Application Support:Create Offers

From HasOffers

Create Offers

Offer Tab > Create Offer

Creating offers is the most important process when building your own affiliate network. The settings chosen when creating an offer determine everything about an offer. It is important to understand all of the many options provided by HasOffers. Settings determine everything from the advertiser to how affiliates and publishers can run offers. The following describes each section of the Create Offer page in great detail. After creating an offer, click the Add Offer or Add Offer and Define Targeting buttons at the bottom of the page.

While advertisers do have capabilities to create offers in their interface, this describes how employees create offers in the admin interface.

Details

Advertiser

Select the Advertiser whose offer you are entering from the drop down menu. This is important to keep reporting and invoicing for the offer consolidated to the appropriate Advertiser account. To enter a new Advertiser into the system see documentation under Create Advertiser. If you fail to link an offer to an advertiser when creating the offer and decide to specify one later, statistics prior to the change won't be linked to the new advertiser selected.

Name

The Offer Name field is where you will enter the name of the offer. The Offer Name will be used for the Network, Advertisers and Affiliates to identify the specific offer within the application.

Description

The Offer Description enables you to enter any pertinent information about the offer. It is recommended to add details about the product or service that is associated to the offer. Some networks include what exact action is required for affiliates to be paid. It can also be used to communicate details of how the offer should be promoted (i.e. Offer can not be incentivized, offer cannot be posted on Craigslist). If the offer will support Parameters to be passed in as Custom Variables, it is recommended to indicate the "Name" of the Parameter. To learn more about adding Parameters, see documentation under Custom Variables.

Preview URL

The Preview URL is a link Affiliates can use to view the landing page of an offer. It is recommended to remove any Advertiser or Network tracking information from this URL link so it does not record any click information or set a cookie. This preview URL is shown to affiliates in their interface. Tracking information should only be included on the Default Offer URL, or on Additional URL's for the offer. Here is an example of a Preview URL: http://www.exampleoffer.com/trial versus a Default Offer URL: http://www.exampleoffer.com/trial/am/default.aspx?sub={transaction_id}&country={country_code}&{params}

Default Offer URL

Each offer must have a Default Offer URL. This is the URL that a user will be directed to after clicking on an affiliate tracking link. Advertisers will provide you with at least one Default Offer URL which may include some of their own tracking code appended to the end of the URL. If your Network requires additional dynamic tracking variables, you will need to include the variable in the URL the Advertiser provides.

Here is a list of variables that can be added to the Default Offer URL. These variables will be dynamically replaced by the ad servers with the appropriate values when a user clicks on the tracking link:

Affiliate ID: Add {affiliate_id} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the ID of the Affiliate promoting the offer.
Affiliate Sub ID: Add {aff_sub} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the value of Affiliate Sub ID passed in via an affiliate tracking link.
Affiliate Source: Add {source} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the value of Affiliate Source passed in via an affiliate tracking link.
Offer ID: Add {offer_id} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the ID of the Offer.
Offer URL ID: Add {offer_url_id} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the ID of the Offer URL used.
Country Code: Add {country_code} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the user's country code (ISO 2-letter code, i.e. US).
Custom Variables: Add {params} in the Offer URL if the Custom Variables option above is enabled. {params} will be replaced by the extra variables passed by the Affiliate into the affiliate tracking link.
Transaction ID: Add {transaction_id} in the Offer URL to send a unique transaction number to the Advertiser. Use this when trying to verify individual leads or when server response tracking is required.
Offer Reference ID: Add {offer_ref} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the Reference ID of the offer. Offer Reference ID is set in the details for the offer.
Advertiser Reference ID: Add {advertiser_ref} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the Reference ID of the Advertiser of the offer. Advertiser Reference ID is set in the details for the advertiser.
Affiliate Reference ID: Add {affiliate_ref} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the Reference ID of the Affiliate promoting the offer. Affiliate Reference ID is set in the details for the affiliate.
City: Add {city} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the city of the user based on their IP address.
Region Code: Add {region_code} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the region code of the user based on their IP address. Such as "NY" for New York.
Country Code: Add {country_code} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by the county code of the user based on their IP address. Such as "US" for United States.
Adwords Click ID: Add {gclid} in the Offer URL and it will be replaced by Google's click ID appended to the end of the tracking link.

If an advertiser passes you a tracking link for an offer and asks that you add a variable in the link for them, they will usually specify where to add the variable. Any link an advertiser gives you for an offer is an Offer URL and if you only have 1, it is the Default Offer URL.

Example link from advertiser: http://www.exampleoffer.com/index/am/default.aspx?sub=ENTER_AFFILIATE_SUB&customer_id=ENTER_CLICK_ID where the ENTER_AFFILIATE_SUB will be {affiliate_id} and ENTER_CLICK_ID will be {transaction_id}

When a link has words that say something, you should interpret them and replace them with HasOffers variables. If an advertisers requests affiliate sub or affiliate sub IDs or sub IDs, GENERALLY THEY MEAN THEY WANT THE IDS OF YOUR AFFILIATES - YOUR SUB AFFILIATES - and thus need to insert {affiliate_id} to pass the ID of your affiliates to their network. This allows them to analyze traffic quality by your affiliates.

Default Offer URL: http://www.exampleoffer.com/index/am/default.aspx?sub={affiliate_id}&customer_id={transaction_id}

If an Advertiser provides multiple landing pages, please see Offer URLs for instructions for adding those URLs.

Conversion Tracking

Conversion Tracking is the protocol that your advertiser will be used to track conversions. There are two ways to track conversion, Client-side Tracking (Cookie/pixel tracking) or Servers-side Tracking (Server to Server tracking)

Learn More about Conversion Tracking

Client Side Tracking

iFrame - iFrame conversion tracking is the recommended client based tracking protocol because of the flexibility that iFrames provide. IFrames support all types of 3rd Party Tracking Pixels. There are two options for iFrame pixels: HTTP and HTTPS. You should confirm with your Advertiser if their confirmation page, where they will be placing the pixel is a "secure" page. If so, select the HTTPS option, if not, the HTTP. iFrame conversion tracking protocols set a cookie on the user's computer via their browser when the user clicks on an affiliate tracking link, and a conversion will register when the user makes it to the confirmation page of the offer where the advertiser has placed the iFrame pixel and has a tracking cookie set. For more information about placing pixels, see additional documentation under Placing an Offer Tracking Pixel.

Image - Image pixels track conversions using client-side cookies. However, instead the advertiser placing iFrame code (as discussed above), the advertiser places an image pixel. An image pixel means that the pixel just uses HTML image tag <img src=url />. There are two options for image pixels: HTTP and HTTPS. You should confirm with your advertiser if their confirmation page, where they will be placing the pixel is a "secure" page. If so, select the HTTPS option, if not, the HTTP. Image conversion tracking protocols set a cookie on the user's computer via their browser when the user clicks on an affiliate tracking link, and a conversion will register when the user makes it to the confirmation page of the offer where the advertiser has placed the image pixel and has a tracking cookie set. The main limitation with an advertiser using an image pixel to track conversions are that third-party affiliate conversion pixels are limited to only other image pixels. For more information about placing pixels, see additional documentation under Placing an Offer Tracking Pixel.

Server Side Tracking

Server Postback w/ Transaction ID: This tracking protocol does not use cookies or pixels to register conversions. Instead, it will pass the advertiser a unique Transaction ID that is encoded to store details specific to the click transaction. Upon conversion, the advertiser will pass back the Transaction ID to the HasOffers server, thus triggering a conversion. First you will need to include the Transaction ID in the Default Offer URL by placing {transaction_id} in the link. This will pass the transaction ID to the offer for the advertiser to store. In most cases the advertiser system allows you to pass them a sub ID and thus you will need to pass in {transaction_id} as a sub ID in their link.

Sample Offer URL: http://www.exampleoffer.com/?Sub={transaction_id} where "Sub=" was the provided placeholder from the advertiser and the advertiser will store your transaction ID in their system as "Sub" in this example.

When a conversion is recorded by the advertiser's system, the advertiser would then populate the Transaction ID into the Postback URL. It depends on their system how they will populate the transaction ID value you passed them on click in the offer's postback URL.

Sample Postback URL: http://demo.go2jump.org/aff_lsr?transaction_id=TRANSACTION_ID or http://demo.go2jump.org/aff_lsr?transaction_id=%Sub%

Server Postback w/ Affiliate ID: This is the same set up as w/ Transaction ID, but you will simply pass the dynamic variable {affiliate_id} into the Default Offer URL instead of the {transaction_id} like http://www.exampleoffer.com/?Sub={affiliate_id}. Then on conversion, the advertiser would load a postback URL with offer ID and the affiliate ID you passed them on click.

Status

You can toggle between Active, Pending, Paused and Deleted depending on the current status of the offer.

Active: Affiliates can view and actively run the campaign. All tracking is enabled.
Pending: Affiliates can NOT view an offer set to Pending, but the network and Advertiser can test the offer via the test link that can be found on the Offers Pixel or Postback URL page. Default status for new offers.
Paused: Removes affiliates from accessing the offer. All affiliates that were advertising the offer will have their traffic redirected to the Redirect Offer if one has been setup otherwise tracking will become dead.
Deleted: Offer can not be viewed by affiliates or advertisers. You will still be able to view statistics for this offer and re-activate it. If an Offer is set to deleted, all affiliate tracking will stop working.

Expiration Date

The date of expiration is the last day the offer will be active. The offer will expire and no longer be active immediately after this date. Advertisers will likely notify you of any time lines for offer expiration. If an Expiration Date is passed, the affiliate tracking links will be redirected to the Redirect Offer, just as if the Offer was Paused. The offer will be active until the day after the expiration date. Once the date is past the expiration date, the offer will no longer be active.

Reference ID

Insert a value for reference ID that you want to insert into all tracking links. This Referenced ID is for the offer you are creating/editing only. The value can be used to identify the offer in a third-party tracking systems.

Offer Notes

Share important information with your employees about an offer. Add internal offer notes that your affiliates CAN'T see.

Payout

Revenue Type defines how the network generates revenue while Payout type defines how the network compensates affiliates.

Revenue Type

Determines much you generate from advertisers for impression, clicks, conversions or sales.

Revenue per Conversion (RPA): A RPA offer means that the network will generate a flat dollar amount in revenue for each conversion recorded.

Revenue per Sale (CPS): A RPS offer means that the advertiser has agreed to pay the network a % of the sale amount, typically before taxes and shipping costs. This revenue percentage per sale is the total amount you will receive from the advertiser. This is common for offers where multiple products can be added to a shopping cart, and thus compensating an affiliate and network for all of the items purchased by the user. In order for HasOffers to record the total sale amount, the advertiser will need to integrate the Conversion Pixel with their shopping cart.

Revenue per Conversion plus Revenue per Sale: This is a hybrid revenue model in which the network will be compensated a flat dollar amount per sale plus a percentage of the total sale amount from the advertiser.

Revenue per Click: (RPC): A RPC offer means that the network will generate a specific amount for each click. For each a click sent to the offer, the network will generate revenue for each.

Revenue per Thousand Impressions (RPM): A RPM offer means the network will generate revenue for every thousand impressions. Impressions are recorded when the impression pixel is displayed with creatives. For every thousand impressions for the offer, the network will generate revenue.

Payout Type

Determines how affiliates will be paid for advertising the offer.

Cost per Conversion (CPA): A CPA offer means that the network will compensate affiliates with a flat dollar amount for each conversion recorded.

Cost per Sale (CPS): A CPS offer means that the advertiser has agreed to pay the network a % of the sale amount, typically before taxes and shipping costs. This means you will be awarding a % of that sale amount to your affiliate as well. This is common for offers where multiple products can be added to a shopping cart, and thus compensating an affiliate and network for all of the items purchased by the user. In order for HasOffers to record the total sale amount, the advertiser will need to integrate the Conversion Pixel with their shopping cart.

Cost per Conversion plus Cost per Sale: This is a hybrid payout method in which affiliates will be compensated a flat dollar amount per sale plus a percentage of the total sale amount. This type of offer incentives affiliates to generate large sale amounts while still giving them a base payout per each sale.

Cost per Click: (CPC): A CPC offer means that you are going to pay affiliates on a cost per click basis. For each a click affiliates send to an offer, they will be paid an amount for each.

Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM): A CPM offer means that you are going to pay affiliates for every thousand impressions. Impressions are recorded when the impression pixel is displayed with creatives.

Tiered Payout

Enabling Tiered Payouts will allow you to group different Affiliates by their payout level for each offer. Create your own Tier names and levels by setting up your Payout Tiers.

Settings

Private

By enabling an offer as Private, only the affiliates that you identify will be able to view and have access to this exclusive offer. You can manage who has access to the Private offer by going to Manage Offers, select the Offer, scroll down to Affiliate Access and then add the Affiliates to the "Approved List". You can also manage this by going to the affiliates' account and managing the offers they have access to under Offer Access.

Require Approval

By enabling an Offer as Require Approval, all of the affiliates in your network will be able to view the offer, unless they have been blocked. The affiliate will have access to view the Offer Details, but will not be able to generate any tracking information until the apply to run the Offer. Networks can setup offer approval questions to be included in the approval process. Once an affiliate submits their application, networks can review the offer application and approve or reject. Approved applications allow affiliates access to the offer.

Display Advertiser

By enabling Display Advertiser, it gives visibility from the Affiliates' interface to see the advertiser for the offer.

SEO friendly Links

Generate affiliate links that are search engine compliant, building up the offer's website's page rank. All types of redirects including Geo Targeting, Browser Targeting, and Conversion Caps are disabled because all tracking links must always be redirected to the same Offer URL.

Learn more about SEO Friendly Links

Email Instructions

By enabling this feature, you will be able to input Approved From Lines and Approved Subject Lines per an Advertisers request. This gives the affiliates acceptable sending information to send email marketing messages.

Suppression List

By enabling Suppression List, you will have the option to choose a Suppression List you have uploaded previously to associated with the Offer. Affiliates will then have the ability to download the Suppression List and scrub their e-mail list in order to comply with CAN-SPAM regulations. Click here to learn more about uploading Suppression Lists.

Tracking

Redirect Offer

Select an offer from the drop down menu that you wish to redirect traffic to in the case that the offer your are creating gets paused, passes its expiration date or the conversion cap is met. This is important to prevent your affiliate tracking links from directing users to a dead page. It is common to choose a Redirect Offer that is similar to the original Offer, but has a different expiration date.

Secondary Offer

Select an offer from the drop down menu that you wish a user to be redirected to if they have already converted on the current offer. You can also choose to send that user to an alternative URL by selecting Offer URL. You would want to choose a Secondary Offer if you do not want the same user to convert on the same offer twice. This is common if the current offer is a subscription or continuity offer.

Cookie Lifespan

Choose the length of time in which your network's cookie is active on a users browser from the time they click on the affiliate tracking link. The network and affiliate will only get credit for the sale if it happens within the Cookie Lifespan.

Example: A user clicks on an affiliate tracking link for an offer that has a 1 month Cookie Lifespan. The user is directed to the landing page, but does not purchase anything until 2 months after when they click on the affiliate tracking link. It will not record a conversion since the sale happened outside of the Cookie Lifespan.

Conversion Cap

By enabling this feature, you can dictate the max number of conversions for an offer per day. Once the Conversion Cap is met, users will be redirected to the Redirect Offer until the next day when the Conversion Cap resets.

Custom Variables

The Custom Variables feature will need to be enabled on the offer. Enabling this feature will require you to include {params} in the offer URL. Params is used to pass custom variables from an affiliate through a tracking link and to the offer. For example, the params can redirect the potential lead to a different version of the landing page or pre-populate the offer landing page with unique information. Example Offer URL with params included:

http://www.OfferSite.com/index.php?{params}

All custom varialbes need to be encoded so that it they are one string and set as the variable of params when generating a tracking link. The wizard when generating a tracking link with extra variables does the encoding automatically. If an affiliate wanted to pre-populate the first name of a user in the advertiser’s offer and the advertiser has the offer setup to read the extra variable of “firstname” that the affiliate is passing, then the affiliate would use the Custom Variables option when generating a tracking link and specify “firstname” as the variable with a sample value of “Joe”. The wizard will automatically encode this information and append it at the end of the tracking link. Custom Variables are any additional variables you want to pass into your creative url. Below is the tracking link that specifies firstname equals Joe:

http://demo.stage-go2jump.org/aff_c?offer_id=1&aff_id=7&params=%2526firstname%253DJoe

Website Links

By enabling Website Links, affiliates will be able to send their traffic to an alternative landing page than the Default Offer URL or any of the additional Offer URLs. Once enabled, affiliates can pass in the Website URL where they want to direct their traffic. When generating tracking links, both employees and affiliates have access to include a website URL to direct user to. It will then be appended to the end of their tracking link like:

Website Link = http://www.offer.com/redpage

Tracking Link = http://demo.go2jump.org/aff_c?offer_id=123&aff_id=1&url=http%3A//www.offer.com/redpage

It is important to note that the Website Link that affiliates put into the tracking link, directs the user to a page that will lead them to the conversion page.

Multiple Conversions

By enabling Multiple Conversions, the same user can convert on the same offer multiple times. By disabling Multiple Conversions, users must click on a new tracking link and generate a new active cookie session before generating another Affiliate conversion.

Conversion Approval

By enabling Conversions Approval, all conversions will be recorded as pending. Affiliates don't have access to pending conversions in their reports. Employees in the admin interface can approve pending conversions on the Conversion Report. Once pending conversions are approved, statistics will be updated and reflected in affiliate, advertiser and employee reports.

Start Session Tracking

There are two options to choose for this feature:

Clicks: The cookie will be set on the users browser once they click on the tracking link or creative that holds the tracking link.

Impressions: The cookie will be set on the users browser once the banner is displayed on their web page. An impression pixel must be loaded to set the session on impression. This means that the user will not have to click on the banner for the affiliate to get credit for a conversion. The user may open a new tab, or navigate to the Advertisers page and still generate a conversion for the affiliate, even though they did not travel through the tracking link.

Click Macro

A Click Macro allows clicks to be recorded and conversion tracking information set by a third party system. Click macros work by directing users to the URL specified if it uses a redirect and then the third-party system directing user to offer URL. Or the redirect parameter can be excluded from the click macro and the server will call the click macro URL specified via Curl.

If a Global Click Macro is enabled, then by default the Click Macro will be enabled on all offers. You can disable the click macro on a specific offer by setting the click macro to disabled. To set a Custom Click Macro for an offer, then the Click Marco setting must be enabled for the offer.

Custom Click Macro

You can specify a Custom Click Macro by enabling the setting and then specifying the URL. You can include either {redirect} or {eredirect} in the Click Macro URL to have clicks redirect to the third party system. The redirect variable includes the offer URL not encoded while the eredirect variable includes the Offer URL url encoded. If there is a query string in the click macro URL its recommended to use eredirect. Or omit these redirect params and the ad server will do a Server Response to the provided Click Macro URL for each click.

Optional variables can be used in Click Macro URLs:

Redirect Url: Add {redirect} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the Offer URL for that click.
Encoded Redirect Url: Add {eredirect} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the url-encoded Offer URL for that click.
Affiliate ID: Add {affiliate_id} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the ID of the Affiliate promoting the offer.
Affiliate Sub ID: Add {aff_sub} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the value of Affiliate Sub ID passed in via an affiliate tracking link.
Affiliate Source: Add {source} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the value of Affiliate Source passed in via an affiliate tracking link.
Offer ID: Add {offer_id} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the ID of the Offer.
Offer URL ID: Add {$offer_url_id} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the ID of the Offer URL used.
Advertiser ID: Add {advertiser_id} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the ID of the Advertiser of the offer.
Country Code: Add {country_code} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the user's country code (ISO 2-letter code, i.e. US).
Custom Variables: Add {params} in the Click Macro URL if the Custom Variables option above is enabled. {params} will be replaced by the extra variables passed by the Affiliate into the affiliate tracking link.
Transaction ID: Add {transaction_id} in the Click Macro URL to send a unique transaction number to the Advertiser. Use this when trying to verify individual leads, to enable cookieless client-based tracking, or when server response tracking is required.
Offer Reference ID: Add {offer_ref} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the Reference ID of the offer.
Affiliate Reference ID: Add {affiliate_ref} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the Reference ID of the Affiliate promoting the offer.
Advertiser Reference ID: Add {advertiser_ref} in the Click Macro URL and it will be replaced by the Reference ID of the Advertiser of the offer.

Example Click Macro URL that uses eredirect: http://www.hasdemo.com/clickmacro.php?url={eredirect}

Offer Targeting

After setting up the basic offer, you can define targeting. There are three types of targeting: Groups, Browsers and Countries.

Country and Region Targeting

Target the offer to a specific geographic location. Add countries from the select box to target the offer. If regions for the selected countries are available target specific regions. Don't select any options to disable country / region targeting and target all countries. Geo targeting is strictly enforced. To redirect user that don't meet offer's geo targeting, use Groups.

Enforce Geo Targeting

By default, your HasOffers ad servers don't enforce geo-targeting restrictively as enforce geo targeting is disabled. When disabled geo-targeting is just informational and not restrictively enforced. When enforce geo targeting is enabled, then geo-targeting is restively enforced. If a target country is set and the user is located outside of that target country (and the offer is not in an offer group) and enforce geo-targeting is enabled, then the link would die to protect advertisers. If enforce geo-targeting is disabled, then the ad server will forward users outside of the target location. Disabling enforce geo-targeting makes geo-targeting informational.

Browser Targeting

Feature to target by browser type. Select browsers below to target or leave blank to disable browser targeting. If you don't have any browsers that specifically target mobile devices and these other mobile specific offers are not in the same Group, then browser targeting isn't enforced and thus useless. Browser targeting should only be used when networks have offers that target specific types of browsers.

Offer Groups

Offer Groups group similar offers together. Users will be redirected to other offers in a group if the offer does not match Geo Targeting or Browser Targeting for this offer. If an offer isn't in a group and a user tries to access an offer with targeting enabled, then the user will receive a dead link since they don't meet the targeting criteria. Even if enforce geo-targeting is disabled, users will be redirect to an offer in the same offer group that meets their criteria first.

Demonstration Video

http://www.hasoffers.com/images/HasOffers-Video-Creating-An-Offer-v2.swf

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