Attention merchants, OPMs and Affiliate managers. Some of you may have already noticed the powerful enhancements we rolled out to the Affiliate detail pop-up in the merchant management interface. We’ve expanded the detail pop-up to include an array of information about the Affiliates who are active in your program, or applying.
Now, when you view Affiliate details there are tabs available that include the following: Websites, Application, Tags, Notes and Statistics. I will outline the details of each tab below:
- Websites. This is the default tab program managers arrive at when an Affiliate name is clicked from either the general reporting or application queue. This tab includes the Affiliate ID # for the account and a list of websites a particular Affiliate has configured in AvantLink (each Website has an ID separate from the Affiliate/Publisher ID). A couple of interesting features to note in the ‘Websites’ tab are the Alexa Web Rank and Google Pagerank APIs. This gives program managers the ability to get a quick view of the pagerank and traffic ranking associated with each site listed.
- Application. This tab is where program managers can set a new Affiliate applicant’s status to active or denied, send a standard approval/denial email and set action commission per Affiliate. The default Action Commission will be set to the program’s default on this page. Program managers may also use this tab on the Affiliate detail pop-up to change an active Affiliates commission level or program status.
- Tags. We’ve provided an innovative system for program managers to tag Affiliate accounts with whatever categorization system they prefer. For example, managers can add a tag for ‘Top Performers’ or ‘2007 Recruits’ to better organize their Affiliate relationships. Once Affiliate tags are defined and assigned, those groups are available as a filtering option in the reporting interface. We’ll be working to add more functionality to take advantage of the tags in the future. Also, there is an overall tagging administration page available under ‘Tools -> Affiliate Tagging/Group Administration’ that allows for adding/editing/deleting tags, and provides an interface for adding multiple Affiliates to groups, etc.
- Notes. This tab is a simple way to keep notes on a particular Affiliate relationship directly through the management interface rather than through an external spreadsheet or document. For example, program managers who have worked out a private offer for a specific Affiliate based on certain terms can note those terms through this text-based note pad feature in the account management interface.
- Statistics. This tab gives program managers the ability to take a consolidated look at the performance of a specific Affiliate. More detailed reporting is available in the ‘Reports’ section of the interface, but on the Affiliate detail pop-up managers can access a performance summary for page views, click throughs and sales for today, this month and this year.
Just a reminder, there are a couple of different ways to access the Affiliate detail pop-ups. One way is to login, click on ‘Reports’ in the main menu, then run any report. The results from the query will return a list of Affiliates based on performance activity. If any Affiliate name is clicked on, the pop-up detail page for Affiliates will be displayed. The other way to access Affiliate details is to click on ‘Affiliates’ from the main menu and then ‘Affiliate Program Applications’. Pending applications (if any) will be showing, but managers can filter by Active or Denied on that page to get the relevant Affiliate list returned. Click ‘Edit’ on any Affiliate listing to get the Affiliate detail pop-up.
Program managers, login and take a look at these new organizational tools and data summaries for Affiliates and let us know if you have any questions.
Gary & AvantLink