Table of Contents
Overview
The ease of selling products online has lowered the barrier to entry and being a merchant is as commonplace as search engines. However, in order to ensure the right affiliate sales strategy you need access to the accurate real time data and analytics so that you can optimize your spend.
This document will walk you through the process of setting up your instance to take advantage of CAKE’s commerce intelligence functionality. CAKE set out to provide an easy to implement yet powerful view of your ecommerce campaigns.
Tracking Basics
In performance marketing, accurate tracking and attribution plays a critical role in the success of your affiliate program. With CAKE you can ensure correct attribution for your affiliates and publishers so that they are credited with each transaction. CAKE provides you with a simple set of code - tracking links and conversion pixels - which connect the impression, click and ultimately, the order, along with appropriate attribution and accurate payouts.
CAKE supports two models for attribution – first touch and last touch. First touch simply gives credit for a transaction to the affiliate/publisher that was responsible for the first (initial) click. Conversely, last touch gives credit for a transaction to the affiliate/publisher that was responsible for the last click, prior to the order.
Attribution Models:
First Touch (default) – Attribution credit is given to the affiliate/publisher responsible for the initial click.
Last Touch – Attribution credit is given to the affiliate/publisher responsible for the last click, prior to an order.
In addition to the types of attribution, CAKE also supports attribution reporting through multiple methods:
Pixel Based Tracking - CAKE supports 4 different conversion pixels:
iFrame: The iFrame conversion pixel is highly recommended when affiliates have a conversion pixel placed as well. This type of conversion pixel allows for piggybacking 3rd party pixels.
Javascript: The javascript pixel is particularly helpful when needing to fire multiple pixels individually as opposed to multiple at one time.
Image: The image pixel is never recommended unless the advertiser only supports the image pixel. This type of pixel has a difficult time piggybacking other pixels.
(Server to Server) Postback URL: Also known as a server pixel. This pixel requires a request ID to be sent to the advertiser in the offer link. CAKE accomplishes this by using the token #reqid#. This request ID needs to be sent back in the pixel in the parameter “reqid=” for a conversion to occur.
To better understand how tracking works let’s walk through the process of how a click becomes an order (conversion).
Overview of the click to conversion Workflow:
- An affiliate places a banner with a CAKE tracking link embedded.
- A customer navigates to an affiliate’s website and clicks on a link.
- On the click, the customer is redirected to CAKE to establish the initial click and is then redirected to the advertiser’s (merchant) website. This redirect is done very quickly and a cookie is placed on the customer’s computer with various pieces of data – this will be leveraged to give appropriate attribution at conversion.
- The customer is then redirected to the advertiser’s website to view their content (flash sale page or product detail page).
- The customer adds items to their cart and proceeds to checkout.
- The customer proceeds through checkout and reaches the order receipt page.
- On the receipt page there is tracking code which notifies CAKE that an order has been completed. The corresponding attribution is set (giving credit to the right affiliate).
Sample Click to Conversion Workflow:
- Affiliate pulls their tracking link. – http://trackingdomain.com/?a=1&c=2&s1=
- Customer clicks the tracking link from the affiliate’s website.
- Click tracks through CAKE and redirects to the advertiser’s website.
- Customer navigates the site and completes checkout.
- From the receipt page the conversion pixel fires -
