Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords, is an essential platform for online advertising and marketing. With its massive reach, sophisticated targeting options, and flexible budgeting, it’s important that TUNE makes it easy to work seamlessly with Google Ads. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce our enhanced integration with Google, designed to streamline your experience in the TUNE platform and unlock the full potential of Google Ads.

Google Ads Certification

At TUNE, we make sure to stay on top of important changes in the industry. Following new requirements for transparent redirection, TUNE has earned certification as an official Google click tracking partner.

The Google Certification Program helps protect users from click tracker abuse by enabling click tracker transparency.

To make it easier for TUNE customers to take advantage of this certification, we developed additional user interface features that streamline the link creation process.

Ensuring Compliance and Transparency

We’ve worked diligently to ensure that our integration with Google Ads meets and exceeds industry standards.

Our new feature set, developed specifically for Google, simplifies the link creation process by automating the necessary configurations. With just a single checkbox, TUNE takes care of all the technical details, appending the required transparency parameter (redirect_url) with correctly formatted values to any link you choose.

This new setting can be found on the individual Offer page, located in the Generate Tracking panel.

No more manual configuration or guesswork required. Simply copy and paste the generated tracking link into Google’s Tracking Template field, and you’re good to go.

Get Started with TUNE’s Google Ads Integration

This feature set is now available to all TUNE customers.

If you would like to take advantage of this integration, navigate to Company –> Customize Application –> Domain and select “Enabled” in the Google Ads dropdown menu. You have the flexibility to turn this feature on and off as needed.

You can find more information in our Integrating with Google Ads help article.

Questions? Feedback? Reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager or email TUNE Support at support@tune.com.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital analytics, staying ahead of the curve is essential. The advent of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has brought about significant changes, particularly affecting the harmony between your TUNE account and Google account. In this blog post, we’ll explore the key modifications in GA4 and how they might influence your affiliate program.

Understanding GA4 Attribution Changes

The transition from Universal Analytics to GA4 marks a paradigm shift. GA4 introduces a new property that departs from the conventional approach of tracking pageviews and sessions. Instead, it focuses on collecting events and user properties, offering greater flexibility in tracking and attribution. Behavioral and conversion modeling have also been integrated into GA4, setting the stage for a more dynamic analytical experience.

Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) Challenges

One of GA4’s standout features is data-driven attribution (DDA), designed to provide a more comprehensive performance overview. While this offers valuable insights, it introduces challenges when it comes to measuring and comparing affiliate activity.

Historically, last click attribution in Google Analytics aligned with TUNE setups. With the introduction of DDA, expect to observe more significant discrepancies in reporting between the two platforms.

Aligning Reports for Consistency

For those who prefer a more aligned reporting experience between TUNE and Google, there’s a solution within GA4. By adjusting the attribution settings, you can revert to the familiarity of last click attribution. This not only streamlines the reporting process but also ensures a smoother transition for those accustomed to the previous setup.

To adjust these settings, navigate to Admin → Attribution Settings in your GA4 account, and then select “Last click” in the first dropdown menu.

Benefits of GA4 in Multi-Channel Analysis

While navigating the discrepancies, it’s crucial to recognize the benefits GA4 brings to the table. GA4’s capabilities extend beyond just tracking; it provides a valuable tool for analyzing performance across various channels. Leveraging GA4’s features can enhance your understanding of user behavior and optimize your affiliate program accordingly.

Conclusion

As Google Analytics continues to evolve, understanding the developments becomes imperative for staying on top of your analytics game. By aligning reporting experiences and leveraging TUNE’s tracking capabilities, marketers can elevate their affiliate programs. In the ever-changing realm of digital analytics, TUNE remains the trusted companion, ensuring that all campaigns are tuned to perfection.

In an evolving digital landscape, affiliate marketers need to stay ahead of the game to maximize reach and drive conversions in a crowded field. One tool that can help is artificial intelligence (AI). AI offers immense potential to optimize and automate aspects of affiliate marketing, from streamlining workflows to creating content.  

Among the many AI-powered solutions available to the public today is ChatGPT, an advanced language model developed by OpenAI. In January 2023, it set a record as the fastest growing consumer application in history, gaining more than 100 million users in just two months. If you’re wondering how you can join the movement, keep reading — we’re exploring a few of the ways marketers can leverage the power of ChatGPT in their affiliate marketing strategies.  

Content Creation and Optimization 

Nobody reads a blog post or watches a video on TikTok because they want to be served an ad or have a product pushed on them. They’re looking to be informed, entertained, inspired. Which is why compelling content lies at the heart of successful affiliate marketing campaigns.  

ChatGPT can be a powerful ally in creating high-quality, engaging content. Its ability to generate human-like text makes it an invaluable tool for producing both long- and short-form copy — product walkthroughs, comparison articles, informative blog posts, creative ad copy, you name it. With some detailed prompting and a bit of human editing, affiliate marketers can use ChatGPT to save time and effort creating written and visual content.

A quick note on the visual content process: ChatGPT’s visual AI is DALL·E 3, which is technically separate from ChatGPT even though they can be used in conjunction. There are numerous other visual AIs available for free or as a paid subscription, based on your needs and the amount of images you’ll be generating. We’ve been most impressed with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion.

ChatGPT can also be a valuable addition to your current content optimization process. Provide the language model with a set of keywords, and it can generate optimized titles, meta descriptions, and relevant subheadings. You can also reverse-engineer old, unoptimized blog posts by feeding them into ChatGPT and asking for the top keywords and suggested updates. These practices can all help improve SEO and boost organic traffic to brand and affiliate websites. 

Personalized Recommendations 

Understanding and engaging with customers on a personal level is crucial for affiliates — it’s why they’re so good at what they do, after all. ChatGPT can help in offering personalized recommendations based on user preferences, browsing behavior, and previous interactions. Prompt the AI model to analyze purchase and engagement data and look for patterns — it may be able to suggest tailored product options that resonate with individual customers. This level of personalization can significantly enhance your users’ experience, upping the chance they eventually engage and convert. 

Customer Support 

Thanks to its conversational, human-like language model, ChatGPT can be integrated into chatbots or virtual assistants to offer support services. These could include answering common questions, providing product information, or completing purchases. This automation frees up human resources for more complex interactions and tasks that can’t be replaced by artificial intelligence. 

Analysis and Reporting 

Accurate data analysis is vital for optimizing affiliate marketing campaigns. ChatGPT can analyze vast amounts of data and provide valuable insights for marketers in a fraction of the time it would take a human.  

For example, some agencies have started using ChatGPT and other AI models to transcribe, digest, and summarize the key points and next steps on calls with clients. Other affiliate marketers leverage ChatGPT to perform sentiment analysis on social media platforms and forums, gauge public opinion, and identify potential influencers for collaboration. 

One important note: ChatGPT’s knowledge base used to be limited to information shared on the internet before September 2021. This limitation was one of the biggest headaches for its users. However, it can now search for and provide real-time information thanks to an update in fall 2023.  

Management and Workflow Automation 

Managing affiliate partnerships and networks can be time-consuming and challenging, to say the least. ChatGPT can automate several aspects of network and program management for the individuals who are working within them every day. For example, it can help to identify potential new affiliates, evaluate applications, write introduction emails, or proofread terms and conditions. This can all streamline the affiliate recruitment process. (We should note, however, that this aspect of affiliate marketing will always require constant attention and a human touch.)

Getting Started with ChatGPT 

Artificial intelligence, even in its early stages, has the industry abuzz with its potential to change the game. However, AI models like ChatGPT are only as good as the prompts that drive them. You’ll need the right marketing-focused prompts to effectively use any of the strategies above. More than likely, you’ll need to experiment and iterate to figure out what those are.

If you’re not sure how to get started, google the AI model you’re using plus “prompt for [the task you want to accomplish]” — you should find plenty of examples to choose from. You can also check out AI prompt-based communities on Reddit, Twitter, and most other social media platforms.

And, in case you’re looking for guidance on your overall strategy, head over to our Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing to learn more.

I want to hear from you: How do you use AI in your affiliate marketing strategy? What are the best prompts you’ve discovered so far? Let me know in the comments below! 

Seems like there’s always an affiliate marketing conference or trade show just around the corner, doesn’t it? So, if you’re an advertiser looking for new affiliates, influencers, and other partners to work with, here are my top seven tools and tips for finding the right partnerships for your business.

Favorite Affiliate Marketing Tools for Finding Publishers 

1). The TUNE Network Ecosystem 

We’ve been a reliable bridge between advertisers and publishers since our early beginning as HasOffers. Now, the TUNE Network makes it easy for both sides to engage in direct conversations with the click of a button.  

2). Publisher Discovery 

Publisher Discovery is a reliable, cost-effective third-party resource with unlimited publisher reach and automation tools to bolster affiliate recruitment and diversify traffic channels.  

3). Agency Services 

Time is money, especially if you’re building your affiliate program from scratch. Agencies offer management and partner recruitment under the same umbrella, and help advertisers take the guesswork out of matching their programs with the best publishers.  

4). Performance Networks 

Proprietary affiliate networks and sub-affiliate networks allow both sides to locate and communicate within a single environment. Data is also easily shared between all parties through dashboard login, customized reports, and campaign management tools.  

5). Industry Shows 

Nothing beats old-fashioned, in-person networking opportunities at conferences such as Affiliate Summit East and Affiliate Summit West, Affiliate World, FinCon, PI Live, and MAU. Of course, there are others to be considered, and all are worth attending. 

6). Social Networks 

LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms have really evolved over the past few years, particularly with the popularity of influencers and brand ambassadors. Built-in messaging features can also assist with direct outreach communication and responses from both sides.  

7). Word of Mouth 

People do business with people they like, know, and trust. The affiliate industry is small enough for word to get around, particularly if business is bad. A good name and reputation go a long way, and you’re always known by the last company you worked for or the last deal you negotiated. In short: use your personal network, and be careful not to burn any bridges. 

Tools of the Trade 

All of the above resources can help advertisers and publishers create mutually-beneficial partnerships. Try any one of them singularly, or take a more strategic approach of mixing them up for optimal results. 

What other tools would you recommend for finding publishers? Leave a comment and let me know!

If you’d like to learn more about affiliate marketing tools or the TUNE platform, we’d love to help you out — you can chat with us here.

Speaking of finding partners …

Our Partner Groups Cheat Sheet is a quick reference guide to five types of popular affiliates and how to work with them. This info sheet includes advice about working with each group, including what kind of campaigns to run, effective commission models, and driving factors that make programs stand out from the crowd.

Download the Partner Groups Cheat Sheet here.

Once the tracking software is in place, your affiliate marketing program has launched, and partner recruitment is steady, you may find yourself wondering: “OK, I’m up and running. Now, what else needs to happen to make my program successful over the long haul?” The answer: Plenty. And the right affiliate software will help you do it. 

Below, we’ve pulled together a list of high-level tactics to help you get the most of out your affiliate software. These are broken down into the most important tasks to complete on a regular basis, organized by our recommended cadence: weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. In addition, we’ve included TUNE features and tools that will help you master each one. With a little discipline and some elbow grease, we’re confident these tactics will help you ensure your program has its most successful year yet. 

The Affiliate Software Features You Should Be Using 

Weekly: Your Affiliate Software Bread and Butter 

1. Reporting 

• It is important to monitor reporting throughout the week to gain insights into program performance, top partners, and review any data spikes. Within TUNE there are multiple reports available to access data that can be exported for further data analysis. 
  • You can view more about TUNE’s reporting suite here:  https://tune.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500007742262-Reporting-Overview
    • If you have multiple goals within an offer it is recommended to view the Goals Report to see downstream conversion rates and identify publishers driving high-performing traffic to your offers.  

2. Reviewing Applications 

• As your team continues with ongoing recruitment efforts, it is recommended to process applications daily, if not weekly, to keep up with pending partners who have applied to your program. By quickly approving affiliate applications, you are allowing partners access to their tracking links so they can begin promoting your brand. 
  • You can view more on the process for reviewing applications in TUNE, here: https://tune.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500007724341-Partner-Sign-Up-Page 

Monthly: Tried-and-True Affiliate Software Tasks 

1. Processing Returns and Modifications 

• To capture order cancellations, returns, or partial returns within the program, you can implement a process to upload a reconciliation file monthly or automate the process via TUNE’s API. Additionally, you can update your TUNE Pay Full Serve account to delay the invoice generation to allow your team time to review orders generated at the end of the month. 
  • Conversion Upload (Manually Uploading a File: https://tune.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500007725601-Importing-Conversions 
  • API Portal: https://developers.tune.com/advertiser-api/ 

2. TUNE Pay – Affiliate Invoice Review 

• With TUNE Pay Full Serve, invoices generate on the first day of every month (unless there is an update to the invoice generation delay setting). Once the invoices are generated in draft status, your team has until 8 am PST on the 15th of each month to review and approve the invoices so that TUNE can provide a consolidated invoice for partner payment. 

3. Partner Communication and Recruitment  

• Maintain active conversations with partners to keep them engaged and to monitor the health of your program. Communication should take place within your affiliate software as well as externally.
• Recruitment efforts should be continuous to find new partner verticals and promotional opportunities. When communicating with different types of affiliate partners you are actively looking to recruit into the program, follow-ups will be necessary, along with timely responses. To help jump-start your partner recruitment efforts, you can utilize TUNE Connect. 

Quarterly: Checkups and Check-ins  

1. Billing Portal 

• Ensure that the contacts and billing information are up to date within the billing portal. This will help get ahead of any potential expirations for corporate credit cards or allow the opportunity to add a new team member who should have access to billing insights. 
  • You can access your billing portal by navigating to Company > Billing 

2. Reviewing the Competitive Landscape 

• Monitoring your competitive landscape can provide your team with a pulse on the health of your program as it relates to partner payout and perks. 

3. Professional Services 

• If you have a feature request or want to explore a custom request that you feel would help your program better scale on TUNE, contact your customer success manager about Professional Services.   

Yearly: Less Frequent, But No Less Important 

1. Revisiting Content 

• Reviewing and updating (as needed) program terms and conditions. You can access your partner terms and conditions by navigating to Company>Customize Application> Partner Terms and Conditions. 
  • Documentation: https://tune.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500008229402-Customizing-Network-Terms-and-Conditions 
• Review standard email templates. This can include promotional emails, along with the standard email templates for pending, approved, and rejected statuses.   
  • Documentation: https://tune.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500008229662-Customizing-Email-Templates 

2. Account Customizations 

• Revisit any branding changes that may have occurred, and update settings as needed including the logo, favicon, custom scripts, etc. 
  • Documentation: https://tune.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500004851701-Branding-Your-Network 

3. Automation Rules 

• Save your team time by automating management actions based on custom rules. If not yet set up, you can explore the various time-to-action rules available. If already created, it is recommended to review the rules to ensure they are still applicable and make updates as needed. 
  • Documentation: https://tune.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005263642-Performance-Automation-Tools 

Maximize Your ROI with the Right Affiliate Software

If you have questions about using your affiliate software to its full potential, reach out to onboarding@tune.com or chat with us.

Download our Key Program Tasks Checklist and see exactly what tasks to complete and how often to complete them to run a healthy, long-term affiliate program. We’ve also included suggested TUNE features to use and links to helpful documentation! 

Affiliate marketing is a low-risk, high-reward channel that has seen its popularity skyrocket in recent years. However, low risk isn’t the same as no risk. With more than 80% of advertisers and publishers including affiliate partnerships in their marketing strategy, fraud is an unfortunate and unavoidable fact of life. 

As affiliate marketing grew into what it is today, so did bad actors and their numerous technologies to “game the system.” Some of these practices fall into a gray category where they aren’t necessarily illegal, while others are a blatant breach of contract.

Below, we’ve outlined the practices that account for why this channel has historically gained a bad reputation in the marketing industry. Here are the top ways we see publishers break the rules, how they do it, and how you can identify affiliate fraud like it in your own program. 

What Affiliate Fraud Looks Like 

Pop-Unders 

The opposite of a pop-up, a pop-under is an ad that pops open behind (or “under”) a browser window. 

When It’s OK  

A number of publishers still utilize pop-unders as a part of their advertising efforts, and that in itself is relatively benign. However, this practice is considered old school and typically does not add value to the user experience. How often have you seen a pop-under and said, “Oh great, I can’t wait to click on this!” Instead, it’s more like, “Where the hell did this come from?”

Some advertisers may not want this experience to be included as part of their program, while others might not mind, so it’s best the parties involved discuss this practice upfront.   

When It’s Bad 

Pop-unders can be set up to assist in cookie stuffing without the user knowing. It’s bad practice if the pop-under is for something completely irrelevant to what the user is searching for, or if the user did not take an action (click) to cause the ad to fire. 

A common practice for very large retailers or campaigns is to force an affiliate click on a pop-under where there is no immediate relevance for the consumer in the hope that they will purchase (think Expedia) or sign up (H&R Block). A red flag for this type of tactic would be an extreme spike in clicks from a masked referring URL with low conversion rates. 

Cookie Stuffing/Cookie Dropping  

Also known as attribution theft, cookie stuffing is always fraudulent. 

When It’s OK 

Never. 

When It’s Bad 

Cookies are little data bites that capture the parameters we all use in our tracking links. These data bites include important values like your affiliates’ information (name, ID number, etc.), and they track the touchpoints in a consumer journey.

Cookie stuffing happens when a third party, such as a publisher or CPA network, drops multiple cookies on a user’s browser before they take an action so the third party can get continuous credit for a sale. You may be able to tell if one of the partners in your program is doing this if their actions spike but they have very few clicks, behavior that TUNE’s Time-to-Action Report can help you identify. 

TM+ Bidding 

TM+ stands for “trademark plus,” or when a third party bids on your branded name(s) plus additional keywords. 

When It’s OK  

Trademark plus campaigns, when run through the affiliate channel with trusted partners, can help bolster performance and support advertisers by pushing competitors lower in search results. They also offer a means to get supplemental media in exchange for TM+ rights, which can be a win/win depending on the goals of a particular partnership.  

When It’s Bad 

Trademark bidding is part of paid search marketing, which means most brands will have a team that focuses on this and pays search engines to place their ads at the top of relevant pages. When unauthorized parties bid on trademarked terms, it not only drives up costs for your paid search team, but it can also result in completely inaccurate information, stolen sales, and poor user experiences.  

URL Redirection 

This happens when you navigate to a specific URL and instead of ending up there, you are rerouted to a different destination URL. 

When It’s OK 

There are a few reputable auto-redirecting publishers who scrape the web for misspelled domain entries and redirect them to advertisers’ sites. Some notable companies that do this are Resilion, NameSpace, and ProtectedBrand. 

When It’s Bad 

URL redirection is bad if it is set up with the intent to disguise itself and take users away from their intended destination. This can be done in tandem with website cloning, and it is another form of theft in affiliate marketing. Auto-redirecting works by using a protocol that remains hidden and enables click fraud.  

Bots/Web Crawling 

A search engine algorithm that organizes information. 

When It’s OK 

Fun fact: About 42% of internet traffic consists of bots scanning content, interacting with webpages, chatting with users, or looking for suspicious behavior. Some bots are useful, such as search engine bots that index content for search results or customer service bots that help users. A web crawler bot is like someone who goes through all the books in a disorganized library and puts together a card catalog, so that anyone who visits the library can quickly and easily find the information they need. 

When It’s Bad 

Like any technology, bots can be built with bad intent. Because it’s automated technology, bots can assist with most of the malevolent practices mentioned in this post. They can be programmed to break into user accounts, scan the web for contact information for sending spam, set up to perform click fraud, or stuff cookies.

If you have access to a tool like TUNE’s Time-to-Action Report and see an unprecedented number of clicks come through in a short period of time, that could indicate a bot is performing click fraud on a partner’s site.  

Website Cloning 

This practice is exactly what it sounds like: duplicating information and visuals from one site to create a copy of it somewhere else. 

When It’s OK 

Never. 

When It’s Bad 

I’ve seen this happen to brands when a third party purchases similar domain names and replicates the website imagery and content to dupe visitors and get the affiliate payout on those sales. The plagiarized sites abuse the way Google ranks content by sending fake organic traffic to themselves. This is why it’s so important to actually look at potential partner websites and do the research before accepting just anyone into your affiliate program. 

Toolbar Auto-Redirection 

When a toolbar, plugin, or other browser extension takes an action without the user’s knowledge and/or consent.

When It’s OK 

Never. 

When It’s Bad 

Some browser toolbars, plugins, and extensions automatically drop an affiliate click when a user (who has it installed) visits an advertiser’s website in order to generate an action that will give the user cash back. Many times, the consumer doesn’t know they have the toolbar installed and never get the cash back. See the post we wrote about Chrome extensions caught cookie stuffing for an example of this practice in action. 

We recommend requiring that any toolbar or browser plugin adheres to an “affirmative click” policy, where the user has to opt in to receive cash back (and subsequently allow the affiliate to receive commission). The major toolbars that do this are Shop At Home, BeFrugal, and WeCare. 

Tools to Detect Affiliate Fraud 

As affiliate fraud has expanded, so have tools to help brands and program managers fight back. Some platforms offer fraud protection built in, but most charge an additional fee for their solution or a third-party integration. TUNE provides both, allowing you the freedom to use our built-in proactive fraud prevention suite that’s powered by Fraudlogix, or integrate your preferred third-party solution. 

“TUNE’s customers depend on the platform to help them fight fraud and the data we are providing enables them to block fraudulent actions before they affect campaigns,” Fraudlogix CEO Hagai Shechter said in our post announcing the feature. “This saves TUNE’s customers time and has real implications on ROI.” 

Another TUNE technology partner, TrafficGuard, sees that on average across affiliate programs, between 10-15% of commission payouts go to fraudulent affiliate partners. Here’s how they explain it: 

“When we look at ad fraud in the affiliate channel what we are really looking at is misattribution. Tactics like cookie stuffing are designed to misattribute a conversion away from its real origin to a fraudulent affiliate. That means you are then either paying that affiliate for something that you should have got for free, or are paying the wrong affiliate. When it comes to scaling your affiliate program, this can cause you to actually scale into the bad actor, as it appears they are driving the most growth.” 
—Kalen Bushe, TrafficGuard

Keeping Affiliate Fraud Out of Your Program 

These days, affiliate fraud is just a reality brands must face. With the right platform and tools, however, it becomes a manageable part of any program.  

Visit our blog post on TUNE’s Proactive Fraud Prevention to learn more. 

Download our 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting an Affiliate Program e-book to get tips from industry experts on what they got wrong — like ignoring the warning signs of affiliate fraud — and how you can get it right in your program.   

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash

Whether you’re a digital media buyer (i.e., advertiser) or seller (i.e., publisher), both depend on each other for a successful affiliate marketing program. Advertisers need real-time access and visibility into inventory. Publishers need to be able to show inventory as it becomes available, and provide insightful and accurate reporting. Without the right affiliate marketing platform to track, manage, and report on campaigns, the process becomes cumbersome at best — and can jeopardize thousands or millions of dollars at worst.

In this blog post, we recommend a few things to look for when searching for the right affiliate marketing platform for your business.

5 Things to Look for in an Affiliate Marketing Platform

1. Fully Customizable, White Label Technology

Every company has a different need, brand, industry, and process. As such, it’s important that you choose an affiliate marketing platform that you can customize to fit your company, instead of forcing your company to fit a certain affiliate marketing platform. At TUNE, our platform is white label ready and fully customizable. Whether you want to use our platform’s features and tools out of the box, or leverage our API to build your own on top of it, you can create the perfect platform for your business.

2. Best-In-Class Support

No matter which affiliate marketing platform you choose, there are some things you will need help with from time to time. That’s why it’s important to choose a platform with stellar customer support. The last thing you want to do is spend valuable time waiting on an answer while you could be optimizing your campaigns.

One of the best ways to identify an affiliate marketing platform that prioritizes customer service is whether customer satisfaction is a metric they track. TUNE has a 98% customer service satisfaction rating, and our onboarding team always gets high marks from new customers. We’re also continually looking for ways to get even better, asking our customers for feedback at every opportunity possible.

3. Real-Time Reporting and Campaign Optimization

New inventory becomes available every second of the day. For buyers, success depends on making more timely buys, and sellers need to be able to expose inventory quickly and easily. A top priority should be choosing an affiliate marketing platform that provides real-time data and optimization opportunities so you can make instantaneous decisions. The faster you’re able to optimize, the faster your revenue can scale.

Unlike our competitors, TUNE offers real real-time reporting and management capabilities, including A/B testing and landing space splits, so you can discover what performs best and make instant (or incremental) changes that add up to massive results. (Go ahead — ask any platform how they define “in real time,” and get specific numbers. You’ll see their “real-time” reporting is closer to “delayed by a few hours or a day” reporting.)

4. System Reliability

When assessing an affiliate marketing platform, ask for statistics about uptime. It’s critical as a seller to be able to provide timely and accurate data and analysis. In the fast-paced world of affiliate marketing, nothing can be more frustrating (or result in more lost revenue) than dealing with unnecessary downtime.

We’re proud to say TUNE can report 99.9% system uptime, having built our technical infrastructure to the highest standards in security and redundancy, so your platform will be ready for any situation.

5. All-In-One Functionality

It’s no secret the marketing technology landscape is only getting more complex, with more than 11,000 vendors in 2023. The last thing you want to do is sign up for a point solution and have to integrate with 10 more. That’s why we strongly advise looking for an all-in-one affiliate marketing platform that allows you to manage everything from mobile marketing campaigns to publisher relationships, conversion tracking, payouts, creative assets, lead generation, transactions, automation, and more.

Your Choice, Your Affiliate Marketing Platform

We’re proud of what we’ve created at TUNE, but don’t just take it from us. Read more about what our customers say or see their success stories.

Questions? Reach out to partnermarketing@tune.com to ask our experts, or download The Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing to jump right in.

There is a Hacker News article that came out a couple months ago that recently resurfaced and started making the rounds in TUNE’s Slack channels. The article states that McAfee researchers found four imposter extensions for Google’s Chrome browser had generated 1.4 million installs. The malicious extensions were rather unrelated in nature, being two Netflix group watching extensions, a coupon extension, and a website screenshot extension. But they all had one thing in common: They were tracking the website activity of users and injecting malicious code, a fraudulent practice known as cookie stuffing, in order to profit from retail affiliate programs. 

But the story didn’t have to end that way for those retail brands. If they had been using TUNE, this might not be a story at all. Here’s why. 

How Cookie Stuffing Works 

Cookie stuffing is a type of ad fraud that’s all too common today. Cookie stuffing occurs when fraudsters — in this case, malicious extensions masquerading as legitimate ones — generate clicks for affiliate programs without having an actual human being click on anything. The user, who has downloaded the fake extension thinking they have the real deal, has zero knowledge of being used in this ploy.  

When the user visits a website, a tracking session is started; if they eventually purchase a product, the extension claims credit for the conversion and gets a commission for the purchase, even though it had nothing to do with the consumer finding and buying that product. The retail brand running the affiliate program is unaware they are paying out for fraudulent activity, since the extension is disguising itself as a legitimate publisher in the program. Usually, this type of fraud targets the affiliate programs of large, popular brands, as there is a better chance for a higher volume of people to convert. 

How to Flip the Script 

One way to combat this style of cookie stuffing is to have strict partner management and vetting practices. These practices should require affiliates to be transparent about their placements and how they drive traffic. They should also include constant audits to ensure quality, even when the quality looks good on paper.  

All of these controls, plus many more, are available in the TUNE Partner Marketing Platform.  

Fight Fraud with Time-to-Action Tools

In addition, TUNE also offers Time-to-Action rules and reports that can help notify brands of suspicious conversion patterns in their traffic. In this scenario, where fraudsters are waiting until a user gets to your website before firing fake clicks, you can set various thresholds to alert you if traffic volume is performing out of scope when it comes to the amount of time it takes from a click to a purchase.  

Here’s a step-by-step example of how you could use TUNE’s time-to-action tools to identify and prevent this type of fraud. 

1. Look at the Time-to-Action Report in TUNE to determine your average time-to-action, or how long it takes a user to convert (e.g., purchase a product) after an affiliate link has been clicked. You may want to exclude certain partners from this analysis depending on the composition of your program.
   1. If you have a small number of trusted cashback or coupon partners, it’s a good idea to exclude them here, as they could skew the average time it takes to convert. 
   2. It’s helpful to compare your affiliate traffic versus other forms of paid media to get a clearer picture of your users’ traffic patterns. Users coming from fraudsters like malicious extensions will not interact with your site in a manner consistent with affiliate traffic, as the “click” that sent them to you does not originate from a valid affiliate partner. 
2. Once you have your average time-to-action, expand the time range until it includes 50% of your conversions (sales, registrations, etc.).
   1. Example: If your average time-to-action is 25 minutes, start widening the time range until it covers half of all conversions. Let’s say that is 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes. 
3. Set your Time-to-Action threshold in TUNE to notify your partner manager if any affiliate has more than 50% of their traffic that converts outside of the 15 minute to 1 hour and 30 minute threshold. You can now spend some time digging into the traffic patterns and working with your partner to determine the true quality of this traffic. 
4. Set your Time-to-Action threshold in TUNE to block partner traffic when more than 75% of their traffic converts outside of the same 15 minute to 1 hour and 30 minute threshold.
   1. Traffic will be blocked and both your partner and partner manager will be notified. 
   2. You can also block, or be notified of, traffic down to the sub-source level, so you don’t have to block traffic at the overall partner level.  

Now you have some thresholds in place to combat fraudsters using this method of cookie stuffing.  

Visualize Data to Identify Suspicious Activity

Another way to leverage TUNE’s time-to-action functionality for similar fraudulent activities is to translate visual data. A close cousin of cookie stuffing is the practice of starting a tracking session at any point in time, as opposed to starting it when a user goes to the intended website. This can be done in the form of pop-unders (where the user may eventually realize they have been redirected to the brand’s site, but most likely won’t notice for a while), or via server-side clicks, or clicks that do not technically send the user anywhere, but still start a tracking session. You can use TUNE’s visual reporting to see evidence of these practices. 

Below is a view of a normal Time-to-Action curve. It looks much like a bell curve and shows that the natural intent of this traffic is to convert between X-X minutes.

This means that users who are interacting with these partner links are most likely finding value in the content presented and then having some reasonable probability of converting. 

Here we have another example of a Time-To-Action curve, but one that has no obvious intent curve. The flatter the curve, the more concerning the traffic may be.

It’s obvious that one of a few scenarios is happening: either users are confused with what is being promoted via the links, they are being marketed something that is not appearing as genuine on the brand’s site (for example, offering a 50% discount when none is available), or there is something malicious going on (like the pop-unders or server-side clicks we previously mentioned).   

Protect Your Program with TUNE 

Situations like this one don’t have to spell doom for a program. With the TUNE Partner Marketing Platform, you can safeguard your investments against bad actors using the tools we covered above. But these aren’t the only features and functionality we offer to help combat fraudulent activity. If you’d like to hear about the rest of them, drop us a line at sales@tune.com or request a demo today. 

With any partnership, it’s important to know your strengths and your weaknesses. The same goes for your affiliate program. To have the best chance of success, trust the experts for the technology that powers your program — especially when it comes to attribution.

But does every program need a mobile measurement partner? Is an MMP the same as a partner marketing platform? And do you need both to run an affiliate program, or can you do it all with just an MMP?  

In part 2 of our series, we’ll answer these important questions with information found in our newest e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Partner Marketing. Let’s dive in! 

What Is an MMP? 

MMP is an acronym for “mobile measurement partner.” The term comes from Facebook’s name for the first group of tech providers that integrated with the social media platform to track app installs. 

A mobile measurement partner is exactly what it sounds like: a third-party technology partner that measures mobile app performance. Usually, this means attributing downloads and installs, which is done via a piece of code called an SDK (software development kit). MMPs can measure post-install activities as well, such as in-app registrations, purchases, and engagements.

The major MMPs in the market today are Adjust, AppsFlyer, Branch, Kochava, and Singular. (Fun fact: TUNE was technically the first MMP, as we created the very first mobile app attribution SDK, known at the time as MobileAppTracking. It was eventually rebranded as Attribution Analytics and acquired by Branch in 2018.) 

What Is a Partner Marketing Platform? 

A partner marketing platform (PMP) is an end-to-end SaaS solution for building, managing, and growing affiliate programs and networks. These platforms can handle all the operations needed to run a program, including conversion tracking, commissioning, offer/creative/partner management, communication, invoicing and payments, traffic management, and more. They should also be customizable enough to enable third-party integrations, custom development, and additional functionality via API. Most importantly, a true partner marketing platform operates as an unbiased, third-party software provider.  

While there are many offerings in the market today that label themselves as PMPs, most of these function more like traditional affiliate networks rather than software providers.  

Why You Shouldn’t Use an MMP to Run an Affiliate Program 

The short answer? MMPs specialize in mobile app attribution, not partner program management.  

While you can use your MMP to add individual partners, share links, and track their performance, there are other activities that are vital to running a program that your MMP is not built to handle. That’s where your partner marketing platform comes in. Check out the chart below to see how these two solutions complement each other by handling different activities across your mobile app and partner marketing efforts.  

How to Tell If You Need an MMP 

Do you have a mobile app? Do you run user acquisition campaigns?  

If you answered yes to either question, you should invest in an MMP, as they provide the most reliable and accurate measurement for today’s mobile app ecosystem.  

Master Mobile Partner Marketing with TUNE 

If you enjoyed Part 1 and Part 2 of our series on mobile partner marketing, you’re in luck! We’re back with more insights, advice, and information in Part 3.

Download the new e-book today

It’s a tale as old as time (or as old as marketing and advertising goes): a brand wants to increase its visibility to the market, sell more goods, or tap into a new customer base. Often, these businesses are leveraging a medley of services and technologies to help support their efforts. Many of these show their strengths when siloed specifically to their specialty, but lack the flexibility and sophistication to stretch beyond those boundaries when stretched beyond their limits. In our world of performance and partnership marketing, traditional tracking networks have largely relied on antiquated solutions that leave many users frustrated. A general lack of innovation has left many programs stagnant, and without much to leverage.

Most platforms will share common functionality at a base level: they’re all tracking some type of event from point A to point B, maybe through app or mobile, across several touchpoints, or along a conversion funnel. But what separates the good tech from the great tech really comes down to the details, some of which are easily overlooked if you’re not the person who is managing the nuances day to day.

Beyond these minor details, a strong technology is built with infrastructure that can evolve with your business. Not only does TUNE have the most robust two-way API on the market, we also have a team of professional solutions architects who can customize features for your unique business needs. We know brands can get access to APIs for reporting purposes – but what if you could manage most of your daily operational processes with them? *Lightbulb moment*

What we’ve done is turn many of these pain points into opportunities for greater efficiency. We have designed our platform to be your strategic solution, built with maximum flexibility. Because that’s what brands need to survive and thrive in today’s economy: flexibility. In this blog post, I’ll cover just a few of the ways our platform is providing that flexibility to more and more brands every day.

The Pain of Partner Onboarding

A common challenge I hear from brands and partners alike is how frustrating the onboarding and activation process can be with many of the traditional network solutions on the market. Delays with getting links, or even just getting through the door to be approved to a program, can take days or even weeks. This is particularly challenging when you’ve spent countless hours hunting for new partners or building rapport, only to be stopped on the doorstep.

The past few years have shown us that there’s a massive market of new partnerships, including creators who have dedicated fan bases and are eager to support brands they care about. What if you’ve spent weeks, or even months, building a relationship with a creator? In that time, you’ve discussed the value of your product, shared intimate details about the painstaking process it took to bring it to market, and the hours you invested to make it a reality.

At this point, you ask them to join your partnerships program. But wait! Your traditional network has red tape across the front door – so your new partner has to apply for the network, and in that process, provide substantiating evidence that they know how to promote brands. Then they must be approved by the network, which is typically done on a first-come, first-served basis. Once approved, they are added to a massive marketplace with hundreds of thousands of other partners, leaving virtually no visibility for their individual brand. And, finally, once a partner is officially active in your program, generating links for them can take even more time – so you’re restricted by your platform capabilities before you can even get started. 

At TUNE, we understand the difficulties this presents to businesses looking for flexibility and autonomy. We’ve designed our technology with this in mind, so you can bring partners on board within seconds. (You read that right – seconds.) As the business owner, you dictate the master terms and conditions partners must abide by; you can control whether they are automatically accepted or if you prefer to put them in a queue for further evaluation. Once your partners have accepted the terms, they’re in and can get a tracking link in under a minute; our links propagate in real time, and they don’t have to be assigned a specific insertion order.

Many marketers still find it difficult to bring influencers, podcasts, and other new media onto traditional tracking platforms because of this lengthy sign-up process; gone are those days with TUNE. And because our platform generates links in real time, it allows you to work with any partner type you want. If you want to test a unique B2B campaign, a syndicated piece of content, and a display ad network, all at the same time, you can make that a reality on one platform – TUNE’s.

Automation and Program Hygiene to Scale

Many program managers spend an absurd amount of time dealing with operational needs before they can invest time thinking strategically about how to grow their business. For example, dealing with application approvals alone can take hours each week to evaluate the quality of the partner in question. And that’s just scratching the surface.

I often hear from colleagues how much time they spend reviewing individual campaigns for not just performance, but traffic quality, and how much this slows them down. They might see a huge spike in traffic over the weekend, but it’s coming from a sub-affiliate network, so they have to spend time drilling down to find which specific partner was responsible. Or they launched a campaign earlier in the week to generate more leads, but find out a sizable percentage were fraudulently driven by bot traffic. Now what? I guess they’re spending the rest of the day (or even week) figuring out how to reverse those transactions, negotiate with partners over non-qualified commissions, and try to sort through what’s legitimate and what’s not.

What if I told you TUNE has tools that are natively built into the platform to proactively combat these situations at a campaign level, and that you can automate them? Tools such as performance automation rules, which allow you to set specific criteria and then get instantly notified if something seems off. That sub-affiliate driving a massive spike? Let’s set up a rule that tells you which source (i.e., partner, page, specific article, or more) is responsible so you can get in front of it. Those fraudulent leads coming through? Use TUNE’s time-to-action features to ensure all leads are being ingested within a proper time frame.

TUNE’s powerful controls don’t just enable you to automatically combat issues like these; they can also help you block a partner in their tracks before they turn a small problem into a big one. What’s more, these tools make testing new partner types or campaign structures far less risky, which means scaling your program can be done without diluting your traffic quality; every click that comes through TUNE is instantly put through a quality filter and presented in a separate report, so you can rest assured you’re combating illegitimate activity and keeping a record of every action.

Data Accuracy and Customization

Several traditional platforms have a delay when pulling in data to their system. It’s not unusual to see hours between when a click or a conversion takes place, and when it shows up in your account. In some cases, waiting that long for performance data to populate might not be a showstopper – but I’d argue that optimization and growth can move much more efficiently if you can get what you need quickly to make informed decisions. The beauty of our platform is both brands and partners are getting access to immediate performance data, so collaborating on optimization efforts can be done without any details being lost in translation.

TUNE pioneered the postback as a server-side tracking solution years ago, and it remains the standard in accuracy, speed, and sophistication today. Postbacks enable marketers to reduce their reliance on third-party cookies, future-proof their partner programs, and filter first-party data in real time. This makes tracking everything from a typical retail conversion event to a multi-touchpoint lead funnel incredibly simple. And since postback tracking allows you to customize what events matter most, you aren’t restricted to data fields that may not be valuable to your business, and you can structure the links to build customer cohorts along the way. TUNE’s technology allows you to add additional event trackers right in the interface, so there’s no need to worry about going through a network solutions team or getting stuck in a setup queue. The brand remains in control of which customer data fields to include on a link, all done at a campaign level, which means getting granular data by partner type or source is fast and accurate. Partners can even be granted the ability to append unique variables to their links.

With our Firehose product, you’re getting the best of both worlds: the real-time data ingestion into your private TUNE program, and simultaneously feeding that data into your internal systems. A powerful tool when you’re comparing multi-channel data and deciding where to point the ship next.

Conclusion

Whether it’s apparent or not, brands need flexibility. Period. They need the ability to onboard a new partner quickly and easily. It doesn’t matter where they drive traffic from, or how long they’ve been active. The only criteria should be the one each business sets for itself, not what a network limits you to. They need data – and they need it fast and reliably. A growth manager shouldn’t have to spend hours sifting through potentially fraudulent data or tell an influencer they have to follow a lengthy process just to support their products. They don’t need another pretty graph; they need to know that if a link needs to be updated, it can be done in real time, without compromising their campaign progress.

No longer are you relegated to a set of strict platform guidelines that leave no room for coloring outside the lines. Or ones that tell you what you should be tracking, rather than listening to your business needs. Some technologies pride themselves on a mentality shaped around a closed ecosystem, and quite frankly, it’s putting handcuffs on your business before you even get started. Brands need real solutions. Real data. Real control. The landscape has evolved and continues to reinvent itself frequently – work with the technology that hoisted those sails. You deserve it.

And if you need something custom built to help accelerate your program or simply make your daily life easier, just drop us a line, and TUNE’s Professional Services team can work their magic for your business.

Ready to learn more about how the TUNE Partner Marketing Platform can unlock your growth potential? Email us at sales@tune.com or request a trial.

The contract has been signed on the dotted line, and your team is ready to set up your partner marketing program. As with any new technology, education is needed to understand the foundational components of the tool and take full advantage of how you can use it to optimize your launch process.  

This is where TUNE’s customized onboarding approach can help set you up for long-term success!  

In our onboarding series thus far, I have covered A Quick Introduction to TUNE Onboarding and How to Determine If Customized Onboarding Is Right for Your Team. In this post, I’ll be sharing a glimpse of what to expect from your month of onboarding.   

The TUNE Onboarding Experience 

Setting up a partner marketing program is an exciting time. We want to continue that momentum into the onboarding experience with a customized approach that’s focused on providing insight into the foundational building blocks of the platform.

A month in the life of TUNE Onboarding includes:    

• A strategic kickoff call with a dedicated onboarding manager  
• Overview of launch plan and objectives  
• Onboarding resources and checklist  
• Weekly training sessions over 30 days   
• A fun team that “gets it” and will provide a 10 out of 10 onboarding experience – both managers come from leading teams and driving affiliate strategy across several verticals on the agency side.  

Customized Experience 

• We understand that no two companies are alike, which is why we work to gain a deep understanding of your goals and strategies. Based on these insights, the onboarding team works to further customize the onboarding experience so that we focus on what is most critical to your program.   

Microlearning Approach  

• We understand that it may feel daunting to learn a new tool, which is why we implemented a microlearning approach focused on the building blocks needed to navigate and understand the platform.  
• These sessions include but are not limited to an overview of your account dashboard, tracking setup, partner flow, advanced tools, payment solutions, and more. Since we get to know our brand partners so well, we strive to set curated sessions as needed so that we are always learning about what is most relevant for your program.  

Dedicated Support with Long-term Success in Mind 

• The onboarding experience is high engagement to support long-term success. In addition to the team’s partnership and support, you will have guides along the way to apply learnings in between training sessions.  

The Best Next Steps  

If you have any questions or if you are interested in more information on how our onboarding team can help your business succeed, feel free to reach out to Shandi Michno at shandi.michno@tune.com.

Read the rest of the TUNE Onboarding Series

A Quick Introduction
Is Customized Onboarding Right for You?
How Onboarding and Customer Success Teams Work Together
How to Get Ahead Before Onboarding Starts
Supporting Long-Term Success After Launch

Launching a partner marketing program may seem like a daunting task. When you’re learning how to use new software at the same time, it can be a lot to take on. TUNE is here to help! 

In my first post, I covered a quick introduction to TUNE Onboarding. In this post, I’m sharing a few tips on how to decide if customized onboarding is a good fit. 

When to Use Onboarding 

Do you have a new affiliate program, or are you looking to refresh a current program? These are common trends that lead many of our customers to add onboarding to their account. (Onboarding comes included with our Scale plan and select Custom plans.)  

Throughout my years in SaaS customer success, I’ve seen three main scenarios that usually signal a need for customized onboarding:  

Starting a New Program  

When starting a new program, most users seek guidance for: 

• optimized setup and platform strategy 
• direction for how best to use new tools  
• recommendations on platform use  
• strategies for long-term success  

Looking for More Education  

Sometimes, individuals who are using a platform feel they are not fully taking advantage of it. These users: 

• want to optimize platform use  
• need additional help on tools  
• are looking for advanced training 

Optimizing an Existing Program  

If a program hits a plateau, or a business wants to pursue new opportunities or markets, many users request additional assistance to: 

• discover proven methods to improve setup 
• master advanced tools and reporting  
• receive partner onboarding recommendations  

Benefits of Saying Yes to Onboarding  

Plenty of existing clients have seen the success of growth by taking advantage of TUNE Onboarding. You can check out our customer stories to see how brands like Credit Sesame grew their revenue and customer base by switching to TUNE. Or, head over to my previous post to read some testimonials about our onboarding program.   

The Best Next Steps  

If you feel any of the above describes your position, added onboarding might be the best fit to help your program grow. Feel free to reach out to me, Shandi Michno, at shandi.michno@tune.com with any questions or for more information on how our onboarding team can help your business succeed.  

Read the rest of the TUNE Onboarding Series

A Quick Introduction
What to Expect During the First 30 Days
How Onboarding and Customer Success Teams Work Together
How to Get Ahead Before Onboarding Starts
Supporting Long-Term Success After Launch