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CPA Ad Network Duplication - All you need is Insight!
“CPA Ad Network Duplication - Are You Paying More Than You Should?” Asked Peter Figueredo in a related post recently.
Yes, CPA network duplication can end up costing you more than it should, but it does not have to. All you need is a well thought out multi-network strategy, the right metrics and reporting - and a little Insight!
As I posted a related article on the Forge blog it reminded me that I owe Peter a response. His article highlighted the need for proper pixel management. We (Forge) agree.
The biggest complaints affiliate managers and merchants have with multi-channel affiliate marketing (where we deploy clients campaigns across selected affiliate networks and CPA network partners) include:
1. Duplicate transactions in multiple ad/affiliate networks
2. Transaction fraud from “unscrupulous” publishers
3. Technical challenges implementing multiple tracking codes & maintaining code integrity
4. Management time required to collate & analyze data and manage the sales / reversals
5. Poor business intelligence and lack of real time reporting.
Every manager has his own way of reporting and trying to make sense of performance - but I’ve found that in most cases where multiple networks are leveraged most of the 5 issues keep cropping up.
Over the years we’ve refined our methodology to the point where Forge recently secured a worldwide patent on our methodology for managing multi-network affiliate marketing programs.
The methodology revolves around centralizing the tracking across all network platforms, thereby entirely eradicating duplicate network or affiliate transactions and fraud, providing a single campaign management interface through which all networks and campaigns can be managed and compared at a high level and from which real time reporting can be drawn and performance measured.
Once implemented, new networks or campaigns can be deployed in a matter of hours rather than days or weeks - with no further integration required to the client side shopping cart or transaction confirmation pages.
So, unintended pitch aside (lol - I have to earn a living too) why is this important?
I think that too many affiliate managers simply don’t have the resources at their disposal to adequately manage multi-network affiliate programs.
The setup costs, reporting and administration can be quite daunting. Prior to implementing our methodology on a UK client (now in 7 channels) we found we were deduping hundreds of sales monthly, matching them manually to originating networks. Wasted time that could be spent building relationships (or sitting by the beach - as everyone outside our industry seems to think we do all day 
Once the 5 core issues above are resolved it’s amazing how much quality time can be spent actually working with publishers to drive performance, rather than “managing” platforms.
Are any managers out there using Peter’s principles? Are you doing anything else that adds value in a multi-network environment? C’mon - share!
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Jonathan,
Congratulations on the patent win and thanks for the mention. I think this is a huge problem that needs to be addresses industry wide. I have talked to other leading affiliate networks who confirm that clients will see duplicate orders if they run multiple affiliate systems or ad networks. Clients should all be coding the orders they get from these channels with a source ID and reconciling the reports at least quarterly. This will alert them to problem and they can then determine what % of their orders are duplicates. (in my humble opinion)
Hi Jonathan,
Presenting a possible solution for a problem that still is a problem and tons of people out there that don’t even know that there IS a solution, is not a bad pitch. Its actually a good one :).
Anyhow, I read about your solution a while back (Revenue Magazine I think).
I have a question though and ask you directly, because I don’t want to dig through white papers etc. to find out.
Does your solution work for programs that do batch processing only or does it work also for programs that do pixel tracking? If it does work, how do you know for which network the user has a cookie and for which one not? Does the user still have Network cookies or is that replaced by a single cookie from your service? Are the optional url parameters networks have like CJ’s SID, SAS afftrack etc. supported and not getting lost?
I am just curious how this works.
Separate question. Do you have an affiliate program? It would be B2B of course. Not that it matters really. I would link to your service from my resources site anyway. My bigger problem is to determine where to put your service. I might have to create another category for you guys, but how would you call it? You might have an idea.
Thanks
Carsten
article - it’s an important topic that I’ve heard discussed and participated in discussing MANY a time, and I’m glad to see that solutions are beginning to be developed.
And yes, congrats Jonathan on the patent win!
I like the idea of centralized tracking/reporting for all channels and would be open to finding out more about that. Failing that, I like Peter’s suggestion of using a script to read the cookie in order to determine WHICH of the tracking pixels to display but what does that script look like exactly?
I’d love to convince my merchant to implement something like this, and I’ve mentioned it multiple times to date already, but I get the feeling he doesn’t have the resources to figure out what that script is, and I figure many other small merchants who don’t have advanced in-house programming teams may be in the same boat.
Also, when using such a script, wouldn’t that have to mean that in reading the cookie, the cookie would have to include ‘click date?’ My experience is that not all network systems are set up to log this data, as is the case w/ MYAP (at least in version 8 - they’ve just released 9 and I’ve not had a chance to test drive it just yet).
I’ll be watching this topic and look forward to finding out more about new industry developments as they arrive.
Thanks again,
Liz
Thanks for the comments! Yes, we’re using the methodology very effectively to track campaigns running across multiple ad networks.
The centralization has enabled us to streamline reporting and administration accross our client base and the short-term wins have been simply phenomenal.
A v2 commercial release should be available in the next few months for agencies and affiliate managers who wish to license the patent and benefit from the centralized reporting and aggregation. If you’re interested we hope to launch with some fanfare soon!
To your question on the cookies. We don’t need to modify the behaviour of any of the subservient ad networks, as one of the ways the ForgeInsight platform works is to trigger the display of the originating network based on the business rules contained in the ForgeInsight cookie, which is set post impression prior to the network’s. As our cookie contains the datestamp we then determine which ad network to credit and allocate the sale from there.
This is just one of the ways that the system determines which ad network orginated the sale
J
Hi,
I was wondering if you knew of any good CPA scripts?
I would like to setup a small CPA network.
Thank you,
Ryan Bessling