Big news, merchants! All programs on AvantLink now have access to new, powerful features used with any affiliate Tag Groups a program manager has created. These features allow you to set certain business rules based on affiliate tag groups and, in some cases, how those groups interact with each other.
So, what exactly does that mean? Let’s start by reviewing the affiliate tag management functionality, which now consists of two major components: Tag Groups and Tag Categories.
- Tag Groups: Tag Groups allow you to categorize affiliates into specific groups based on criteria of your choosing. For example, if a number of affiliates have content about fashion trends, you could create a Tag Group called “Fashion Blogs” and put those affiliates in that group. Affiliates can be put in as many Tag Groups as you would like.
- Tag Categories: Creating a Tag Group Category allows you to segment affiliates even further. For example, if you wanted to segment out all of the affiliates in the “Fashion Blogs” Tag Group that focused primarily on winter fashion trends, you would create a Tag Category of “Winter Fashion Bloggers” that was a subcategory of the “Fashion Blogs” Tag Group.
You can create, edit, and delete Tag Groups & Categories by going to the main account navigation and selecting Affiliates>Affiliate Tagging/Administration>Create New Tag Group or Category. What these Groups and Categories are named is completely up to you and you can create as many as you need to segment your affiliate base according to your needs.
Now that we know how to segment affiliates into Tag Groups and Categories, there are powerful new Tag Group Rules that can be applied to change the way an affiliate participates in your program. Here are the rules and what they do:
Basic Rules
- Affiliate Commission: This Affiliate Commission rule is for increasing or decreasing the commission rate for a group of affiliates. This is intended for more permanent adjustments in commissions (for temporary or promotional commission increases the Affiliate Commission Promotion Tool should be used) and allows for mass increases/decreases in commission rates for all affiliates included in the affected Tag Group or Category. Important: for any affiliates in a Tag Group receiving a commission deduction, those affiliates will be notified and given seven days to accept or deny the new term changes.
- Cookie Duration: The Cookie Duration rule is for increasing or decreasing the cookie duration for all affiliates included in the selected Tag Group or Category. Important: for any affiliates in a Tag Group receiving a cookie length deduction, those affiliates will be notified and given seven days to accept or deny the new term changes. Also, for any merchants using the AvantMetrics Attribution solution, adjustments using the Cookie Duration rule are not available.
- Referral Restrictions: The Referral Restriction rule specifies that affiliates in a specific Tag Group chosen by the program manager cannot have their cookies overridden by referrals from another Tag Group of affiliates.
Advanced Rules
- Tracking Parameters: The Tracking Parameters rule allows for the set up of URL parameters that will be appended to affiliate link destination URLs for an affiliate Tag Group. URL parameters are made up of name and value components (e.g. http://www.url.com/?name=value&name1=value1) and can be used for determining referral sources in analytics platforms.
- AvantMetrics Additional Commission: This rule is for those merchants who have dived deep into the realm of affiliate attribution and splitting commission between multiple affiliates. If a cashback or loyalty site is among those affiliates that occasionally have their commission payouts adjusted due to multiple affiliate referrals in a single sale, this rule is intended to give those affiliates in a Tag Group a non-adjusted, permanent commission payout for each sale in order to fulfill the promise of a cashback or loyalty reward for their users. Important: this rule adds additional commission paid out to affiliates in a selected Tag Group, but only for any sale they are involved in that involves additional affiliate referrals and a commission split.
The Tag Group Rules are currently in beta and can be applied to any Tag Groups or Categories by going to Affiliates>Affiliate Tagging/Administration>Tag Group Rules.
Please note that the first rule created and applied is subject to review and approval by AvantLink before going live in your program. Besides these new rules, Tag Groups and Categories also have some very helpful functionality for day-to-day management of a program. Affiliate Tag Groups allow program managers to:
- run performance reports run just for affiliates specifically in a Tag Group
- create a new ad campaigns and limit access to the campaign to a specific group
- send emails only to specific Tag Group of affiliates