Photo by Nesa by Makers

When it comes to performance marketing, one of the biggest questions you can ask yourself (or your advertiser) is what kind of conversion tracking protocol you want to use: pixel tracking (client-side) or postback tracking (server-side). There are benefits and disadvantages to each, and it’s important to distinguish between them if you wish to be successful. So, let’s break it down.

First — definitions:

Pixel Tracking

Also called client-side, cookie-based, in-browser tracking. This method relies on the user’s browser to track conversions by placing a cookie on the click that is called again on conversion to authenticate the session and attribute the conversion to the correct affiliate. Pixel-based offers use cookies to track because they can store the session values in the cookie, and with the way pixels are designed to track, can extract this information from the browser easily. As a result, setting up an offer to track using pixels is very simple and only involves placing the HTML offer pixel on the conversion page.

Use pixel tracking when:

TUNE’s general recommendation is to use pixel tracking as little as possible, as pixel tracking only works for non-mobile web traffic where cookies can be stored. Additionally, major browsers like Safari, Chrome, and Firefox are moving away from allowing tracking-related cookies even for first parties.

As the last resort, use pixel tracking if the following are true:

The offer’s advertiser is unable to send server-side conversion notifications.
The offer does not involve mobile app installs.
The offer’s desired end users are on browsers that support tracking-related cookies.

For more information, check out this TUNE support article explaining implementation of pixel tracking.

Postback Tracking

Also known as server-side, server call, server 2 server (or server-to-server), s2s and, mistakenly, server pixel tracking, relies on the advertiser’s servers to track sessions generated on clicks to attribute conversions.  The servers record and then pass the transaction ID back to TUNE. This method is independent of the user’s browser. Postback tracking can be thought of as two separate processes: what happens when a user clicks on an offer and what happens upon conversion.

Leading up to the conversion:

1. User sees an offer.
2. User clicks on the offer.
3. Click goes to a TUNE server. The server records the click, then generates and records the ID for that session (in most cases the transaction ID).
4. TUNE immediately directs the user to the offer’s landing page, including ID for that session in the offer URL.
5. User sees offer’s page on advertiser’s site. Advertiser’s site handles recording that session’s ID however it deems fit, such as storing it as a variable in an e-commerce site or SDK in a mobile app.

When the user converts on that offer:

1. The advertiser’s server sends a signal to TUNE (a.k.a. fires a postback) that includes the ID TUNE initially supplied. The user is not directed back to TUNE in any way.
2. TUNE records the conversion for that session.

TUNE has another great support article explaining postback tracking.

Use postback tracking when:

You have the technical resources available to implement the server-side calls (see below for details on implementation).

Pros and Cons of Pixel Tracking

Pros:

• Pixel tracking is extremely easy to implement. Because it’s just copying and pasting code into the HTML of your website, you don’t need to be a developer to set up tracking. Along the same lines, the learning curve for implementation is not as steep.

Cons:

• Pixel tracking doesn’t work if the conversion occurs on a mobile device. That means conversions on mobile web, in the app stores, and in apps will not register. (Mobile devices and smartphones usually have cookies blocked as a default setting, so a cookie will never be placed on mobile in the first place.)
• Pixel tracking is much more prone to fraud. As you can imagine, because the tracking is done in the browser, it would be fairly easy for a tech-savvy affiliate to fire pixels without an actual conversion occurring.  
• Sometimes, pixels just don’t fire and you won’t know why. A possible reason for this could be that the user cleared their cache between click and conversion, but occasionally the reason is unknown. Reporting will be of little help for troubleshooting, because you won’t have server logs to utilize.
• For all of these reasons (and others), pixel tracking is highly inaccurate.

Pros and Cons of Postback Tracking

Pros:

• Much more reliable because all tracking is done server-side, so you’re leaving a lot less up to chance.
• Much easier to troubleshoot, using TUNE’s server logs.
• Less prone to fraud, and many more options available to mitigate fraud, like adding an offer whitelist, advertiser security token, or hashing the postback URL. Read more about preventing postback fraud.
• You have the option to set up a global postback (on a per advertiser basis), where a single postback implementation can register a conversion for all offers for that advertiser. Pixels don’t have that option.
• In general, postback tracking will allow more options for conversion firing beyond when the user is on the webpage. Instead of being limited to a simple page load, you can have your advertiser send back the conversion URL whenever they please. This will become helpful if your advertiser doesn’t want to register conversions until after an order has shipped, or a lead has been qualified, for example.
• Postback tracking works on mobile devices! Remember, pixel tracking will not work on a smartphone or mobile device.

Cons:

• Postback tracking is harder to implement. It requires direct communication between the network and the advertiser to make sure that the ID is passed into the correct parameter, and then it requires technical implementation on behalf of the advertiser to store and pass back the value. The advertiser will need to have someone with server-side HTTP experience in order to code the requests.
• Implementation time varies widely. Postback tracking could be set up in a matter of minutes, but for some advertisers, it could take an entire day to code the database to store the IDs.

Want more information? Check out our blog series on digital tracking methods, or download the full e-book: How to Become a Track Star: Your Guide to Tracking for Performance Marketing Campaigns.

This article was originally published in 2016 and has been updated with new links and information.

It has been another productive year for the TUNE Product Team as we continue to focus on our mission to help digital marketers build personal relationships and trust. 

2024 Product Updates and Releases

TUNE Marketplace 

2024 started off with a reintroduction of the TUNE Marketplace and a number of improvements to help make relationship building between brands and affiliates even easier through the Marketplace experience. This included the addition of a robust notification system to help keep brands and affiliates in the loop when key events take place, such as initial inquires. The system also sends reminders when a brand or affiliate may be waiting for a response. Relationship building requires timeliness, and these updates aim to keep the process moving in a positive direction.  

Google Ads integration 

A great relationship requires transparency. To help cement that concept from a tracking and compliance perspective, TUNE has become certified as an official Google click tracking partner. Customers utilizing the Google Ads platform can integrate with TUNE for a seamless link generation experience to ensure compliance with Google and industry standards.  

CPC First-Click Attribution 

Building on the transparency theme, TUNE has improved our session tracking tools to ensure cost-per-click (CPC) offers only pay out on the first click. For customers utilizing server-based postback tracking, this greatly reduces the risk of overpaying. Read more to understand how TUNE achieves this process.  

 Advanced Device Detection 

While Chromium has begun limiting the amount of information returned as part of its agent string, there may still be instances where marketers want to target audiences based on the operating system or device model they use. TUNE’s Advanced Device Detection feature gives marketers this additional insight into their audience. Once enabled, this additional data is available in reporting as well as the Advanced Targeting features. 

Microsoft Azure SSO Support 

Last year, TUNE introduced new security and trust features, including support for organizations that manage user access through Okta. In 2024, we expanded single sign-on (SSO) support to include Microsoft Azure. This helps IT staff maintain tighter controls and best practices when managing users and their access to third-party platforms. 

Additional Improvements 

Several smaller feature improvements made their way into the TUNE platform in 2024, including the ability to filter reports by partner status for more granularity when seeking program insights. 

TUNE’s Proactive Click Fraud Prevention system now surfaces deeper insight into the reasons behind potentially fraudulent activity. This includes fraud reasons from bot generated traffic to IP addresses being spoofed via VPN. 

We expanded promo code functionality to allow management via the TUNE API. This provides customers a more programmatic path to managing promo codes when integrating with systems outside of TUNE. 

Looking Ahead to 2025 

For the last several months, the TUNE Product Team has been reevaluating our core feature set and workflows with an eye toward improving the overall experience when interacting with the TUNE platform. We have spent a lot of time prototyping, asking customers for feedback, and getting a deeper sense of how our users operate day-to-day. (Thanks to everyone that has talked with us!)  

As a result, we are close to opening a beta version of a new offer experience that we believe will be more intuitive, and faster to navigate. In the end, we want customers focused more on marketing and less on the vagaries of the tools. Keep an eye out for an opportunity to help test that new experience very soon.  

Cheers to 2024 and here’s to an even better 2025! 

Acquiring new high-intent customers is a critical challenge for any business, especially in the finance market. Customers rely heavily on word-of-mouth and take many factors into consideration before converting, making the stakes even higher.

Traditional marketing strategies often miss the mark, struggling to hit the sweet spot between ad spend and customer quality. This is where outcome-based marketing (OBM) comes into play. OBM revolutionizes customer acquisition by offering a more effective, performance-based approach, positioning brands to access previously untapped high-intent traffic, all while sharpening their competitive edge in the financial services landscape.

What is Outcome-Based Marketing (OBM)?

Outcome-based marketing (OBM) is a results-driven strategy ideal for financial services marketers. With OBM, you only pay when specific KPIs crucial to your business are achieved, such as acquiring a qualified lead, loan application submissions, or new account openings. Campaigns are tailored around these down-funnel events, enabling you to test performance across various channels and pinpoint the most effective placements for converting traffic into customers.

Overcoming Customer Acquisition Pain Points with Outcome-Based Marketing (OBM)

Discover how an OBM model helps tackle common obstacles in scaling customer acquisition in the finance industry.

High Costs per Acquisition: OBM helps manage high acquisition costs by ensuring you only pay for specific, measurable outcomes such as qualified leads or completed applications. This ensures every dollar you invest drives growth. With continuous optimization, OBM pinpoints where your best customers come from, enabling you to scale effectively without overspending.

Inefficiency in Targeting: OBM enhances targeting by using placement-based strategies across digital channels, geo-targeting specific locations, and dayparting for optimal ad timing. For finance marketers, this means precisely directing ads to high-potential leads. AI-driven optimization further refines targeting, continuously uncovering new customer acquisition opportunities and improving campaign efficiency.

• Working with an outcome-based marketing expert like Perform^[cb] connects you with top-performing partners to reach your ideal consumers. For example, a national mortgage marketer achieved a 481% increase in biannual growth and a 78% boost in conversions in just one quarter by leveraging Perform^[cb]’s expertise in tracking KPIs, managing volume, and analyzing competitive payouts.
• Investing in a performance marketing solution that can accurately track cross-channel conversions while protecting consumer data and complying with industry regulations is especially important for finance brands. A privacy-centric tracking platform like TUNE can ensure that every conversion is measured, whether it takes place in a web browser or a mobile app, without using third-party cookies or storing sensitive customer information.

Regulatory Costs: OBM allows you to work with partners who understand and adhere to financial regulations. These partners handle compliance aspects related to their marketing efforts, reducing the costs and risks associated with regulatory adherence.

• From FTC and SEC advertising laws to content compliance and bank regulations, Perform^[cb] ensures brands’ campaigns are protected through enhanced compliance monitoring, in-depth partner vetting process, and patented, built-in anti-fraud technology.

Measuring ROI: OBM prioritizes measurable results, simplifying ROI tracking even with complex customer journeys and multiple touchpoints. By paying for outcomes, you gain clearer insights into which channels and partners are delivering value, improving your ability to evaluate and optimize marketing effectiveness.

Lead Quality vs. Quantity: OBM emphasizes paying only for leads that meet specific criteria and convert into customers. This is especially crucial for financial services brands, where high acquisition costs are exacerbated by a significant portion of unqualified leads. By focusing on quality over quantity, OBM helps mitigate these costs and ensures a more efficient allocation of ad spend.

How Financial Services Brands Can Get Started with Outcome-Based Marketing (OBM)

Here are a few tips on how financial marketers can begin testing on a 100% performance-based model:

1. Define Clear Outcomes: Set specific goals like acquiring qualified leads or increasing conversions. This helps measure campaign effectiveness and ensures you’re focusing on high-quality metrics.
2. Leverage Data and AI: Use tools like Google Analytics for segmentation, Salesforce for predictive modeling, HubSpot for behavioral tracking, and Perform^[cb]’s PerformSense AI to enhance traffic quality and conversion rates by filtering out non-converting traffic based on extensive data. Choose a tracking platform like TUNE’s that offers real-time measurement and a library of dashboards and reports to get insight into what’s working and what’s not. For finance brands with business intelligence tools already in place, consider using a fully automated event delivery service such as Firehose to live stream data into proprietary systems.
3. Optimizations to Scale Incrementality: Regularly review and adjust campaigns to measure and scale incremental impact. Perform^[cb] uses advanced methods to isolate and test traffic, accurately assessing the impact of your marketing efforts. Set goals for key metrics like conversion rate, then use performance automation tools to automatically optimize campaigns based on those goals.
4. Consider Speaking with an Outcome-Based Expert: Connect with performance marketing partners experienced in financial services who offer robust targeting and transparent reporting. Perform^[cb]’s Outcome Engine leverages a performance-based model to acquire new customers alongside your existing marketing channels. TUNE’s expert team is knowledgeable about the challenges of marketing for financial services and can share learnings and best practices from years of experience.

Cutting Costs, Boosting Results

Outcome-based marketing offers a transformative approach to customer acquisition in the finance and insurance sectors. By focusing on measurable outcomes, leveraging precision targeting, and utilizing advanced tracking and analytics, marketers can significantly reduce spend without losing out on qualified customers.

Are you a financial services marketer eager to dive into outcome-based marketing? Connect with Perform^[cb]’s team of customer acquisition experts and get started today!

Email TUNE’s Partnerships Team at partnerships@tune.com to learn more about performance marketing for financial services brands and how the right tracking platform can help.

There’s no denying it: artificial intelligence is here to stay. And it’s disrupting almost every area of marketing you could think of, including the world of influencer marketing. As social media platforms and trends shift, the content creation process shifts with them. This change is nudging digital marketers to investigate AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney to expedite and optimize their daily tasks. We’ve been investigating ourselves, with mixed results — so if you’re determined to add AI to your influencer marketing strategy, just know it’s not a plug-and-play solution. It takes time, testing, and a clear idea of the relevant tactics and desired outcomes to succeed.

Sound good? Great! Let’s dive in.

How to Use ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Claude for Influencer Marketing

AI is on the rise across the board. Influencer marketing is no exception:

• According to a recent report by Influencer Marketing Hub, 63% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in the next year, with AI tools being a key area of investment.
• In the same report, respondents identified three main uses for AI in influencer marketing: influencer identification (64%), content discovery and distribution (13.3%), and fraud identification (5.6%).

Here are a few ways that you use AI tools in your influencer marketing today.

Use ChatGPT to Identify Influencers

Identifying the right influencers to partner with is a critical component of any successful influencer marketing campaign. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a powerful language model that can assist in various aspects of partner discovery and recruitment for influencer marketing. Because it has access to the internet (unlike some AI models), ChatGPT can search relevant sites and social media platforms for you, saving hours in your search for the right partners.

Try using ChatGPT and similar AI-powered tools to search the internet for influencers who fit your ideal profile. Provide your marketing guidelines or website, then ask to identify the influencers that align with your brand’s values, target audience, and marketing objectives. You can also ask ChatGPT analyze large datasets of social media activity, content performance, and audience demographics. Or ask it how best to ask it to find influencers; starting with the right prompt is key, so why not prompt it to provide the right prompt? The options are only as limited as your creativity!

Keep in mind that any data you give to ChatGPT could be shared with OpenAI or others. If you routinely work with sensitive data, consider using the paid version or a different model.

Use Midjourney to Generate Content and Ideas

Influencer marketing is not just about finding the right partners; it’s also about creating engaging, high-quality content that resonates with their followers. AI tools like Midjourney, an image generator, can be used to generate and iterate stunning visuals, while ChatGPT and Claude can help craft captions, scripts, and even entire content strategies.

A few examples of how AI can help in the content process:

• Design Inspiration: Prompt Midjourney with the subject, tone, look, and feel you’re going for in a campaign and let it brainstorm visual directions for you.
• Asset Creation: Generate graphics, banners, and other assets that influencers can use in their content. (Watch out, though: AI tools are still getting the hang of letters, and they often can’t spell worth a lick. Check your images for any text that’s generated, or create images without text and add it in post. There’s nothing worse than an AI-generated ad that spells words wrong or includes letters that don’t exist.)
• Scriptwriting: Use ChatGPT or Claude to generate scripts or script ideas for influencer videos and podcasts that resonate with a specified target audience.
• Social Media Posts: Create on-brand captions and posts that influencers can use across their platforms.

By automating these creative tasks, you can free up your influencers to focus on what they do best: building authentic connections with their audience.

Use Claude to Analyze and Optimize Campaigns

Measuring the success of your influencer marketing efforts is crucial for making informed decisions and optimizing future campaigns. AI-powered analytics tools can provide in-depth insights into key performance indicators (KPIs) such as reach, engagement, conversions, and return on investment (ROI).

Claude, an AI model from Anthropic, is designed to assist in complex decision-making processes. Unlike ChatGPT, though, Claude is designed to be self-contained, which means it won’t access the internet when forming a response. You’ll have to provide it with any relevant data you want to analyze. Luckily, this is as easy as uploading documents or images directly in your chat.

If you have large datasets you want to analyze, Claude is your go-to tool. Here are a few ideas on how to get started:

• Influencer Selection: Analyze engagement metrics, audience demographics, and content relevance to select the most effective influencers.
• Performance Tracking: Monitor influencer content performance over time, identifying which messages, formats, or topics are driving the most engagement and conversions.
• Sentiment Analysis: Claude can analyze audience sentiment towards influencer content, helping you refine your strategy for better results.

By leveraging these advanced data analysis capabilities, you can gain a deeper understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and how to fine-tune your approach for maximum impact.

How to Navigate the Ethics of AI in Influencer Marketing

Ensure Transparency and Authenticity

The rise of AI in influencer marketing has raised important questions about transparency and authenticity. As you explore these tools, it’s crucial to maintain clear communication with your influencer partners and their audiences about the use of AI in content creation or campaign management. Not everyone is on the AI train, and that’s OK. Transparency will help build trust and preserve the integrity of your influencer marketing efforts.

Address Bias and Fairness in AI-Driven Decisions

AI algorithms can sometimes perpetuate or amplify existing biases, which can have significant implications for your influencer selection and campaign management. It’s essential to actively monitor your AI-driven processes for potential biases, and to take steps to ensure that your influencer marketing strategies are fair, inclusive, and representative of your target audience.

Stay Informed About Evolving Regulations and Best Practices

The use of AI in influencer marketing — and digital marketing as a whole — is a rapidly evolving landscape. New regulations and best practices emerging regularly. As you incorporate AI into your strategies, stay informed about industry guidelines, legal requirements, and emerging ethical standards to maintain compliance and build trust with your stakeholders.

Your AI-Powered Future Is Waiting

In influencer marketing and so many other areas, AI can help you unlock new levels of efficiency, creativity, and performance. From identifying the right influencers to automating collaboration workflows and optimizing campaign strategies, the integration of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Claude can help you deliver exceptional results. Just remember to prioritize transparency, fairness, and ethical best practices to maintain the trust and loyalty of your influencer partners and their audiences.

Successful influencer marketing is all about building genuine, long-lasting relationships. AI can assist in this process, but it can’t totally replace the human component. Focus on how you can use AI to enhance your relationships with influencers, not automate them, and you’ll go far.

Want more info on making the most out of your influencer marketing efforts? Download the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint e-book, our in-depth guide on how to build high-ROI creator communities.

In the performance marketing industry, real-time data can mean the difference between a successful partnership and a lost opportunity. Yet too many brands still pair business intelligence tools with delayed or incomplete data, hindering their optimization efforts at best — and completely derailing them at worst.  

In this post, we’ll explain why real-time data is a must-have for performance marketers, how TUNE Firehose addresses this need, and how customers use our solution to combine streaming data with business tools to make truly intelligent decisions. 

Business Intelligence Is Booming 

The emergence of business intelligence (BI) tools, big data, and data scientists in modern business have allowed brands to bring various departments together to see and understand their data. Just in the last 10 years, amazing strides have been made to better collect, clean, store, and display various data sets. Delegating these tasks to specialized tools and services has allowed brands to remain agile, where previously this was not possible. 

Marketers especially stand to benefit from BI tools that enable them to make data-driven decisions in high-stakes situations — for example, when optimizing and scaling million-dollar campaigns. Previously, this data was stuck in silos and distributed into multiple interfaces for consumption. This left too many marketers with gaps in their data, and no choice but to make ill-informed decisions (or their best guess) with only data assumptions to guide them. 

A Unique Opportunity in Partner Marketing 

Throughout the past few years, traditional media buys have become saturated and increasingly competitive. Facebook is full of fake posts and AI-generated images, Google SERPs are increasingly based on content created for AI, and Twitter (or X, as it’s now known) is shedding advertisers. As a result, more businesses are discovering partner marketing as an efficient, cost-effective channel for growth.  

Unfortunately, brands looking to add data-driven methodologies to their partner programs have seen limited innovation from the traditional affiliate network model.

In this model, each network dictates its own data sharing and collection policies. These policies often limit the level of granularity provided to customers and make real-time access to data difficult. And since they have the final say on who actually “owns” the data, it’s not uncommon to see networks hide or aggregate data from brands and use it for their own gain.  

While most marketing channels have data sharing and analysis tools built in (think Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc.), the partner marketing channel has lagged. Marketing dashboards usually have limited data integrity for this channel. Brands now expect real-time data across their marketing mix; lacking it here is a limiting factor in true optimization of this profitable channel. 

TUNE’s Real-time Data Solution 

Today, all the traditional affiliate networks in the industry simply provide an API call for pulling data out of their platforms. Brands that want to access this data have had to use costly development resources to build and run extract, transform, load (ETL) scripts, which pull data out of one system and convert it for analysis and storage in another.  

The problem with this one-way approach is that it can only provide a historical view, as you are basically running a script that pulls data at a set cadence (hourly, daily, weekly, etc.). Pinging a network’s API more frequently can quickly increase server costs, which is why many brands settle for once-a-day API calls in exchange for lower server bills. This process requires constant monitoring and makes it nearly impossible to get real-time data access. 

In 2016, we took a look at how TUNE customers were using our industry-known two-way API. What we found was hundreds of customers running ETL scripts non-stop, 365 days a year. We knew there had to be a more efficient approach, so we did what we normally do when confronted with a challenge: We innovated. 

Enter TUNE Firehose, our proprietary data streaming platform, where customers can enable TUNE to automatically push every impression, click, conversion, and adjustment directly to a customer-owned database, in real time. Firehose makes it possible for TUNE to essentially create a carbon copy of every data field and event collected for this channel and deliver it to your business intelligence solution as it occurs. No waiting for results, no incomplete datasets from your growing partner marketing channel. 

TUNE Firehose Use Cases 

Firehose has been a pivotal feature for TUNE customers over the last five years. In that time, we’ve seen them employ this data streaming technology for a variety of use cases. 

After moving to Firehose, brands on TUNE can receive every data field from every impression, click, and conversion in real time. This results in more accurate insights into the channel, and no lag between digital activities and reporting reflection. 

While some brands may use Firehose for simple data warehousing and dashboarding, other customers are using this data stream to enable real-time optimization and automation. These use cases include deploying artificial intelligence to look for anomalies and automatically making changes to campaigns in real-time. 

Because the TUNE platform provides more than 90 data fields on every impression, click, and conversion, other customers choose to use this data to monitor each partner and sub-partner to power automated fraud detection and dig further into this channel than ever before. 

In Conclusion 

Traditionally, brands in the partner marketing space have had to piece together limited data and access to their network’s reporting API, resulting in delayed results in internal reporting and incomplete data models. But modern marketers don’t want their data to be held hostage; they want to quickly and easily access more datapoints than ever.   

To do that, they need a partner marketing platform that complements their BI strategy just like TUNE does. Every TUNE customer owns 100% of their data on our platform, and we don’t hide, limit, use, or aggregate this data for our own gain. Instead, we provide solutions like Firehose to empower marketers to access their data in real time and use it to the fullest of their capabilities in business intelligence tools, custom integrated solutions, and their owned and operated databases.   

If you’re a TUNE customer and would like to add Firehose to your account, reach out to your dedicated success manager or email support@tune.com.

Last year, I published a list of the 12 most talked-about industry articles shared in TUNE’s Slack during 2022. Well, I’m back with another list this year, but this time, I’m doubling it!

Every year, the TUNE team shares hundreds (if not thousands) of links to breaking news stories, LinkedIn posts, white paper downloads, and more across our company-wide messaging channels. The following content pieces were the most discussed and reacted to during 2023. They run the gamut from eye-widening and informative, to surprising and debate-fueling. So, without further ado, here are our picks for the top two affiliate industry stories from each month of 2023.

1. January
   • How This DTC Baby Brand Cut Their CPA By Over 40% Through 3rd Party Quizzes
   • Direct-to-Consumer Is Dying. It’s Time for a New Paradigm

2. February
   • What’s a good trial conversion rate for in-app subscriptions in 2022?
   • Roku partners with DoorDash to give users 6 months of free DashPass and shoppable ads

3. March
   • Meaningful metrics: How data sharpened the focus of product teams
   • Why Are You Seeing So Many Bad Digital Ads Now?

4. April
   • How 16 Companies are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results (2023 Edition)
   • Wirecutter tests new content on different platforms to increase affiliate revenue

5. May
   • How A Minor Apple WebKit Tweak Can Send Ripples (Or Trigger Tsunamis) Across Marketing Tech
   • The Perfect Product Page: Building a Best-in-Class PDP

6. June
   • Paid Content in Commerce: Driving Advertising Revenue through Affiliate
   • The Subscription Stack: Subscription Metrics

7. July
   • NIL at Two: Two Years of Name, Image and Likeness in College Sports (download)
   • FTC Updates Disclosure Guidelines for Affiliates and Influencers

8. August
   • Evite’s Post-Pandemic Marketing Pivot
   • One Year In, The Wall Street Journal’s Buy Side Is Fine-Tuning Its Affiliate Strategy

9. September
   • No, outbound links won’t help your content rank better on Google
   • How Wedding Giant The Knot Pulled The Veil Over Advertisers’ Eyes

10. October
    • Confessions of an MFA publisher
    • The State of Content SERPs: A 250,000 Keyword Analysis

11. November
    • Learnings from Leading Growth Marketing (YouTube video)
    • Under Review: The pros and cons of e-commerce verticals

12. December
    • The best place for product reviews is … Reddit?
    • AdExchanger Commerce Media Round-Up
     
    

Like every year before it, 2024 is sure to surprise and impress as we continue to watch our industry evolve. Thanks to all who keep us informed, and best of luck in the months ahead!

Last year, we introduced the TUNE Network and the benefits it offers over traditional choices. When you’re ready to hear more about what our network can do for your business, let us know at sales@tune.com or start a chat.

If 2024 is the first year you explore performance-based partnerships, check out 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting an Affiliate Program, a collection of advice from industry vets on what not to do when just starting out.

In today’s digital age, the internet has made it easier for people to connect, share information, and conduct business. However, it has also opened new avenues for scammers and fraudsters to prey on unsuspecting victims.

At TUNE, we take security seriously, and we want to help you stay safe online. Unfortunately, some scammers use legitimate company names and logos to trick people into giving away their personal information. We have noticed one method, called an impersonation scam, popping up more and more over the last few months.

What Is an Impersonation Scam?

One of the most common types of online scams is impersonation scams. In this type of scam, fraudsters pose as legitimate individuals or companies to gain access to sensitive information or money.

One of the most persistent types of deception in this scenario is when a malicious actor acquires a domain that is similar in name to a legitimate website (e.g., g00gle.com). The bad actor then tries to get users to click into the false website without the user realizing they are not on the website they intended to visit. This way, a malicious actor can serve harmful content to the user, such as links to scams or pages that prompt them to enter passwords.

What’s more, the recent rise of artificial intelligence has made it easier to execute these scams. Some bad actors are taking advantage of the breakthrough of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT to create rather convincing fraudulent campaigns. These tools can be used to create more legitimate-looking emails as well as website content. Malicious generative AIs are making their own space in the market, which may prove to be increasingly dangerous, as they’re not limited by the ethical boundaries that are usually defined for their legitimate counterparts.

Main Types of Domain Spoofing in Impersonation Scams

Email Spoofing

With email spoofing scams, attackers send emails that appear to come from a familiar or legitimate sender, such as a friend, business, or government agency. The fraudulent emails may contain a malicious download or link, lure the recipient to a fraudulent website, or redirect the user to a website they did not wish to visit.

Website Spoofing

In this scenario, attackers register a domain that is similar to a legitimate domain. They can then use this domain to create a website that nearly replicates the legitimate site it’s based on and send spoofed emails to lure victims. Once on the spoofed site, users may be offered malicious downloads or asked to provide their personal information, such as login credentials or banking information.

Spoofed websites can also be used to commit advertising fraud. The scammer submits the false domain to an ad exchange in order to trick advertisers into bidding for space on the spoofed site instead of on the legitimate website.

Impersonation Scams: A Case Study

Like many companies that provide their services online, we have faced bad actors with fraudulent websites that attempt to impersonate TUNE.

One of these, tuneratings.com, is a website that claims to offer discounts for leaving ratings and reviews of different products; this process includes paying a certain amount to them. This website is not associated with TUNE and should not be trusted or visited for any reason.

Actors associated with this fraudulent site have recently reached out to customers of TUNE, attempting to have them sign up for unrelated services. Based on reports provided to us, it appears the malicious actors have primarily targeted regions in Southeast Asia. In these cases, the malicious actors tried luring people in by claiming to offer a “part-time job,” and usually used Telegram as their messaging platform of choice.

We’re posting a conversation we had with a potential victim below to spread awareness about this scam and to help others identify and avoid these bad actors:

How to Protect Yourself Against Scams

It’s essential to stay vigilant and take steps to protect yourself against potential bad actors. If you come across this or any other impersonation scam, or even a website or email you think may be a scam, there are a few things you can do. Here are some tips to help you spot and avoid these kinds of scams:

1. Be wary of unsolicited emails or messages. Scammers often use phishing emails or social media messages to trick you into clicking on a link or downloading a file. If you don’t recognize the sender, don’t open the message.
2. Check the website’s URL. If you receive an email or message from a company asking you to log in to your account, double-check the website’s URL to make sure it’s legitimate. Scammers often create fake websites with similar URLs to trick you into giving away your login information.
3. Look for the classic signs of a scam. Scammers often use urgent or threatening language to pressure you into acting quickly. They may also offer rewards or discounts that sound too good to be true.
4. Use two-factor authentication. Many online accounts now offer two-factor authentication, which requires you to enter a code sent to your phone or email, use an authentication app, or provide a backup code to log in. This extra layer of security can help prevent scammers from accessing your account.

Remember: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Be cautious when sharing personal information online, and always double-check the legitimacy of a website or message before taking any action.

What to Do If You Suspect a Scam

If you are the victim or target of a scam, or spot one in the wild, we encourage you to inform the company being misrepresented through their official channels. Provide all the relevant information you can, and do your best to spread awareness among your circle to look out for the scam and anyone associated with it.

If you suspect any misrepresentation of TUNE circulating around the internet, we ask that you immediately report it to our team by sending an email with all relevant evidence to support@tune.com. This will allow our security team to investigate as soon as possible and better protect you and all TUNE customers. Thank you!

As we continue our recruitment series here at TUNE, the Partnerships team is back to share our insights and expertise with advertisers who may be experiencing challenges with receiving timely responses or interest from publishers they have reached out to for their new affiliate programs. As I stated in last month’s post on boosting recruitment programs, advertisers should understand adding partners to their programs requires a combination of automation and human interaction, regardless of platform and popularity.  

At TUNE, we like to think of ourselves as “partnership matchmakers,” where advertisers assume the role of being the fresh new face on the dating scene. They are eager to test the waters in an open marketplace and welcome the chance to mix and mingle with potential publishers also searching for a committed, long-term partnership. 

SaaS-based affiliate networks are like dating apps where advertisers and publishers are curious singles who join the service in the hopes of meeting people interested in pursuing a relationship. Each party registers for an account, creates a profile, adds a picture, and types in a few basic details about themselves. While waiting to be discovered by others, they cruise around the app to check out profiles of other users. Eventually, the direct message notifications start to chime, and now the real fun begins. 

Maybe a few calls and texts are exchanged offline, while other conversations turn out to be a complete waste of time. Because each dating app has specific types of users and features, some people have registered accounts on multiple apps. There is also a group of users who only open the apps on rare occasions, never check or send messages, or simply never log in at all. They also say they are unhappy because the apps have not worked for them.  

This group did not realize part of the relationship-building process required them to actively engage with other people on the app. Simply having a profile, or having one with very few details, was not the best way for people to discover them. Being absent or silent certainly was not going to generate any interest, either. To these users, the app simply did not work as expected. Doesn’t that sound familiar? 

We asked some of our most responsive publishers for tips and advice to share with advertisers who are not seeing much success with responses. Based on that feedback, along with our internal team conversations, I have put together three simple steps advertisers should take once an introduction has been made to a publisher in TUNE Connect. Let’s review them below. 

Step 1: Tell Them Your Name 

Like dating, first impressions are everything. How we introduce ourselves plays a major part in how we are perceived by others and drawing their attention to us. Our names are the most obvious tools used to initiate contact with others and make them aware of our interest in getting to know them. The same is true with partner introductions, where a recognizable name can open more doors than a lofty job title. It also comes in quite handy when you have changed company roles or started a new business venture.  

Why is this important? Because people want to know who is on the other end of the line.  

This may sound extremely basic, but an email to a potential partner should always include the decision-maker’s professional business name. Aliases and nicknames can often be viewed as spam, or a potential risk for viruses or malware. Suspicious emails are usually blocked or deleted instantly by fraud detection filters, so remember: If there is something funny or suspicious about the name of the person sending the email, do not be surprised if no one is responding. 

With TUNE Connect, automated introduction emails to publishers are sent to the most up-to-date contact on file for both advertisers and publishers. Once an introduction has been initiated, one or both of the parties should follow up with a direct response, even if only to acknowledge receipt of the email. Neither side should assume the person on the other end is familiar with them or their company.  

Seasoned publishers will search for more information in a professional directory or online resource before responding, so it is a good idea to use names that make it easier for partners to find out who the person is that wants to work with them.  

Step 2: Perfect Your Pitch  

Imagine attending a speed dating event that allows you to meet lots of new potential partners, but you’re limited to a very short period of time to break the ice. How many distinct, informative, and quick details can you share about yourself in the hopes of gaining interest and a second invitation to speak again?  

Partner introductions provide an opportunity for advertisers to pitch their programs. It is not necessary to share full company details, but the emails most likely to receive a response from publishers are those that clearly communicate the offer name, product description, payout, converting action, and acceptable traffic sources.   

Advertisers should avoid using general terms such as “top payouts,” “high-converting offers,” or “custom pages.” This type of open-ended language can make it difficult for publishers to evaluate audience interest or fit, especially with unfamiliar brands. A top-tier publisher will simply skip over these emails without a response if they are already inundated with other well-thought-out introductions. Once again, this part of the recruitment process does not change, regardless of the affiliate platform.  

Just like advertisers, publishers are in business to generate revenue. There is a cost to creating content, adding new media channels, and building audiences to increase traffic. They are also interested in working with products and offers in alignment with their audience and business aesthetics. Advertisers who can show them the mutual benefits of working together usually receive a response almost immediately.   

Step 3: Follow Up, then Follow Up Some More 

This last point should be automatic for everyone. If you do not receive a response within the first 72 hours (about 3 days), send a follow-up email. It is also helpful to make a note, create a cadence, or schedule a task to follow up more than once.  

If you receive a response, but the answer is not favorable, ask for feedback to understand why the relationship is not possible. Perhaps the timing is not right now, or maybe the offer does not fit that publisher’s audience. Even negative feedback can be used to make changes or improvements to future partner outreach and follow-up communication. 

Allow some space in between attempts. Consider making three attempts spread out over a period of 15–21 days (about 3 weeks). If you still have not received a response after sending the final email, it may be best to move on to another publisher for the time being. You can always try again in the future.  

At TUNE, we love a happy conclusion. We cannot always promise a match will be made, but we can invite more partners to the dance. 

Bringing It All Together 

Even with all of the latest developments in affiliate marketing technology, partner recruitment remains a big challenge for advertisers, regardless of the networks or partner management platforms they use. TUNE is committed to helping our partners ramp up their recruitment efforts and will be providing additional recruitment support to our customers. We will also continue to share our partnership blog series on our website and social channels.  

Questions about recruitment or program best practices? Drop me a line at partnerships@tune.com. 

Earnings per click is the be-all end-all performance metric to affiliates.

This key performance metric is your average revenue for each individual click you are driving to an advertiser. And if you don’t think this is the one affiliate marketing metric to keep your eyes on, allow me to explain.

But first, ask yourself a few key questions. Are you studying the metric? Do you know how it is calculated? Are you using it to strategically influence business decisions?

If you answered no to any of the above questions, you are leaving money on the table. And if that isn’t enough to persuade you, let’s cover a few other reasons why this metric matters.

Earnings Per Click Is Your Most Valuable Metric

Earnings per click is an agnostic statistic.

[bctt tweet=”At the end of the day, affiliates want to maximize their profit.” username=”tune”]

The metric doesn’t care how high your conversion rate is. It doesn’t care that exclusive partner payout you may have or the sheer number of clicks you generated. Earnings per click cuts through the clutter and gives you the exact amount of money you can expect to receive for every click you purchase based on historic performance. With that knowledge, it is just up to the affiliate to get their cost per click under their earnings per click to be profitable.

The true potential of the earnings per click metric is fully unlocked when utilized in a paid supply side cost per click or cost per thousand impressions environment. If you can extrapolate a cost per click for every click you drive to your paid advertisements, then you can directly compare this against the earnings per click that is calculated in your tracking software. If you subtract your cost per click from your earnings per click, you get your net profit per click.

(Calculating it looks like this: Net profit per click = earnings per click – cost per click.)

This is key. This is what affiliates thrive on when it comes down to it. Forget conversion rates. Forget click-through rates. Forget payouts. If your earnings per click is higher than your cost per click, you are making money. It’s as simple as that.

Most supply-side advertising platforms will provide you your cost per click, or a way to calculate your cost per click per ad by default. For instance, during my college years, I was operating as a high volume social media affiliate. The self-serve media buying platform I was pushing clicks through offered line-by-line reporting for each of my advertisements and their respective cost per clicks. To harmonize with this, my tracking platform offered earnings per click breakouts by sub ID. This meant that as long as I passed in the creative ID into a sub ID in the tracking links behind my ads, I could directly determine profit for each over any period. Split-testing on easy mode.

How to Calculate Earnings Per Click

Earnings per click is calculated by taking the total earnings you have generated over a period, and then dividing that by the number of clicks you have generated for that same period. This gives you an estimation of what you can expect each individual click you are generating to produce in earnings. This is a figure that is invaluable in a cost per click environment.

(Earnings of an individual click is calculated as total earnings over period “x” over the number of clicks over period “x”.)

3 Tips for Earnings Per Click Campaigns

1. Shop smarter. Let’s say a network approaches you with the same offer you are currently running, but with a higher payout. An attractive offer, right? In reality, this actually means nothing. Sure, the payout is higher — but what if the conversion rate is much lower? You could actually be losing money by running with this new network. This is where earnings per click becomes vitally important. If your EPC is higher on this new network than the old, you are now making more money. The conversion rate doesn’t matter. The payout doesn’t matter.

2. Test quicker. Having one metric to use as a baseline to measure performance makes split-testing a breeze. You now have the ability to juggle multiple networks, or constantly swap out links, while only having to focus on the earnings per click of those campaigns. In such a fluid, fast flowing industry, time is your most valuable asset. Calculating earnings per click gives you back time you were spending performing tedious calculations.

3. Feel safer. Fraud is, and will always be, a nagging, frustrating problem in the performance marketing world.

[bctt tweet=”Monitoring earnings per click as your anchor point facilitates a simple sense of security and control.” username=”tune”]

It is a trivial task to record and chart trends by hour, day, month, when you are only relying on a single key metric that pulls from both your gross spend and earnings. Effortless trend monitoring breeds obvious trend outliers. This empowers you, as a marketer, to focus your time on what’s critically important — performance.

A Final Thought

Running as an affiliate business means spending a lot of time looking for and testing offers. If your main goal is to make as much profit as possible, you need to optimize where you spend your time. Getting lost in numbers and metrics is easy, and if you’re not analyzing the right things, you’re wasting time and losing money.

Focusing on earnings per click may seem like too simple a solution, but it’s a quick way to ensure that you’re making money efficiently.

For more tips, check out TUNE’s Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing.

This article was originally published in August 2016 and has been updated with new information and insights.