It’s been a month since we’ve outlined all the new updates with HasOffers. In that time our engineers have been swiftly continuing to improve our application with lots of new features. In this update we’ve chosen to focus on the recent enhancements to our robust tracking capabilities. Please take some time to consider how these new tracking features will improve your affiliate program.
Ring Revenue Integration
RingRevenue’s platform for call performance marketing is now available through HasOffers. We wanted to be sure we could provide real value with this integration before moving forward, and finally it is available. The integration allows networks using HasOffers to easily set up “pay per call” offers and pay affiliates/publishers for the valuable leads they produce on phone. Enable the offers in your HasOffers network to support pay per call with Ring Revenue. Once enabled, affiliates have access to unique phone numbers for tracking their traffic to their affiliate account. The integration pulls affiliate activity from Ring Revenue’s platform and records it appropriately in your HasOffers network for seamless reporting. If you are interested in this integration, please contact your account manager for further details.
View through Tracking
HasOffers now supports “view through” tracking allowing you to start a tracking session on the impression impression rather than the click. Thus when a user views a creative or the impression pixel is loaded, the tracking session is set. This update allows you to specify a session length for impression which is different from the click session length, giving you the ability to set a session to be 1 day if a user just views the banner ad (no click). This records conversions within that 1 day time frame since an active tracking session exists. If a user clicks on a banner and the custom session length is is set to 60 days, then the expiration date of the tracking session extends by 60 days. This allows you to compensate affiliates for users that see a banner ad and then create a conversion without clicking on the link.
Link Campaigns
Link campaigns allow you to create an Ad Manager campaign using offer URLs (separate destinations) so that you can optimize the link destination. Instead of optimizing creative files, this new campaign simply optimizes offers and offer urls. Once you setup a link campaign, add various offers and offer URLs to a single campaign. Then generate a tracking link for the entire campaign. The HasOffers ad servers direct traffic to one offer and a corresponding offer URL in the campaign. This allows you to easily control and update which offers and landing pages are receiving traffic. The ad servers can automatically optimize the offers in the campaign based on their performance or you can easily pause and resume offers in the campaign manually.
Custom Weights for Creatives
Now HasOffers clients can easily set customize weights for specific creatives in an Ad Manager campaign. Previously in the Ad Manager we provided campaign optimization by RPM, RPC, CTR, and CR, but now you can overwrite the weights set by these optimization methods. The creative is displayed based on the weight set, regardless of performance. The weight is a percentage of 100. If you set a custom weight for a creative to 20, then the creative will be displayed 20% of the time. You can enable custom creative weights by clicking the Edit link in the campaign information panel when viewing a campaign. Once enabled you can input the specific weight for each creative.
Set Payout on Click
This is a special feature that includes “payout” in affiliate tracking links. Companies that use HasOffers to buy traffic on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis for offers that payout on conversion can now dynamically pass in their costs through tracking links. Instead of using the default offer payout or a custom affiliate payout set in the system, an amount set in the link will override the payout and the cost will be recorded accordingly in HasOffers reporting. This should only be used for networks that use HasOffers for internal media buying and is not recommended for allowing affiliates to set their own payout. This feature is a custom preference that we need to enable manually, so contact our support team if you’d like it enabled.
Example: demo.go2jump.org/aff_c?offer_
Global Network Postback URL
The Network Postback URL is a new feature that allows all conversions for your affiliate network to be reported to a specified URL. This is great for companies doing content locking, etc., giving them the ability to report on conversions across several affiliate accounts to their third-party systems. Instead of placing a postback URL for all offers on each affiliate, simply set the Network Postback URL. The network postback URL is then called for all conversions. Enable this feature by visiting the “Customize Application” page and selecting “Tracking” under the settings panel.
Including Date/Time when Recoding Conversions
By default, your ad servers record conversions for offers using server tracking protocols using the Date/Time the postback URL was requested. If the postback URL is called, notifying HasOffers of a conversion that occurred at 2011-04-26 10:10:01, then the conversion is recorded for that time. Now you can include a custom Date/Time in these requests. If the conversion actually happened a few days prior at 2011-04-20 15:03:01 then you can include this encoded Date/Time and append it to the end of the postback URL. Your specific Date/Time appears for that specific conversion in HasOffers reporting.
Example: &datetime=2011-04-20%2015%
IP Addresses Optional Variable in Affiliate Pixels
Now you can include {session_ip} and {ip} in affiliate pixels and postback URLs. The variable {session_ip} is the IP that started the tracking session either on click or impression. The variable {ip} replaces the IP address that created the conversion. This is particularly important when the affiliate has a postback URL setup. While the affiliate can get the user’s IP if they implemented a third-party pixel, they can’t get the user’s IP if they implemented a postback URL because the HasOffers ad servers load the affiliate’s postback URL for them. This allows you to accommodate affiliates that want the session IP or the conversion IP to be passed back in their affiliate pixels and postback URLs.
Postback URL with Affiliate ID for Offer Goals
HasOffers now accepts affiliate IDs in postback URLs on specific offer goals. Historically, server tracking with offer goals only worked with transaction IDs, but now the affiliate ID can be included to record a conversion for a goal. This accommodates those advertisers with custom setups that require conversions to be recorded by affiliate IDs. In order to view this option, you must disable “enforce conversion tracking protocol” and also disable encrypted conversion tracking at the offer level. This will then allow you to include “&aff_id=” in the postback URL which functions similarly to the Postback with affiliate ID for offers.
Useragents for Server Tracking use Session Useragent
Typically, the useragent reported on a conversion is the useragent that recorded a conversion. This may cause some confusion regarding offers that utilize server side tracking. In this case, the useragent on conversion was the useragent of the server that reported the conversion for the offer. Our client feedback suggested that many businesses need to see the useragent of the user that clicked the link and not the useragent of the server that reported the conversion. As a result, HasOffers now has the ability to manually implement a setting that reports the useragents of users that started the tracking session. Contact your account manager if you are interested in this feature.
Thanks for taking the time to read through these recent updates. Please stay tuned for our next update regarding program management capabilities, and as always, keep the feedback coming!
