Understanding the Excessive Unique Sub ID Alert in CAKE

Background: Clients who are allowing their Affiliates to pass unique values have created strain on the system, making reporting inefficient and sometimes slow.

Rule: Reporting restrictions will be enforced if an Affiliate is passing unique values in the s1 parameter.

Impact: When the rule is violated, System Admin contacts (from the original list) of a given client will receive a system alert indicating that they are out of compliance and that they need to correct the issue to re-enable blocked sub-affiliate reporting for a given affiliate.  These alerts will 'roll-up' one or more affiliates for a given client who is out of compliance.  The Sub Affiliate Reports for that Affiliate will be blocked until the issue is remedied. The Sub Affiliate Summary API will also be blocked for that Affiliate.

The following email alert will be sent to the CAKE client:

Sent To: System Admin Contacts

Name: Excessive Unique Sub IDs

Subject: CAKE Alert - Excessive Unique Sub IDs

Body: At the moment, you have one or more affiliates that are using the S1 functionality of your tracking links in a way that wasn't intended.  The s1 parameter of your affiliates’ tracking links is intended to pass a Non-Unique Sub ID to you for the purpose of reporting and control of campaigns at a subaffiliate level.  However, we have noticed over the past two weeks that some of your affiliates are passing a unique value in the s1 parameter that causes performance issues.

Below is a list of affiliates who are misusing this feature and should be contacted by your team immediately to fix the problem.  A simple solution is to ask your affiliates to pass this unique value in any other Sub ID parameter in the tracking link such as s2. ***Note- this is something that needs to be done going forward at all times.***

#AffiliateList#

The following actions have taken place to address the problem:

- All unique subaffiliates of the offending affiliates have been removed from your system

- All traffic linked to these subaffiliates is now reported under the default subaffiliate of each respective affiliate

- The click and conversion reports still return the original sub ID, but it will no longer be included in any subaffiliate report

- All subaffiliate reporting for the offending affiliates has been disabled on both the aAdmin and Affiliate portals (and corresponding APIs) until the issue is resolved

You can manage the resolutions for each of the offending affiliates by clicking the link below.  Please confirm that the affiliate has actually addressed the problem before reporting it as resolved.  Their subaffiliate reporting will continue to be disabled until we’ve confirmed that unique Sub IDs are no longer being passed.  This confirmation process requires at least 100 clicks with non-unique Sub IDs after the resolution date and is checked each night after the issue is reported as resolved. You will receive an email at that point informing you whether the resolution has been confirmed or if the issue is still ongoing.

#AdminDomain#/aff.aspx#excessive_sub_ids

To remedy the issue clients will ultimately need to work with their partners to either track those unique values in s2 or another "s" variable or simply stop sending unique values.  Once this is done, clients will have the ability to confirm in their alert.  This confirmation will trigger an automated check that night in the client's instance to validate.  If successful the client will receive a notification confirming.  If not successful the client will receive notice that there are still unique values being sent.

Please Note: Once an affiliate has been marked as 'fixed', the system is required to collect the next 100 clicks to verify that unique subIDs are no longer being passed. You can get this done by clicking the Report as Fixed hyperlink.  For some affiliates, it may take several days for the total clicks to equal 100 - once they do, the system will check and verify that night to validate and confirm the fix.

My affiliate was marked as fix for over 24 hours - why are they still being flagged as an excessive subid user?

Once an affiliate has been marked as 'fixed' the system is required to collect the next 100 clicks to verify that unique subIDs are no longer being passed. For some affiliates, it may take several days for the total clicks to equal 100 - once they do the system will check and verify that night to validate and confirm the fix

How do I let the system know that my affiliate has been fixed?

When you are in your CAKE instance please go to Affiliates > Excessive SubIDs > find the affiliate and under 'date reported as fixed' select 'Mark as Fixed'