I hope my first post was clear and gave you a brief and simple insight into Affiliate marketing, in this post I would like to introduce the Network into the model and give an overview of their role.
Most Affiliate Networks will follow a similar model however, please note this may vary slightly from network to network.
Affiliate networks sit in the middle of the Advertiser and the Affiliates. Thousands of affiliates will join to any one network and therefore a network can give access to an Advertiser to this base of websites that are willing to work on a cost per acquisition model.
Please note, here dgm are the affiliate network.
In addition as a basic Affiliate network, they will provide;
(1) Technology for both affiliates and advertisers; networks will host the banners on their servers and will track impressions and clicks served by the affiliate and the action on the advertiser’s website along with the commission.
Dependent on the network this may be their own proprietary software or it may be outsourced from another company.
(2) Reporting Tools for both the Advertiser and the Affiliate to monitor and analyse their performance.
(3) Affiliate Payments, networks will tend to only send one invoice to the client however manage the multiple payments out to the affiliates on the client’s behalf.
More premium networks will also offer a full account management service to the Advertiser and the Affiliates on the network which may have additional fees attached to them. Account managers at these networks should be able to guide and advise both Affiliates and Advertisers on how to grow and optimize their campaign.
The Networks Basic Tracking Solution
Most affiliate networks will engage in cookie tracking however many may also have alternative tracking solutions in place or use other solutions in conjunction with cookie tracking.
As mentioned above the affiliate network will host the banners / creative on their servers and can be picked up by an affiliate to place on their website.
The Advertiser would also be required to place a small piece of code (a sales tag) on the confirmation page or on the last page of the action so that the affiliate network can track the acquisitions.
When a user clicks on the banners / creative on the affiliates site, the user is redirected via the affiliate network server and then to the Advertiser within a flash of a second making them completely unaware.
At this point the affiliate network will drop a cookie on the user’s computer. In addition they will also capture information about the click, i.e. the affiliate referrer, time and date, which is stored on the networks database.
When the user completes the desired action, in this case a sale, the networks sales tag will check for the networks cookie and then send the information back to the network server. If the network’s cookie is not present on the user’s computer or the cookie has expired then the connection to the network’s server is dropped.
On receiving the sales tag information from the Advertiser, the network will then marry up the information with the original click data that they captured to produce a full detailed summary of the sale that occurred.
e.g. At a basic level the Affiliate Referrer, Click Time and Date, Sales Time and Date, Affiliate Commission PLUS any other additional information that the affiliate network is able to capture.
In-House Advertiser Campaigns Versus Networks
Many advertisers choose to run in house campaigns by either using their own tracking system or using a third party provider. There are advantages and dis-advantages for both the affiliate and the advertiser by omitting the network out of the model. However, should the client not have a dedicated affiliate management team and robust technology to track sales and pay the affiliates, it is much easier to use a network to facilitate the relationships between the advertiser and their affiliates.
In addition by working with a network, Advertisers are able to increase their reach to a much larger audience of affiliates as they will be signed up to promote multiple programs on the network. Affiliates can manage multiple campaigns, reporting and have one dedicated affiliate manager at a network then having to manage multiple interfaces and managers.
I realise that this post may have quite a few industry jargon words in it and as my aim is to make it readable for everyone whether new to online or an Industry expert I will post up some definitions and typical industry terminology that is used.
Until Next Time,
Take Care
Sheenu
About dgmAffiliates
dgmAffiliates is a premium network that offers both a full account managed service as well as a self serve option. Our technology dgmPro is our own proprietary software, where we have releases once every two weeks to benefit either the Affiliate / Advertiser or the Account Managers and dgm. We have a wide range of reporting tools available to monitor and analyse your preformance, whether you are an Affiliate or an Advertiser. In addition, we provide Affiliates with toolkits in our interface to help them optimise and maximise their performance with the campaigns on our network. If you would like more information on our network please visit http://www.dgmaffiliatesasia.com/
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