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 addition to being a valuable source of high-quality media partners, TUNE Connect is also a fantastic resource for clients seeking top agency recommendations and managed services. On that note, we are pleased to welcome our newest agency partner, ZeroTo1 to TUNE’s partner ecosystem. With brands such as Instacart, ClickUp, and Lime Crime on their roster, we’re excited to have them on board!

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of ZeroTo1?  

A: ZeroTo1 is a full-service growth, creative, and influencer agency for high-growth technology and ecommerce brands. We grow brands by building community, best-in-class UGC ad creative, and performance-based marketing tactics.

We work with brands like Instacart.com, Huel.com, Cometeer.com, Basecamp.com, Melin.com, HelloLanding.com, Therabody.com, GelBlaster.com, ClickUp.com, LimeCrime.com and more.

Q: What are the top ways you promote brands?  

A: We partner with top-tier brands to build influencer (creator) affiliate communities that support acquisition, creative, and lifecycle efforts. We also launch and manage profitable affiliate marketing programs through our strong relationships with top publishers and platforms, and create high-quality UGC and video ads for Meta and TikTok. 

Q: What is the total reach of your audience?  

A: ZeroTo1 helps leading brands target, reach and engage millions of consumers through direct partner channels and social media platforms, including Meta, TikTok, and more. Our agency develops marketing partnerships among the Fortune 500, providing access to premium partner channels, strategic integrations, personalized offers, and prescriptive targeting. 

Q: Which verticals perform the best with ZeroTo1?  

A: Top verticals:

• Health & Wellness
• Tech, Apps, and Consumer Services
• Food & Beverage
• Outdoor and Sports
• Electronic & Games
• Apparel & Accessories
• B2B & B2C Marketplaces

Q: Can you tell us about a successful campaign you’ve run in the last six months?  

A: ZeroTo1 and Instacart developed a set of creator-specific tools and workflows (with the help of TUNE) that allow recipe publishers and content creators, “influencer (creator) affiliates,” to make their recipes instantly shoppable from their chosen platforms.

• For influencer (creator) affiliates: they’re given tools and affiliate links to help monetize the recipe and list-focused content they’re already creating. Plus, they join a branded community of top recipe publishers, bloggers, and dieticians — sharing tips, tricks, and trends within their industry.  
• For Instacart: they’re amassing an army of recipe influencers (creators) that help generate in-app purchases, as well as a distribution network that can be incentivized and directed towards broader strategic brand goals.
• For Instacart partners: they’re able to deploy pragmatic budgets through the community, as well. Co-marketed recipe challenges, recipe syndication, and more!  

Key result/highlight from the “Influencer (Creator) Affiliate” Tastemakers Program:  

• ZeroTo1 created an agile, scalable, and highly profitable program within six months.

Q: What’s something unique about ZeroTo1?  

A: The co-founders of ZeroTo1 served on the founding team at Shipt. Both were instrumental in building out their performance marketing departments and overseeing the overall influencer and affiliate go-to-market strategies. Shipt was acquired by Target, paving the way for the inception of ZeroTo1. Today, ZeroTo1 partners with emerging lifestyle e-commerce and technology brands seeking to grow fast and grow profitably. Our competitive advantage is that we have experience working on the brand side from idea to exit in just four years, so we understand the difficulties and challenges of scaling while dealing with agencies. We pride ourselves on delivering performance results rather than just the deliverables and being long-term growth partners for our clients every step of the way. 

Q: Any industry trends or insights to share with brands?  

A: Category leaders like Instacart, Walmart, Amazon, Apple, and Disney+, among others, have recognized the immense potential in cultivating their own branded influencer-affiliate communities. With the increasing cost of paid channels, the value of investments in community-driven initiatives that foster organic growth, customer retention, and loyalty has been amplified, leading to profitable growth.

Unlike the traditional affiliate marketing programs that were primarily transactional, these branded community programs are deeply rooted in the strength of the community and the content they create for a brand. The value propositions within influencer (creator) affiliate programs have evolved from just offering commissions. They now include exclusive benefits such as access to special events and resources, opportunities for broader partnerships, and various other incentives.

We’re witnessing a trend toward diversification in affiliate programs. More brands are broadening their affiliate programs to encompass various influencers (creators) while building a branded community. This includes micro and macro influencers, content publishers, bloggers, and even the brands’ own customers. As we move forward, this trend is set to become the norm, further revolutionizing the affiliate marketing landscape and making ZeroTo1 uniquely positioned to help brands launch these programs effectively.

TUNE customers who would like to work with ZeroTo1 can connect with them directly in the TUNE platform. Simply navigate to the Agency Partners section of TUNE, select ZeroTo1, and click the “Request Connection” button.

Questions? Click here to chat with one of our experts.

This year, the TUNE Product Team had the opportunity to attend Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, and wow, what an event! 15 years of marketing experience could not prepare me for the excitement and tenacity of ASW.  

For a fantastic overview of the conference and the Vegas experience, click over to Dan’s Ultimate Guide to the Affiliate Summit West 2023 Recap. 

Attending a conference like Affiliate Summit usually provides two main opportunities from a product perspective: to gain industry insight and to validate ideas. 

For someone relatively new to performance marketing, I have quickly learned that this industry is like no other. As a result, I knew going into ASW that any insight I gained would be invaluable, and that quickly proved to be correct. 

#ASW23 Product Team Takeaways 

Comparing Affiliate Summit West to other marketing conferences, I noticed a significant difference in behavior. Most conferences feature attendees sitting in sessions all day with a few short breaks in between sessions to mingle. Not ASW! Everyone is networking and engaged in conversation 24/7 inside and outside of the conference walls. The networking does not stop. The Meet Market was at capacity for six hours straight and spilled into the city late into the night. The next day we did it all over again between the Exhibit Hall and TUNE’s Topgolf event.  

While this is an interesting observation on the surface, there is a much deeper realization to be had from a product perspective. In many ways, this conference anomaly perfectly summarizes the essence of the affiliate marketing space, and that’s relationship building. Whether you are on the affiliate end or the brand end of the spectrum, the need to connect with new people is the lifeblood of any successful program. 

How does that translate into building great products? Knowing that relationship building is the nucleus of the performance marketing world, it becomes the product team’s charge to ensure that the TUNE platform is facilitating those relationships across the entirety of our users’ journey. From surfacing opportunities in-app through tools like TUNE Connect, to ensuring the day-to-day tasks of managing a program are as frictionless as possible. 

We had a good sense going into ASW that building relationships is core to performance marketing, but how can we validate those assumptions and make sure we are building the right features to support that hypothesis? 

The product team at TUNE has spent the last several months researching and envisioning what the future holds for our product. 2023 will be focused heavily on the affiliate partner experience and how we can better empower them (and the brands they are working with), building on the product updates and features we released in 2022.  

Thanks to the TUNE Partnerships Team, we had access to some of the biggest partners in the industry. Speaking and sharing with them validated our initial plans for 2023, and they were excited to hear more! We are constantly speaking with partners and brands in virtual space, but there is something extra special about getting to talk face-to-face. I’m glad that ASW was able to be the catalyst for those meetings. 

In the end, the product team was able to learn a lot about the unique world of affiliate marketing and we validated one of the most important tenets of the industry. It’s all about building quality relationships! 

Learn how to master relationship management in your own affiliate program with TUNE’s most popular e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing.

Welcome to Part 3 of our Mobile Partner Marketing blog series! In this series, we are covering some of the insights and information found in our newest e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Partner Marketing. Whether you manage an affiliate program or run marketing for mobile apps, this e-book can help you bridge the knowledge gap between the two to unlock their full potential.  

In Part 1, we introduced the guide and outlined what readers can learn from it about mobile marketing and affiliate programs. Part 2 explains the similarities and differences between a mobile measurement partner and a partner marketing platform. 

In Part 3 of our series, we’re reviewing the why behind the what of mobile partner marketing: why apps are critical to a program’s success. Let’s get started. 

Why Mobile App + Affiliate Program = Success  

In short? Synergy. 

As the saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A mobile app on its own can be valuable. An affiliate program, even when run separate from other marketing efforts or in a silo, can also be valuable.  

Real return on investment, however, happens when you put the two together.  

While there are lots of benefits brands see when they combine the power of mobile apps with the guaranteed ROI of performance marketing, we think the following are the most impactful. 

Closer Relationships with Customers 

A huge advantage to using mobile apps in your partner marketing strategy is being able to foster better relationships with your customers. Push notifications, location-based marketing, and a wealth of personalization options make this possible. 

Take push notifications. They are efficient, customizable, and always front-and-center on a smartphone user’s screen — unlike, say, an email that sits ignored in an inbox. This adds up to a channel that often outperforms email, the traditional choice of brands for communicating with customers: 

• In 2021, the average email open rate was around 22%, while the average push notification open rate was 28%. (Source: Campaign Monitor, Omnisend) 
• A push notification sent to new subscribers in the first week following app installation can increase retention rates by up to 71%. (Source: Invespcro) 
• In 2021, email campaigns had an average conversion rate of 0.1%, while 38% of people who clicked on a push message went on to make a purchase. (Source: Omnisend) 

The depth of personalization that a mobile app can provide also brings programs and partners closer to their customers by helping to give them more of what they want. Using mobile app data like engagement and location, brands can tailor messages, share proximity-based offers, and suggest relevant content for smartphone users in ways that other channels can’t.  

Better Experiences for Users 

When it comes to user experience, mobile apps have technological advantages over mobile websites. It’s ideal for a user to be deep linked directly where they want to go in an app, instead of redirected to a clunky mobile webpage or left hanging with a broken link. This is why the mobile app ecosystem leads to both higher conversion rates and higher spending in apps when compared to mobile web. (One example: as effective as push notifications can be, the click-through rate for in-app messages is 25–30X higher.)  

Today’s consumers expect smooth, intuitive, native experiences when engaging with brands on mobile. Anything less, and you risk frustrating and ultimately losing your customers.  

Historically, though, affiliate marketers have shied away from using mobile apps to their full potential. This is because tracking links can introduce challenges when used across operating systems (such as iOS and Android) and experiences (such as mobile web to mobile app). Today, there are solutions and partners available that can handle these and other app-specific challenges for affiliate programs. TUNE has integrations with all of them.  

ROI that Proves Program Performance 

The amount of time U.S. consumers spend on the internet continues to rise every year. As it does, the gap between mobile device and desktop usage is widening, with a growing majority of time spent on mobile, and time on desktop steadily falling. 

By 2018, retailers with shopping apps and mobile websites were already seeing their apps bring in double the revenue when compared to mobile web. What’s more, their apps were driving nearly as many sales as desktop and mobile web combined. By 2020, almost 90% of all mobile internet time was spent in apps. In 2021, in-app spending increased 55% year over year, and e-commerce app installs increased 48%.  

Too often, the affiliate programs associated with these numbers (and by extension, the marketers who run them) are not getting enough credit for their efforts. Fortunately, marketers can combat unattributed channel performance from mobile apps with technologies like server-side tracking. Adding another revenue stream to a program boosts its value, and proving the program’s contributions to the overall business can help secure the budget needed to make it an even bigger success.  

Just like we said: synergy. 

Stay TUNEd to See What’s Next 

We’ll be back with Part 4 in a few weeks. Until then, check out the TUNE Blog for more information on mobile partner marketing, or download the full e-book here.

Whether you manage an affiliate program or run mobile acquisition campaigns, this e-book will help you bridge the knowledge gap between mobile and affiliate to unlock their full potential.

With any partnership, it’s important to know your strengths and your weaknesses. The same goes for your affiliate program. To have the best chance of success, trust the experts for the technology that powers your program — especially when it comes to attribution.

But does every program need a mobile measurement partner? Is an MMP the same as a partner marketing platform? And do you need both to run an affiliate program, or can you do it all with just an MMP?  

In part 2 of our series, we’ll answer these important questions with information found in our newest e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Partner Marketing. Let’s dive in! 

What Is an MMP? 

MMP is an acronym for “mobile measurement partner.” The term comes from Facebook’s name for the first group of tech providers that integrated with the social media platform to track app installs. 

A mobile measurement partner is exactly what it sounds like: a third-party technology partner that measures mobile app performance. Usually, this means attributing downloads and installs, which is done via a piece of code called an SDK (software development kit). MMPs can measure post-install activities as well, such as in-app registrations, purchases, and engagements.

The major MMPs in the market today are Adjust, AppsFlyer, Branch, Kochava, and Singular. (Fun fact: TUNE was technically the first MMP, as we created the very first mobile app attribution SDK, known at the time as MobileAppTracking. It was eventually rebranded as Attribution Analytics and acquired by Branch in 2018.) 

What Is a Partner Marketing Platform? 

A partner marketing platform (PMP) is an end-to-end SaaS solution for building, managing, and growing affiliate programs and networks. These platforms can handle all the operations needed to run a program, including conversion tracking, commissioning, offer/creative/partner management, communication, invoicing and payments, traffic management, and more. They should also be customizable enough to enable third-party integrations, custom development, and additional functionality via API. Most importantly, a true partner marketing platform operates as an unbiased, third-party software provider.  

While there are many offerings in the market today that label themselves as PMPs, most of these function more like traditional affiliate networks rather than software providers.  

Why You Shouldn’t Use an MMP to Run an Affiliate Program 

The short answer? MMPs specialize in mobile app attribution, not partner program management.  

While you can use your MMP to add individual partners, share links, and track their performance, there are other activities that are vital to running a program that your MMP is not built to handle. That’s where your partner marketing platform comes in. Check out the chart below to see how these two solutions complement each other by handling different activities across your mobile app and partner marketing efforts.  

How to Tell If You Need an MMP 

Do you have a mobile app? Do you run user acquisition campaigns?  

If you answered yes to either question, you should invest in an MMP, as they provide the most reliable and accurate measurement for today’s mobile app ecosystem.  

Master Mobile Partner Marketing with TUNE 

If you enjoyed Part 1 and Part 2 of our series on mobile partner marketing, you’re in luck! We’re back with more insights, advice, and information in Part 3.

Download the new e-book today

Universal links provide the best possible experience for mobile users of your product or service. They give you the ability to link directly into your mobile app if the user has it installed, the web if they don’t, or even defer deep linking until after the user installs the app. All of this goodness does take a bit of work to set up, but thankfully things are now much easier since TUNE is integrated with AppsFlyer’s OneLink. 

Without diving too deep into the technical details (you can read our help article for that), the crux of the issue is the redirect. Most networks and partner marketing platforms utilize a click redirect URL as part of the tracking process, but that does not play nice with universal links. On iOS specifically, the universal link domain must remain constant for the mobile device to properly open the app at click time. 

So, how do you keep measuring the clicks and conversions from your partners without redirecting the end users through a different domain? Server-side clicks to the rescue! Once AppsFlyer is selected as the universal link platform for your offer in TUNE, your partners will be able to generate an AppsFlyer OneLink automatically from the TUNE Partner Interface. The OneLink will have some special parameters appended that tell AppsFlyer to send TUNE a server-side click when a user clicks the OneLink, and the rest is business-as-usual. 

We can’t wait to see what kind of partnerships this new integration will enable! 

Did you know TUNE also integrates with AppsFlyer’s Aggregated Advanced Privacy framework? Read our blog post for more information, or email us your questions at sales@tune.com.

It’s summer, and you know what that means: time to get out and have some fun! And it just so happens that our spotlight partner for this month is all about fun and games. Check out our profile of Jump Ramp, one of the newest partners below.

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of your company?

A: Jump Ramp Games, a division of MobilityWare, offers free-to-play and fun mobile games in which users can win real cash and prizes and earn rewards. Our O&O (owned and operated) mobile apps include Lucktastic and Lucky Trivia Live. They offer exciting lifestyle experiences ranging from a million dollar sweepstakes, to a Red Carpet Oscar Night experience, to a trip to Walt Disney World and a dinner for two! These contests and content change regularly, so users play frequently to maximize their opportunities to win.

We manage the campaign for our users and are able to optimize in order to hit ROAS (return on ad spend) and KPI (key performance indicator) goals set by the client. We also watch the users journey through the games in order to show them which apps or games they would be most interested in. Finally, we use return levers to get the consumer to come back to the apps.

Q: What are the top ways you promote brands?

A: We take a native in-app approach, and knowing our audience, are able to show them the best apps based on their journey through the apps, and other apps they have installed.

Q: Which verticals perform the best with your company?

A: Gaming, finance, retail, and travel all work quite well for us.

Q: What is something unique about Jump Ramp Games?

A: Jump Ramp was an early pioneer in mobile performance marketing, and we’ve been successful leading this market for over nine years. We are a wholly owned and operated publisher. We run campaigns as a fully managed service, using in-app native promotions of our clients’ and partners’ apps.

Our audience is composed of folks who are exceptionally optimistic, more positively predisposed than most to want to try new things. Our users love our apps and enjoy them with exceptional stickiness, so they come back multiple times each day. We leverage these many touchpoints to encourage engagement with our clients’ and partners’ apps, using a variety of promotional levers to prompt them to download, play, play to a certain level, register, deposit, and perform whatever user actions represent success (KPIs) in each campaign for each client.

We target consumers exceptionally well, using our own 1P (first-party) data to segment the audience. Our ad tech was all built in-house. Our growth marketing service is fully managed, so clients each get a dedicated account manager and/or account director, who are real people applying real time and effort to make each campaign as effective and efficient as possible. 

Q: Any final comments?

A: We are continuing to not only develop new games, but also developing new ways to drive a broader audience. In addition, we are constantly working on ways to optimize our clients’ objectives in order to exceed their ROAS and KPI goals.

If you’re a TUNE customer who would like to partner with Jump Ramp Games, you can request an introduction by navigating to the TUNE Marketplace in your platform. If you have questions or would like to become a TUNE customer, email us at partnerships@tune.com and let us know!

As the rollout of Apple’s iOS 14.5 continues, mobile advertisers are beginning to weigh the impact and look for new ways to measure their campaigns. While Apple’s SKAdNetwork provides one route for measuring users who opt-out of tracking, it leaves much to be desired from a partner marketing standpoint.

That’s why AppsFlyer, the leading mobile attribution platform, designed the Aggregated Advanced Privacy (AAP) framework. Now, TUNE customers who use AppsFlyer can take full advantage of this technology thanks to a new integration with the AAP framework.

TUNE and AAP: The Basics

What exactly is the Aggregated Advanced Privacy framework? According to Oren Kaniel, CEO of AppsFlyer:

“Privacy and security experts widely agree that aggregated data is preferable to user-level data when it comes to privacy and security risks. We have also previously discussed how aggregated measurement can improve both users’ experience and privacy, without building extensive user-level profiles, by simply closing the user feedback loop on an aggregated level as opposed to user-level.

To that end, Aggregated Advanced Privacy will become the default operational mode, and user-level attribution data will not be available by default for Apple devices operating on iOS 14.5 or above, except in cases that are explicitly permitted by Apple, such as: owned media, ATT consented users, or users who have not yet updated to iOS 14.5.”

— Oren Kaniel, CEO, AppsFlyer

Given TUNE’s place in the partner marketing ecosystem, it makes perfect sense for us to integrate with the AppsFlyer AAP framework. This lets advertisers running their partner marketing program through TUNE measure their offers in a privacy-friendly way, as well as enabling TUNE-powered ad networks to provide the same for their customers and partners.

From a technical standpoint, the key difference between AAP and standard attribution is the type of postback used. TUNE’s standard postback format requires a transaction ID to be included on the click, and then passed back in the conversion. However, with AAP, the postback only requires an offer ID and affiliate ID. That way, we can still credit the conversion to the proper partner, but we don’t have a unique ID tying the click to the conversion.

How to Get Started

For advertisers and brands, getting started with the Aggregated Advanced Privacy framework is simple: just use the pre-built integration for TUNE within the AppsFlyer dashboard.

For networks, we can guide you through the process of activating AAP for your custom integration. Just reach out to integrations@appsflyer.com to get started. 

In Conclusion 

Needless to say, this change is a potentially large one with ramifications for all parties involved. That said, this is the most feasible way that we’ve seen for advertisers and networks to continue measuring partner marketing in a post-iOS 14.5 world. 

We’ll be taking a closer look at Apple’s iOS 14.5 on the TUNE Blog in the coming weeks and months. Check back often for information and updates on user opt-in rates, how advertisers are adopting, best practices when presenting pop-up prompts, and more. 

In addition, we also offer an integration with AppsFlyer’s OneLink, which makes it easier than ever to create and measure universal links with TUNE.

Have you heard of or implemented a different solution for measuring performance in iOS 14.5? Let us know in the comments below. 

Time for Part 2 of our Capture Every Conversion blog series! In this series, we’re taking a look at four digital tracking methods from our newest white paper, How to Become a Track Star: Your Guide to Tracking for Performance Marketing Campaigns. 

In Part 1, we covered the ins and outs of pixel tracking. We also explained the risks associated with this method, and why marketers should avoid pixel tracking in the future. In this post, we will be exploring the second of our four tracking methods: postback tracking. 

What Is Postback Tracking?

Also called server postback, server-side, server-to-server, and server-based tracking, postback tracking is most notable for what it is not: reliant on cookies and web browsers. Instead, postback tracking uses servers to store and send the information needed to attribute conversions. No data is stored on a user’s computer.

Postback tracking works by generating and storing a unique identifier (ID) when a user completes a desired action, like clicking on an ad. When that same user later converts, the unique ID is matched back to the user. This is done through direct communication by two or more servers, hence server-to-server tracking.

Since postback tracking doesn’t need a web browser to function, it works in environments where cookies aren’t available — on smartphones, for instance. In fact, postback tracking was originally developed for use in mobile app install campaigns, and it’s still the standard for conversion tracking on mobile. Marketers on desktop have only caught on to this method in recent years as browsers have started to restrict the third-party cookies they need for pixel tracking. 

With postback tracking, each party involved in a campaign must be able to store data on a server and send it directly to the other party. This functionality is handled by tracking software, which can be provided by a third party like TUNE, built in-house, or accessed through a traditional affiliate network.

Postback Tracking Capabilities

Postback tracking is the most accurate, granular, and reliable conversion tracking method available to performance marketers today. Period. 

To understand why, you have to understand how postback tracking works. This is easiest to do when it’s compared to pixel tracking. We’ll summarize below; for more details, see “Server Postback Tracking Explained” on TUNE Help.

Let’s say you’re an advertiser. A user visits your affiliate’s site, where they click on a link to your product: 

1. In postback tracking, that click goes directly to the tracking software server that you and your affiliate used to set up your campaign. The server records the click, generates a unique ID, and sends the ID to you. 
2. Your server stores that ID however you choose (in a database, as a variable on an e-commerce site, in an SDK in a mobile app, etc.). 
3. Upon conversion, your server sends the ID back to the tracking software (or “fires a postback”), and a conversion is recorded.

Compare that to pixel tracking:

1. In pixel tracking, it’s basically the same up until the ID is sent from the tracking server. 
2. At this point, the ID is not sent to you — instead, it’s stored in a cookie in the user’s browser. 
3. Upon conversion, the browser loads a conversion pixel, which sends the ID in the user’s cookie back to the tracking server. If it matches, a conversion is recorded.

Postback tracking, unlike pixel tracking, bypasses browsers and cookies altogether. It can be used to measure any channel where servers can send information via code. It’s as robust and flexible as you need it to be, because you control how the data is passed, organized, and stored. This also makes it easy to troubleshoot, and easier to secure against fraud. 

Sound too good to be true? Well, it is, and it isn’t. All the perks are there, but they come with a price. Because it involves more complex processes and technology — and not just a simple code snippet in a browser — postback tracking can be more difficult to implement than pixel tracking. It may require engineering expertise and development, or a specialized solution (like TUNE), both for you and your partners. That said, the payoff cannot be overstated.

When to Use Postback Tracking

After reading the above, isn’t the real question, when should you not use postback tracking? 

This method can handle most situations for the majority of performance marketers. These include:

• Tracking desktop web campaigns
• Tracking mobile app campaigns, including installs and in-app events
• Tracking across channels and platforms

If you have tracking needs outside of these big buckets, supplementing your server-side tracking with a specialized method to handle just that use case is encouraged. For example, here at TUNE, we recommend using postback tracking as your go-to method, and adding solutions or partners to handle the following situations:

• Campaigns using promo codes
• Tracking online to offline
• Call tracking and other specialized channel strategies

In all honesty, we haven’t yet found a situation where postback tracking isn’t possible. However, there may be times where you will need to use pixel tracking because a partner may require their pixel to be placed.  

In Conclusion

In our new white paper, How to Become a Track Star, we talk about conversion tracking in terms of campaign health. If your tracking is strong, your campaign will be healthy. If your tracking is weak, your campaign is less effective and more susceptible to harm. It’s our way of making a dense, technical, often confusing subject a little more fun — while still getting the important bits across.

Now that we’ve covered postback tracking, we’re moving on to a specialized solution in Part 3: JavaScript SDK tracking, which is used for measuring conversions in mobile web. Check back soon for the next installment!

While you’re here, check out the rest of our How to Become a Track Star series, where we cover the pros and cons of four popular tracking methods for affiliate programs and performance marketing campaigns.

• Part 1: Pixel Tracking
• Part 2: Server Postback Tracking
• Part 3: JavaScript SDK Tracking
• Part 4: Clickless Tracking

If you’re ready to get your own affiliate program started, request a demo of the TUNE Partner Marketing Platform today.

Drumroll, please … it’s time for Part 5 of The Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing series! Here’s what we have discussed up to this point in our previous posts:

1. Part 1, developing a strategy for building a successful partner marketing program by setting goals, choosing KPIs, and planning out a partner portfolio;
   
2. Part 2, determining the program’s payout structures and the marketing policies that affiliates and partners will follow;
   
3. Part 3, putting these strategies to work in the partner recruitment and onboarding process; and
   
4. Part 4, best practices for using communication and policies to protect the business and enforce partner compliance.

In Part 5, we’ll get into the nitty gritty of the common denominator of partner marketing: promotional offers. This post will explain what partner offers are and how they work, share best practices for managing offers in a partner program, and review the software and tools needed to track and manage offers across digital channels. 

The Partner Marketing Journey Continues 

Today’s post on offer management brings us closer to the end of the Operationalize section of the TUNE In Framework — and near the end of full cycle itself.

The Basics of Partner Offer Management

In partner marketing, an offer is the thing that is being promoted (i.e., marketed) by your partners. (Makes sense, right?) Partner offers are almost always promoted through a URL, which sends an interested consumer to a landing page or in-app location. Typically, the consumer clicks on this URL while on a web page or in an app, but they may also enter the offer URL directly into the search field. This can happen, for example, when a podcast airs a partner promotion and asks the listener to visit a partner-specific URL to learn more.

There are two main types of offers:

1. Product/service offers, which drive consumers to a purchase experience.
2. Lead generation offers, which drive consumers to enter their personal information as a means to receive information about a service.

On a technical level, the data that is contained within the offer includes all of the basic details necessary for partners to find, promote, track, and earn commission on that offer. 

As the driving force behind your business’s promotions, your offers should be three things: interesting, to attract partners; informative, to answer their main questions upfront; and technical, to provide reliably accurate tracking across mobile and web.

The Tools of the Partner Offer Trade

To successfully manage partner offers, and to run a partner program in general, you need performance marketing technology (which is also known as affiliate marketing software or a partner marketing platform). This is because offers require complex tracking and attribution functionality to work where your customers are — on mobile web pages, in iOS and Android apps, and on desktop browsers. You can read more about the basics of offer tracking here.

Tracking platforms handle the behind-the-scenes processes that allow advertisers to create, manage, and attribute offers across mobile apps and online browsers.

In addition to tracking and attributing offers, this software should also provide features and tools for offer management, program application and approval, partner onboarding, payment processing, fraud prevention, performance optimization, and automation. Typically, you have two choices: a customizable SaaS platform (such as TUNE) or an affiliate network (such as AWIN or Button). 

Either way, before a single partner joins your program, you should set up several offers, organize them so that they are descriptive and easy to browse, and test that the tracking links work. 

Once your offers are live and your program is active, affiliates will then be able to instantly log in to search for interesting offers, select the offers they plan to promote, and then copy the link or creative code for each of those offers. The partner then pastes that link or code on their website, in an ad, or as part of some other digital real estate, and the tracking platform does the rest.

The savvier your partners are, the more tracking options you need to provide. For example, most partners need to pass in their own third-party tracking pixel or postback parameters so they can track conversions in their own analytics systems or through an SDK for mobile apps. Many partners add customizable parameters in their unique tracking URLs, which makes it easier to manage their reporting. They may also want to generate tracking URLs using shortened URL formats, create SEO-friendly links, and add alphanumeric IDs for internal tracking purposes. Most partners also place an impression pixel for their offers to gain additional insight into their reporting.

Be sure that you are using a platform that allows you to provide multiple tracking methods — ones that work for apps and mobile web in addition to desktop browsers — and customization options for your partners. Not being able to handle postback tracking or too few customizable settings can be a deal breaker for many partners. Don’t lose them before they even sign up; have the right technology and tracking ready from the get-go.

You can find more details about how offers work and the mechanics behind tracking in The Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing. 

Coming Up

We’re almost to the end of our series — only two posts left to go! Up next is Part 6, where we will discuss partner payments, the lifeblood of successful partner programs, and best practices for verifying results and rewarding partner performance. 

Learn how to plan, build, and grow cross-channel partner programs with our Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing series. Follow along as we introduce strategies from the Ultimate Guide and bring them to life with real use cases from leading brands and advertisers.

• • Part 1 – Planning Your Partner Program Strategy
  • Part 2 – Determining Partner Payouts and Marketing Policies
  • Part 3 – Recruiting and Onboarding Partners
  • Part 4 – Communicating for Partner Compliance
  • Part 5 – Managing Partner Offers
  • Part 6 – Partner Payments
  • Part 7 – Program Analysis and Optimization

I’m proud of everything we release here at TUNE, but this one is special. Today, I’m excited to introduce Proactive Fraud Prevention, TUNE’s new fraud fighting tool that builds robust fraud detection right into our partner marketing platform. TUNE customers can now get a complete understanding on the quality of their traffic, and take automated action to reduce their exposure to ad fraud.

What We’ve Learned About Fraud

Estimated by Forrester Research to reach $10.9 billion in wasted spend by 2021, advertising fraud has been a constant challenge for the performance marketing industry. It is an issue that plagues advertisers and networks alike. And it is a problem that hurts all TUNE customers: our networks lose business from it, and can often feel powerless to police it; our advertiser customers see themselves paying for bad traffic, and lose faith in their partnership programs. Fraud breaks down two pillars the entire partner marketing ecosystem is dependent on, trust and transparency – two outcomes that are achievable only with the right tools and technology.

Identifying and preventing ad fraud is not new to TUNE. As we’ve pioneered tools through the years to address mobile app install (CPI) fraud, we’ve learned a couple things:

• Everyone wants PROACTIVE versus REACTIVE solutions.
  The distinction is in how much work you need to do to enforce traffic quality and control.  Nobody wants to do all of the enforcement on their own, whether it’s having to inspect reporting to find bad partners, or having to set up filtering rules and thresholds. They would rather the tooling just solve the problem for them. They expect more from the system.
• Everyone needs to see the FINANCIAL BENEFIT of the fraud tooling.
  Proactive or reactive, you need to understand that the fraud tooling is working. It’s nice when it silently filters out traffic, but the net effect is like vacuuming the carpet without being able to see the dust in the bag when you’re done – unsatisfying at best. Users need to know who the fraud outliers are in their partnerships. They need to quickly find and clearly see the bad actors who are providing poor-quality traffic, so that anyone who views a fraud report can instantly determine who is off — and have the numbers to back it up.

Staying Ahead of Fraud

To solve these pain points, we built the power of Fraudlogix – the premier ad fraud detection database – right into the TUNE Partner Marketing Platform, providing TUNE customers with the most powerful fraud protection in the industry. By pairing the power of Fraudlogix with TUNE’s revolutionary automation capabilities, customers can now automatically detect and reject fraudulent traffic to safeguard the quality of their program and ensure that all partners operate on the same basis of trust.

With Proactive Fraud Prevention, TUNE customers can stress less knowing their traffic is being monitored and protected, 24/7/365.

Proactive Fraud Prevention automatically detects and rejects fake clicks and bad traffic from:

• Known malware and bots
• Non-human scripts
• Known compromised sources
• Spoofed traffic
• Anonymous proxies

Customers can easily see the financial significance of proactive fraud prevention with a new report in TUNE’s comprehensive reporting suite. TUNE will also continue to track and report on rejected impressions and clicks to allow customers to analyze high- and low-performing partners and sources. This service will be provided free of charge for all TUNE customers.

“Proactive Fraud Prevention helps our customers shift from playing defense to offense. With Fraudlogix baked right into the platform, there are no moving parts. This allows our customers to choose the partners that best align with their goals and invest deeper in the right relationships,” said Peter Hamilton, CEO of TUNE.

“We’re excited to be partnering with TUNE on this modern approach to fighting fraud,” said Hagai Shechter, CEO of Fraudlogix. “TUNE’s customers depend on the platform to help them fight fraud and the data we are providing enables them to block fraudulent actions before they affect campaigns. This saves TUNE’s customers time and has real implications on ROI.”

Proactive Fraud Prevention and the new Traffic Fraud Report will be available to all TUNE customers by April 2019. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out to your customer success manager with any questions, or email sales@tune.com to learn more.

About TUNE

TUNE builds technology that powers successful marketing partnerships across mobile and web. The TUNE Partner Marketing Platform is the industry’s most flexible SaaS platform for building, managing, and growing partner programs and networks. Headquartered in Seattle with hundreds of employees worldwide, TUNE is trusted by innovative affiliate marketers, the largest performance advertising networks, and iconic brands across the globe. For more information visit: www.tune.com.

About Fraudlogix

Fraudlogix is an online advertising fraud detection company founded in 2010 by industry veterans with a deep understanding of the digital ad ecosystem. It specializes in ad fraud solutions for desktop, mobile, in-app and video environments for the programmatic and affiliate spaces. Today, Fraudlogix monitors data from over 640 million unique users, 300+ million URLs, and 1.2 billion unique devices monthly. Visit www.fraudlogix.com for more information.

Photo by Will Francis on Unsplash

Which is worse for performance marketing campaigns: unviewable ads, or outright fraud? Why not both?

According to a June 2018 report by DoubleVerify, media quality issues remain the biggest problem impacting digital advertising performance today. In just the past year, mobile ad fraud has increased by 800%, even though ad viewability has improved. As a result, more and more advertisers are looking for ways to independently verify their campaign performance. And, somewhat surprisingly, they’re finding tools to do just that.

In this post, we’ll review the current challenges and standards in digital ad viewability, and the new solutions that are helping marketers regain control over their campaign performance.

Quality Control You Can’t See

So, how are impressions counting for all these ads when real people aren’t actually viewing them? In a few ways, actually.

1. Bot traffic. Bots are the reason viewability has become a critical issue in the era of digital advertising. Why? A bot ad view is technically still an ad view. Since it still counts, a publisher gets credit for the view.
2. Poor placement. Display ads can be placed anywhere — even in areas that users rarely visit, like the bottom of a long web page. In these cases, even if the ad is served, there’s a high likelihood that no one will ever see it.
3. Time post-render. Some ads are shown for just a fraction of a second before serving the next one. That fraction of a second still counts as an impression. (Just maybe not one a human would be able to recall.)

Gaining Industry Consensus on Viewability

It seems reasonable to agree that, if an advertiser is paying for an ad, it should be seen. What’s harder for the digital advertising industry to agree on is what actually counts as seen.

For example: If a user sees an ad for less than a second, does that count as an impression? What about videos — if a user watches only five seconds of a 30-second video ad, does the publisher still get credit for serving that ad? (Et cetera, ad nauseum.)

To help the industry come to a consensus, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) teamed up with the Media Rating Council (MRC) in 2014 to define a “general standard for measuring viewable impressions displayed on websites and in video.” In addition to the standard list of measurement criteria, these viewable impression guidelines include two time-in-frame requirements:

• Pixel requirement: At least 50% of the ad has to be visible on the browser page of an active browser tab, and
• Time requirement: The ad has to be visible (i.e., meet the pixel requirement) for at least one continuous second post-render.

Separate guidelines for mobile web and in-app impressions were set in 2016, but the requirements are basically the same.

While these guidelines are a great starting point, that’s all they are — a starting point. The best way to counteract potential issues is to have all parties set clear, comprehensive expectations before a campaign begins. (The IAB provides a checklist to help do just that.) Only after these expectations are established can advertisers and publishers identify the right technology and strategies needed to make a campaign a success.

The Rise of Independent Verification

Despite the best efforts of advertisers and their partners, ad fraud and viewability problems have continued to leech away at marketing budgets, forcing advertisers to look outside the platform-shaped box for solutions to stop the bleeding.

Luckily, third-party tools for tackling viewability have been gaining momentum the past couple of years. For example:

• Last month, Google announced a new feature for their enterprise ad-buying platform that allows advertisers to set custom viewability metrics. The feature is powered by Google’s free Active View solution, which is integrated into all of its ad products, to measure viewability in real time.
• In June 2018, the IAB released an open-source code library for measuring video viewability that’s free to anyone with the technical chops to use it. Other companies, like Viewability, offer free widgets that can analyze the percentage of an ad that’s visible, how long a user spent viewing an ad, and whether an ad is considered viewable based on Google’s viewability metrics.
• Earlier this year, LinkedIn and Pinterest both announced that advertisers will be able to measure viewability on their platforms thanks to a partnership with Moat, an independent measurement provider acquired by Oracle in 2017. Examples of similar solutions include Integral Ad Science, FraudLogix, BrandVerity, and DoubleVerify.
• In late 2017, comScore introduced a free viewability platform for advertisers and publishers. The tool allows digital media buyers and sellers to measure viewability rates across display, video, and mobile inventory.

These solutions are opening the door for independent verification on digital advertising platforms, often where none existed before. Take Facebook and Google, companies notorious for being walled gardens, secretive about data and how its obtained, and defining success on their terms. Yet even the duopoly has recently made strides in transparency; Facebook now has five partners that can independently provide ad viewability verification.

So the loaded question is: Are these tools working? Early signs point to yes. In the United Kingdom, viewability has risen from 53% in the latter half of 2017 to 63% in 2018. And almost half of all ads are now in view for longer than five seconds, up from 36% in 2017.

Looking Into the Future

While some viewability stats are encouraging, eMarketer analyst Lauren Fisher reminds us of the sobering reality: “Fraud detection and prevention tools have advanced, but so have the lengths to which fraudulent parties go to deceive buyers.” Advertisers remain vulnerable, especially as the industry struggles to align definitions and accepted measurement methods.

As such, we at TUNE anticipate new solutions for fraud and viewability will keep popping up, either until fraud is no longer a $51 billion dollar issue, or advertisers stop caring about it. (And we don’t see that second one happening anytime soon.) We welcome these solutions with open arms, because fraud and viewability are the responsibility of all companies in our space — and when our partners win, we all win.

For more information, read our articles on fraud here. For a full list of MRC accredited viewability solutions, download this guide.