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Affiliate marketing is not only about creating creatives and banners, placing advertising campaigns in different sources and always looking for profitable links. It is also tracking information about clicks, conversions, its subsequent analysis in order to optimize advertising.
All information is transmitted to the advertiser and webmaster through postbacks. This is why it is so important to set up proper URL tracking for postback delivery.
Let’s take a closer look at why URL tracking is needed in affiliate marketing.
To do this, we need to brush up on concepts like “conversion” and “postback”.
What is conversion?
Conversion is any targeted action performed by a user on the side of a product (offer).
Conversion can be registration, making a deposit, passing a level in the game, filling out a form, subscribing to a newsletter, following a link, adding an item to the cart, making a purchase, etc.
Sometimes the offer pays for only one targeted action, but there are options when the conversion is made up of several consecutive user actions. For example, going to a page with filling out a form and filling out an application for a bank card.
The reward for a simple action is usually lower than for a complex one. In any case, the last action will be considered a conversion.
Why track conversions in affiliate marketing? This allows you to obtain information for further optimization of the advertising campaign. And for this purpose, the postback is simply irreplaceable.
What is postback?
Postback – data transfer from server to server (S2S).
Imagine one online platform is a tracker through which a partner launches their ad campaigns. Another online platform is an affiliate or ad network. Postback transfers data from one SaaS platform to another. And it does it in the reverse order: first, some action occurs – a conversion, then the data about this action goes in the reverse order – from the server of the affiliate network to the tracker.
How does postback work?
Each click is assigned a unique identifier. In different SaaS platforms, this identifier can be denoted in different ways: {clickID}, {int}, {click_ID} and so on.
If a targeted action is taken, the online platform understands that this unique identifier is a conversion. Information about the conversion is transmitted first to the server of the affiliate network, and the stream to the server of the tracker.
You can also configure additional postback transmission from the tracker server to the ad network server.
So what information does URL tracking with postbacks allow?
- Track the exact number of conversions
- Get information about conversion sources, users’ OS, devices from which actions were taken, etc.
- Flexible configuration of information, which data to transfer and which to ignore
How to set up URL tracking in affiliate marketing
Let’s take a look at setting up URL tracking using the Alanbase online platform as an example.
Please note right away that URL tracking can have different syntax depending on the specific platform.
On the other hand, it doesn’t matter where exactly everything happens: Russia, Ukraine, the CIS, wherever you are engaged in affiliate marketing, it is important to understand its general principles when setting up URL tracking.
So how is everything set up in Alanbase?
For example, if a product works with goals, then a postback is sent to the affiliate network only upon the fact of a completed lead.
- The following parameters can be passed:
- click_id – click identifier of the affiliate network (required parameter)
- key – target identifier (required parameter)
- value – the sum of the goal
- currency – currency (required parameter if the goal is monetary)
- status – target status
- tid – transaction identifier
- custom_field1 … 5 – the product can send up to 5 custom fields with additional information
- datetime – date and time when the target was executed
- Postbacks can be sent using the GET or POST method.
All information on tracking URLs can be found in the documentation, or you can ask support for help if you have difficulty with the setup.
Brief resume
What is postback for?
To transfer data about conversions from the affiliate program to third-party services.
Why is URL tracking important?
To obtain objective information, analyze it and optimize advertising campaigns.
How is the return URL implemented?
Each affiliate or ad network has a different implementation of the return URL. It is best to read the platform-specific documentation or contact its technical support.
