions.

Sadly I have found only one company who addresses this issue well and consistently and that is azoogle ads. There are issues with their new '2.0' interface, but sub id tracking is not one of them. They make it easy to track keywords and conversions down to the exact click (if you are savvy enough to write things on your end to pass the data and parse it back yourself). It ain't perfect but it is the best I have seen out there.


So all I can really say is sorry. Third party affiliate software sucks. We are working on it. This is a VERY important issue and needs to be addressed properly.
 
If you are doing PPC and want to track the cost and ROI of individual keywords you can use the Direct Track Bid Management tool that is already embedded in the networks who run the DT software. There is an added cost for the software but it does change your bids for you to ensure your target CPA is met and you dont lose money.

DT does suck at times but as with anything the network owners need to work their system to fit their needs and the needs of their affiliates. If you want to test run the bid management tool to see if it meets your needs let me know and we can get you a free trial for the next month or two with it.
 
Conversion tracking is hugely important. I'm always shocked at how many merchants/advertisers refuse to put an affiliate's Google conversion tracking codes on their confirmation/thank-you page. "it's not our code, therefore we won't add it"...that's a cop-out. The Google, Yahoo, MSN code is perfectly secure, and there's no reason affiliates shouldn't get this tracking capability. Merchants need to hear it from more and more affiliates so that they take it seriously and suck it up. We allow our affiliates to simply enter their SE conversion tracking number into our portal and our system automatically adds it to the thank you page. On the registry cleaner product most of our affiliates promote we have about 200 conversion codes on the confirmation page. There's absolutely no "negative performance" impact by doing this.
 
Geordie said:
. ... most of our affiliates promote we have about 200 conversion codes on the confirmation page. There's absolutely no "negative performance" impact by doing this.
Click to expand...

This is why conversions get "lost" the more tracking codes the higher the chance that your conversions wont be tracked.
 
mkrongel said:
This is why conversions get "lost" the more tracking codes the higher the chance that your conversions wont be tracked.
Click to expand...

Is that effected by the affiliates landing page? say I have two different tracking codes running on my landing page ~ no effect?

Or are you all talking about the merchant landing page where the conversions happen?
 
"This is why conversions get "lost" the more tracking codes the higher the chance that your conversions wont be tracked."

I'm not sure I follow. What data do you have that indicates that there is a direct correlation between the number of conversion tracking codes installed on the merchant thank you page and 'lost' sales? In the context of what we're discussing here, even if a conversion wasn't tracked or was "lost" the worst that would happen is that an affiliate's conversion tracking would be off by a sale or two in Google/Yahoo, it doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't get credit. Maybe that's just the case with pay-per-sale stuff, conversion tracking on the network's part (i.e. the one that really counts) is based on the efficacy of the cookie, not pixels on a thank you page.
 
Geordie said:
"This is why conversions get "lost" the more tracking codes the higher the chance that your conversions wont be tracked."

I'm not sure I follow. What data do you have that indicates that there is a direct correlation between the number of conversion tracking codes installed on the merchant thank you page and 'lost' sales? In the context of what we're discussing here, even if a conversion wasn't tracked or was "lost" the worst that would happen is that an affiliate's conversion tracking would be off by a sale or two in Google/Yahoo, it doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't get credit. Maybe that's just the case with pay-per-sale stuff, conversion tracking on the network's part (i.e. the one that really counts) is based on the efficacy of the cookie, not pixels on a thank you page.
Click to expand...

the pixel reads the cookie. If the pixel doesn't load the cookie isn't read.

So if you have 100 tracking pixels on a page and the 6th pixel hangs and doesn't load it will slow down the other pixels. now if the user sat on that page for 5 minutes there is a good chance that its long enough to let all the pixels fire but most people leave the page right away.

ever hit a thank you page and after a minute you see its still loading? What do you think its still loading if all the images are showing up on the page?
 
That is why as a network we always beg to have our pixels placed at the top of a page. Some of these thank you pages have FUCKLOADS of pixels and javascripts and SSincludes running. Pixels at the top or bottom can have a massive impact on conversions. When ppl hit the thank you page they have what they want and usually click on or close the window pretty fast. There is a short window to fire pixels in there. GOOG and YHOO are famous for their slow loading scripts. How many times have you seen a page chocking on the google analytics crap? too many!

Keep the thank you pages clean and loading fast!
 
I guess we've been lucky enough in the pay-per-sale space not to have to deal with the firing issues, the cookie is read and affiliate given credit for the transaction regardless of the thank you page loading or not. In the CPA space sounds like it works differently. I'm curious though about whether the affiliate's ability to hone his campaign based on a full understanding of what's working and what's not (at a keyword level for instance) provides more value in the long run, vs. the odd lost action. i.e. more overall volume due to a more streamlined campaign etc...
 
Odd lost actions add up... If you drive 100,000 uniques via ppc to an offer with a payout of $10 bucks, get a 30% conversion rate and even 5% of those conversions cannot be accounted for then your leaving $15K on the table [I think my math is correct? 100k x .30 x .05 = $15,000.00 ]. All I'm saying is that the tracking software employed by Affiliate Networks should not let this happen. Perhaps, the pixel method is not accurate enough, does not scale well, and we need to come up with something better...
 
rskolnik said:
Odd lost actions add up... If you drive 100,000 uniques via ppc to an offer with a payout of $10 bucks, get a 30% conversion rate and even 5% of those conversions cannot be accounted for then your leaving $15K on the table [I think my math is correct? 100k x .30 x .05 = $15,000.00 ]. All I'm saying is that the tracking software employed by Affiliate Networks should not let this happen. Perhaps, the pixel method is not accurate enough, does not scale well, and we need to come up with something better...
Click to expand...

Usually the CPA networks will compensate for this discrepancy in the form of higher payouts. The point i am trying to make is that pixel tracking can be manipulated as with any type of tracking. You should test the same offer across a few networks to see who has the best conversion. Payout means nothing. If someone offered you $25 on an offer and someone offered $20 on the same exact offer but converted twice as much which is better to run? However most affiliates are short sighted and race for the high payout. That is typically why some of you cant make AM work and arent able to make money because youre to focused on payout and not worried so much with the conversion
 
Running multiple offers, testing, and seeing which converts better is just smart Affiliate Marketing. Creating an irresistible offer that people want to complete it paramount. "Offer->Completion->Payout" You are correct... Deciding to run an offer based on the payout amount alone does not mean much if the offer is not attractive and effective... Nothwithstanding all of that... There are two paths of thought: 1.) We must make do with what exists now and work all the angles to get the most out of it; 2.) We should try to grow the technology and make it better. All I am saying is that the affiliate networks would be greatly enhanced if the tracking software was more flexible and more efficient. Is anybody working on creating a better solution?
 
rskolnik said:
Running multiple offers, testing, and seeing which converts better is just smart Affiliate Marketing. Creating an irresistible offer that people want to complete it paramount. "Offer->Completion->Payout" You are correct... Deciding to run an offer based on the payout amount alone does not mean much if the offer is not attractive and effective... Nothwithstanding all of that... There are two paths of thought: 1.) We must make do with what exists now and work all the angles to get the most out of it; 2.) We should try to grow the technology and make it better. All I am saying is that the affiliate networks would be greatly enhanced if the tracking software was more flexible and more efficient. Is anybody working on creating a better solution?
Click to expand...

Alternative solutions are to cumbersome for the merchant/advertiser to implement. You could pass ID's and match up numbers but it would require a lot of man power to do so. That man power costs money and will ultimately come from the payout to affiliates. We attempted to implement something that would match everything up however it was met with resistance from advertisers and required a lot of man power. The solution in place is the best solution when weighing costs and benefits together.
 
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