Working with Affiliate Marketers

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Liz Lauer-Lopez
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Integration Summary

Discover how advertisers can collaborate with affiliates and relay data back to them effectively.

Affiliate marketers can influence crowds and create a lot of traffic for app owners. However, compared with ad networks and owned media, working with mobile affiliate marketers is more challenging.

Ad networks integrated with Singular don't require advertiser involvement since Singular and the network source have created a template for the attribution tracking links that are generated.

Advertisers working with affiliate marketers must create and distribute a Singular custom link per affiliate, or modify a custom integration in order to report performance per affiliate.

(See Partner Integrations Glossary)

 

Configuration Steps

Prerequisites

  • Agree with the affiliate marketer if you will provide them with a Shared Report showing performance of the affiliate campaign in aggregate, or if you will need to send them postbacks from your internal BI data you receive from Singular.
  • If the affiliate partner you are working with has a CRM, you can see if they are integrated with one of the affiliate platforms that Singular is integrated with. If so, you can build Singular partner tracking links for that integrated media source. This would allow the affiliate platform to receive postbacks directly from Singular. If the partner is not yet integrated with Singular's supported integration for the affiliate platforms, the partner would be required to integrate with Singular to utilize their affiliate platform integration.

Limitations

Affiliate marketers don’t have an option to receive postbacks directly from Singular when Custom Links are utilized so the advertiser must carry out reconciliation with their affiliate marketers directly.

1. Set up Tracking Links

Note: a Partner Configuration is only set up for integrated affiliate platforms and is not needed if a Custom Tracking Link will be utilized.

  • In Singular, from the navigation bar, select Attribution > Create Custom Link and click “Custom”
    • Create an individual custom tracking link for each affiliate or utilize Singular's link API and follow these same instructions. 
  • Select the App name from the dropdown list.
  • Enter a Source name. This is what will appear within Singular’s reporting appended with "(Custom)".
  • Review the iOS or Android app store destinations, modify the Deeplinks if needed, and select a URL from the “Other Platforms” destination.
    • If you would like more destination URL options, you can add those by going to the Apps Configuration:
      • Settings → Apps
      • Click into the app and select Show Advanced Settings
      • Then add the destination URLs you would like to use.
        Note: if you need to passthrough parameters from the tracking link, such as a promo code, etc., so your app developers can customize the user experience for the user visiting your app, you can do so by appending &_p= onto the tracking link and a value that your app code knows how to identify for the user experience customization.
        If an affiliate uses a CRM system that can receive postbacks, you can add the postback URL and or promo code as a custom parameters to the attribution link that can be passed in the postback URL.
  • Distribute tracking links to the affiliate marketers and have them add the tracking link parameters (see definitions) and append associated values to the link:
    • pcn (campaign name) 
    • pcid (campaign ID)
    • pscn (sub campaign name)
    • psn (publisher site name)
    • pssn (placement name)
    • _p (passes through promo or influencer codes to the landing page for the app deeplink)

Note: you can share a short link with influencers as well - see instructions here.

2. Create the Shared Report or Configure Postbacks from your BI system

If your affiliate marketer only needs an aggregated performance report from you, please see here how to create a Shared Report. 

Tips (more about Shared Reports here):

  • Allow the affiliate marketer to change the date range
  • Set an expiration date of 365 days if you plan to work with the affiliate for a long time or want to give them access for the longest period of time.
  • Filter the report data before saving it as a shared report. Since you have provided a unique custom link per affiliate, you can filter a report on the source name for that partner and save the report.
  • Then go to the saved report and configure the sharing settings.

3. Send Postbacks from your Internal BI to your Affiliates' CRM (optional)

  • You may have to modify your Singular Internal BI postback to ensure you are receiving any passthrough promo codes, influencer IDs, etc.
  • Work with the affiliate to understand their server endpoint and the parameters you need to send the data on for reconciliation.

 

Other considerations

  • Does your affiliate marketer already use one of the following affiliate tracking platforms? If so, they can easily integrate directly with Singular as an integrated partner for tracking links and postbacks.
    • Affise
    • Everflow
    • Offer18
    • Swaarm
    • Trackier
    • Tune
  • Advertisers can also utilize an affiliate management platform. This would allow Singular to create an integration with the affiliate management platform of your choice (Impact, Partnerize, Tune, etc.) send postbacks to that affiliate management platform. Affiliate management platforms manage the postbacks and payout reconciliation with the affiliates you work with.  The affiliate would also have to be integrated with your affiliate management platform.