How to use the platform as a tracking switch

Owned by Darius Rybacki (Deactivated)
Last updated: Jun 21, 2022 by Tobias Rast
4 min read

Overview

The platform does not only allows you to manage your performance partners, it also enables you to implement other marketing channels (SEA, partner networks, email, social) and make sure conversions and revenue are correctly attributed to the various touch points in the customer journey. In short, the platform will work as what many in the marketing industry refer to as a ‘tracking switch’, a ‘cookie switch’ or ‘deduplication’.

This article explains you how to set it all up.

Before you start

Let’s briefly go into what a tracking switch actually does. When a customer journey contains multiple touch points, the tracking switch defines to what channel and partner the conversion and the revenue related to the conversion are to be attributed. Now, the platform peform exactly this function if two basic requirements are met:

  1. The tools used to manage your marketing channels must be implemented on the platform. Some channels can be implemented automatically, others have to be implemented manually.

  2. An attribution model needs to be created that defines what priority the channels have when conversions are attributed.

This article takes you through these two steps in detail.

Implementing marketing channels

To implement all your marketing channels on the platform, make sure you do the following:

  1. Make sure you have a comprehensive ad space categories and subcategories in place. To create ad space categories and subcategories, follow the instructions in this article.

  2. Implement the channels you can implement automatically. Currently, you can do this for direct type-in, organic, SEO (search), social media and your video marketing channel.

  3. Create an account for every business partner or tool you use to manage the marketing channels you want to implement. For the SEA channel, you would create a partner called Google Ad Words, a partner account called Bing, a partner called Yandex, etc. For affiliate networks, you would create a partner account for Zanox, Tradedoubler, Commission Junction, etc. For your advertiser’s newsletter, create a partner called ‘newsletter’ or ‘CRM’. To create the partner account, follow the instructions in this article.

    • While creating the partner accounts, make sure you register ad spaces properly. When you create an account for an affiliate network, for example, you can register the different subsidaries (Tradedoubler UK, Tradedoubler ES, etc.) as different ad spaces.

    • Make sure every ad space you register for a partner is properly categorized.

  4. Implement the tracking tags of the tools used to manage your marketing channels as third party tracking tags. By doing so, you make sure the tags can be sent whenever a conversion is assigned to the partner. To implement the tags, follow the instructions in this article.

  5. To make sure the ad impressions and the clicks are tracked, you need to create ad media. It is recommended to create a separate ad media kit for every channel and use the partner filter to make sure partners only get to see tracking links that are relevant for them. As the target URL of the ad media kit, use the main page of the advertiser’s website. After you have created the ad media kit, make sure you create at least one default link.

  6. Generate tracking links you can implement in the tools used to manage your marketing channels. There are three different methods to do this:

    • Make sure you are aware of all the different advertiser pages for which the channel is generating traffic. Go to the ad media management of your advertiser, select the ad media kit your created earlier and make sure one generic link is created in the ad media kit your created earlier. Login to the account of the relevant partner, go to the ad media section and select the generic link in the relevant ad media kit. Copy the HTML-code (for ad impressions and clicks) or the click URL (for clicks only). For more information about the tracking links, please read this paragraph in the article on ad media. Add the following two parameters to the click URL: ‘rmd=3’ and ‘trg=[target URL]’. Replace the placeholder [target URL] with the URL of all the different advertiser pages for which the channel is generating traffic and make sure the URLs are encoded. Subsequently, make sure the new click URLs are implemented as the target URLs for all traffic generated via the tools used to manage your marketing channels.

    • Make sure you are aware of all the different advertiser pages for which the channel is generating traffic. Go to the ad media management of your advertiser, select the ad media kit your created earlier and create links using the different advertiser pages as target URL. Please note you can also upload the links using a CSV file. Login to the account of the relevant partner, go to the export section and export all the links in the relevant ad media kit. From the export file, copy the HTML-code (for ad impressions and clicks) or the click URL (for clicks only). For more information about the tracking links, please read this paragraph in the article on ad media. Subsequently, make sure all HTML-codes or click URLs are implemented as the target URLs for all traffic generated via the tools used to manage your marketing channels.

    • Create a regular link in the ad media kit you created earlier. Login to the account of the relevant partner, go to the ad media section, select the relevant ad media kit and copy the AMC-parameter from the click URL of the link. For more infomation about the AMC parameter, please read this paragraph in the article on ad media. Subsequently, make sure the AMC parameter is added to all the target URLs for the traffic generated via the tools used to manage your marketing channels. Please, this method is easy to process, but it is not recommended.

  7. When the tracking tags of the tools used to manage your marketing channels have been implemented as third party tracking (4.) tags and the tracking links have been implemented, you can remove the original tracking tag used for the marketing channel.

Creating an attribution model

Once you have implemented all your marketing channels, you can start to create an attribution model. The attribution model decides what channel has priority when it comes to attributing commission to a touch point. To find out more about attribution models and how you can apply them, please read this article.