CAKE’s affiliate marketing software brings all communication into one place, creating a single source of truth that ensures everyone has the same information at the same time. You can also white-label the platform, customizing it with your own logo and branding to build a better brand experience inside of CAKE.

To help you take advantage of all the platform has to offer, we’re highlighting five features that will help you simplify communication with your affiliates.

When you start to use these features, you’ll help your affiliate manager ensure more efficient and regular outreach. Plus, affiliates will thank you. As you maximize the self-serve nature of the platform, affiliates will get the most up-to-date information they need—from accessing campaigns and tracking links to updating billing information—without relying as heavily on affiliate managers.

#1 Send Mass Emails to Your Affiliate Partners

Do you have changes to your affiliate program? Are new offers available? Billing changes? CAKE enables you to create or upload unique, branded HTML emails into the system so you can easily send a mass email to affiliate partners.

With the CAKE Email tool, you can add your own branding to the default email templates that are automatically generated, such as a campaign request approval or portal login details. For example, once an affiliate signs up, the system can automatically send a confirmation email with a login link—and the email will reflect your branding.

You can also create new, branded emails (within the Email Templates section under Setup), such as a newsletter or a one-off update. Then, when you’re ready to send your email, go to the Action Menu (top right) and Send Email section.

For more information, visit our Knowledge Base article on How to Send Emails through CAKE.

#2 Connect Your Twitter Feed to CAKE

By connecting your company’s Twitter feed to CAKE, you can publish updates to your affiliate partners quickly and easily. The affiliate portal will display the most recent Tweets via the news feed widget on your dashboard.

This gives you one more touchpoint to help affiliates stay up to date on important information, whether its changes to program terms, expansion into new verticals, or new lead distribution offers.

To enable the Twitter feed within CAKE, go to the Affiliate Portal Settings page under Setup and input your Twitter credentials.

The CAKE platform makes it easy to customize the Affiliate Portal Dashboard with your Twitter feed (Updates), a summary of the Featured Offer, and an embedded web page via iFrame.

# 3 Embed Your Web Page in CAKE

You can also embed a web page onto the Dashboard of the Affiliate Portal, which offers another opportunity to “own” the relationship and create a better brand experience for the affiliate partner within the CAKE platform.

If you have an existing URL on which you publish important information—like training videos, new offers, or newsletter information for affiliate partners—you can use the iFrame to make that information visible within the affiliate portal. It’s easy to customize the widget and determine the position and size of the web site within the Affiliate Portal Dashboard.

To embed a webpage into the CAKE Affiliate Portal, go to the Affiliate Portal Settings within the Setup tab of the CAKE Admin Portal and scroll down to iFrame Settings.

#4 Use Tags to Help Affiliate Partners Find Great Offers

Tags are unique keywords or phrases that can be assigned to Offers, Advertisers, and Affiliates.

Tags are a great way to send targeted email communications to affiliate partners about a new Offer that might be a good fit for them (i.e. HOLIDAY2020.) They also enable affiliate partners to search for Offers based on an assigned tag, be it “HOLIDAY2020” or “iOS-install.”

Manage your Tags from the Other Lists page within Setup. Once Tags have been created, you can assign them to an individual Offer, Advertiser, or Affiliate.

For more information, visit our Knowledge Base article on How to Use Tags for an Advertiser, Affiliate, or Offer.

#5 Display Top Offers Based on EPC

Affiliates are always looking out for offers with high EPC (earnings/revenue per click), so they know the offer is worth their time. Make it easy for them to find great offers by promoting high earning Offers as “Top Offers” in the Affiliate Portal.

You can set a minimum EPC and also add a Tag to filter it, such as promoting high earning retail Offers during the holiday season.

To configure the attributes used to display Top Offers within the Affiliate Portal, visit the Affiliate Portal Settings page within Setup.

There are so many ways to dig into the CAKE platform and leverage features that make your job easier. If you’re a CAKE customer, please contact your CAKE Account Manager or Technical Support today to learn more about using these features to communicate with affiliate partners.

If you’re looking to learn more about CAKE, contact us here.

The post 5 CAKE Features to Simplify Communication with Affiliate Partners appeared first on CAKE.

Here are some highlights from our conversation.

What is your role and tell us about your journey at CAKE?

As CAKE’s Senior Director of Client Services, I oversee our client services team that includes the onboarding and training, client success, and technical support groups. I joined CAKE in August 2013 as a Client Strategy Director to support our enterprise customers and help them maximize their usage of CAKE to more efficiently run their businesses. As the company and client services team grew I was promoted to the Senior Director of Client Services. In this current role, I am focused on client partnerships as well as all internal management of our groups and processes so that we can provide the best service to our customers.

What separates CAKE’s onboarding, training, and customer support from other SaaS tools? 

It truly is the incredible people that make our client services team so exceptional. We know that supporting customer relationships is essential to sustaining a long-term business partnership. So we do just that. We build partnerships with our customers to really understand their unique business models, and provide solutions that enable them to meet their business goals. Since CAKE’s inception, we have established a precedent of putting our customers at the core of everything we do. Every CAKE employee really cares for our customers and is invested in making them as successful as can be while leveraging CAKE.

How has CAKE’s client services team pivoted to help customers handle changes due to COVID-19? 

Like most companies, CAKE transitioned to working remotely and the change was seamless for my groups. Together, we continued to create initiatives geared towards helping our customers succeed. We’ve increased the frequency of our video calls, which has improved both customer engagement and overall customer satisfaction. Since March, we’ve also rolled out free support for every single CAKE customer, in addition to a more formal quarterly business review (QBR) process for our customers. With the QBRs, we can more easily and regularly deep dive even further into our customers’ businesses, including their company goals and metrics of success. We explore any challenges they may be experiencing from a holistic perspective as opposed to just looking at one segment of their businesses. We then provide a strategy and specific solutions for how CAKE can help solve their business challenges. 

The client services team is hard at work on building additional ways for customers to interact with CAKE and share their feedback. We can’t wait to roll out these initiatives with our customers soon!

Three words that describe how you work?

Empathetic, efficient, and organized.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy spending your time doing?

• Agility class and practice with my French Bulldog, Penelope! You can follow her on Instagram @PranceswithPenelope.
• Since I live near the beach I like to take advantage of riding my bike to the ocean and going for a nice swim.
• I also love to spend time with friends and family enjoying delicious food, whether in my hometown or somewhere else in the world!

What do you love most about heading up the client services team? 

Can I say it again? The people! I work with tremendously smart, energetic, positive, and empathetic people who make for an outstanding client services team. I pride myself on how caring the employees are and how they are always willing to go the extra mile to help our customers. The client services team has truly helped turn our customer relationships into true partnerships, going above and beyond just providing support. 

What are the interesting trends you have seen from customers in the last year?  

Growth, expansion, and a willingness to participate. Our clients continue to grow and use CAKE to do so! It is really gratifying to know that solutions within our platform allow for businesses to experience growth when they are implemented. Additionally, our clients seem to adapt to changing trends in the marketplace and subsequently expand their overall offerings with their partners. Finally, our customers have really stepped up to help influence the CAKE product roadmap and the features we develop through our exclusive customer community, The CAKE Idea Portal, and customer surveys.

How can new or existing customers get the most out of CAKE and what advice do you have to offer them?  

Nurture relationships. From day one, commit to building strong relationships with your partners and continue to nurture those relationships to create a mutually beneficial partnership.

Keep your finger on the industry pulse. Stay up to date on industry trends, privacy laws, browser initiatives, and digital marketing best practices. The CAKE blog is a great place to keep tabs on the evolving performance marketing industry. 

Lean on our services and support teams. Leverage our onboarding and training, client success, and technical support groups to discuss what you want to achieve. We would be thrilled to partner with you and give you a personalized roadmap for success. Finally, if we don’t have an out-of-the-box solution to meet your needs, we just might be able to build it for you. CAKE has an additional professional services team dedicated solely to providing custom solutions that enhance business processes for our clients.

To learn more about CAKE’s customer support offerings, visit our website here. 

Looking to give CAKE a try? Get a free, 30-day trial by signing up here.

The post Spotlight: Q&A with Karen Nugent, CAKE’s Senior Director of Client Services appeared first on CAKE.

As an affiliate marketer, the best way to accurately track and measure your campaign performance is to use tracking links and postback URLs. By leveraging these tracking capabilities, the CAKE platform enables you to track a consumer’s click and conversion on a digital marketing campaign and attribute it back to the traffic source. But what happens when you can’t use click tracking, such as social media posts connected with influencer marketing campaigns and offline channels like podcasts? In these cases, you can use clickless tracking through voucher codes, whereas the attribution is determined by properties on the conversion, not the click.

Using voucher codes for clickless tracking

Voucher codes are also known as coupon codes, promo (promotion) codes, vanity codes, discount codes, or referral codes. And they’re the most effective way for affiliate networks to track influencer marketing campaigns on media buying platforms (e.g. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.) or offline channels (podcasts, radio, TV) that don’t allow click tracking.

On Instagram, for instance, when an influencer uses a voucher code, the brand they are promoting can tie conversions back to their post. The code will typically include the influencer’s name or a shortened version of their name in addition to the discount percentage that will be applied to the purchase, like “Use code: MONA20” or “Enter promo code: SARA30.”

This enables you to easily track the number of sales attributed to that code and measure the overall success of the influencer’s campaign.

In the CAKE platform, you can create voucher codes for partners, and partners can request codes via the affiliate portal. You can also manage the attribution settings for the use of a voucher code. For example, if a consumer had previously clicked on a campaign tracking link, you can decide whether you want to pay out the affiliate (influencer) that had the voucher code or the affiliate that generated a click on a different advertisement. To limit the use of a voucher code, you can also set expiration dates on them or set a maximum amount of uses (e.g. first 1,000 users.)

3 benefits of using voucher codes

Using voucher codes to accurately track your performance marketing campaigns will also provide additional benefits to the advertiser.

• Increase conversion rates: Voucher codes drive shoppers to try new products and brands, help convince them to finalize a purchase, and have been shown to lead online shoppers to return to an abandoned shopping cart.
• Increase order value: When customers save money through an offer, many will increase the amount of their purchase, oftentimes far beyond the value of their original order. 40% of consumers say they’d spend more overall and/or (28%) purchase a more expensive product with an exclusive offer. To encourage larger purchases, you can restrict the use of the voucher code to a certain dollar amount (e.g. “Use code FREESHIP50” for free shipping on any order of $50 or more), which will motivate customers to spend more to get access to a certain discount or benefit.
• Increase brand loyalty: One great way to show your customers you care and earn their business is to treat them to a special offer. Special codes make customers feel like they’re part of the insiders’ club or in the VIP suite. And when they feel like they’re a valued customer, they will be more loyal to your brand: 68% of consumers say digital coupons help generate brand loyalty. They will also be more likely to share a voucher code in their network. And that word-of-mouth marketing has a positive impact on the reputation of your brand as a quality retailer.

Bonus: use voucher codes to optimize A/B testing

A/B testing should be part of every campaign and when you use a different voucher code for different offers, channels, or campaign elements, you can easily identify which ads and channels are performing the best.

Experiment by creating unique voucher codes for:

• The same offer sent out via different channels;
• Different ads on the same web page;
• Different email formats;
• Emails with different messaging; and
• Different offer amounts (e.g. 10% off $50 order, 15% off $150 order, 20% off $200 order).

The goal: increased visibility and accuracy

Voucher codes are a great option to accurately measure your campaign performance, especially for offline media and influencer marketing campaigns. With CAKE’s clickless tracking through voucher codes, you can easily track all media buys in a single platform, increasing visibility, and accuracy around attribution and performance measurement.

How to get started

If you’re a CAKE customer, please contact your CAKE Account Manager or Technical Support today to learn more about using voucher codes to accomplish clickless tracking within CAKE.

If you’re looking to learn more about CAKE and our measurement solutions, contact us here.

Other content you might be interested in:

• Blog: How to Attribute Conversions Using CAKE’s Fingerprint Tracking
• Using Direct Linking to Measure Google and Facebook Ad Performance
• Accurate Measurement in the Age of Privacy: Commentary

The post Using CAKE’s Voucher Codes for Clickless Tracking appeared first on CAKE.

And yet, it’s not always that easy to build and protect brand equity. Especially in the often complex, highly interdependent ecosystem of affiliate marketing that includes advertisers, networks, affiliates, and sub-affiliates. 

This is where experience counts. For over a decade, CAKE has onboarded thousands of customers who have leveraged our performance marketing platform to manage their global affiliate marketing programs. From that collective knowledge we’d like to share with you best practices for creating, monitoring, and enforcing brand guidelines.

Why it’s important to protect a brand

Staying on brand across affiliate marketing campaigns enables the growth of your company as well as sets you apart from your competitors. At CAKE, we’ve found that a consistent brand strategy for affiliate marketing programs helps build credibility and loyalty with existing and potential customers. Staying on brand also influences their purchasing decisions, while fostering trust. So, company growth, competitive differentiators, credibility, loyalty, trust, and more – all good stuff! 

Conversely, failing to follow brand guidelines can lead to poor campaign performance and have a negative impact on brand integrity. Not so great.

This is where affiliate marketing brand guidelines come into play to help you achieve positive outcomes. 

How to develop brand guidelines: 8 must-haves

The first important step is to set the ground rules for affiliate marketing campaigns. Advertisers need to establish and communicate clear brand guidelines that are enforced by terms and conditions (T&Cs) that are passed along to networks, which in turn are shared with affiliates. 

Brand guidelines for affiliate marketing programs should include these eight must-have categories:

• Promotional policies: Outline the acceptable uses of the company name and specific instances to avoid when referencing the company. As a best practice, it is helpful to provide affiliates with visual examples to illustrate the acceptable uses in addition to the prohibited uses of the company name.
• Logo usage: Define how the logo can be used including the preferred form, spacing rules, sizing, and acceptable placement. To avoid logo misuse, include examples in this section.
• Creatives: Provide instructions on how to leverage the approved creative assets (i.e., banners, ads, email images, etc.), in addition to placement rules, sizing, plus examples. Alternatively, provide creative guidelines for affiliates to create their own assets if approved by the advertiser.
• Trademarks: Include the proper usage of trademark symbols and a link to all trademarked assets.
• Photography: Offer access to a library of approved photography, plus include acceptable placement rules and specifics to avoid with the photography. For example: altering colors, adding animations, resizing, etc.
• Content: Determine the permitted typography and approved back-up typography, in addition to channel-specific content policies (i.e., social, email, display, etc.) and misrepresentations to avoid (i.e., promoting discounts, savings).
• Linking: Specify the acceptable linking strategy from affiliate promotional offers and where to direct traffic.
• Prohibited activity: List all unacceptable promotional behavior. For example: bidding on branded keywords or promoting offers without approval. 

Ultimately, establishing clear and effective affiliate marketing brand guidelines is the responsibility of the advertiser. The greater amount of detail within the brand guidelines helps affiliates adhere to the protocols and thus facilitates greater brand integrity for the advertiser.

How to monitor and enforce brand guidelines: Actionable tips

Once the brand guidelines and T&Cs are in place, the next essential step includes monitoring and enforcement. For this, you’ll need a way to efficiently collect and analyze your campaign traffic data. 

Utilizing technology makes it easier to keep tabs on your campaigns, partners, and other activities, so you know precisely how ads are used and performing at all times. So, it’s important to rely on technology, but not just any platform. Performance marketing or affiliate marketing software should provide features specifically designed to simplify the process of following affiliate marketing brand guidelines.

Below are helpful solution features and tips to monitor and enforce affiliate marketing brand guidelines:

• Track sub-affiliates: With many affiliate marketing campaigns, advertisers work with networks that have affiliates, and those affiliates often have partners of their own, called sub-affiliates.
  
  Sub-affiliates offer substantial value. However, by being removed two or three times from advertisers makes monitoring sub-affiliates more involved, and a platform feature such as sub ID tracking is crucial. With sub ID tracking, you can measure sub-affiliate traffic quality and quantity to ensure all of the partners in your affiliate marketing campaigns are adhering to brand guidelines.
  

• Leverage an affiliate portal: An affiliate portal is a centralized hub where affiliates can access approved marketing assets for the offers they are driving traffic. Additionally, they gain access to real-time reporting, compliance tools for email campaigns, and self-service widgets for integrating tracking. To learn about affiliate portals, check out this video about the basics of affiliates portals.
  
  Essentially, an affiliate portal can serve as an extension of the T&Cs agreed upon by the advertiser and affiliate, plus provides another way for advertisers and networks to clearly communicate specific offer restrictions and descriptions. For example, an affiliate portal provides affiliates with:
  • A clear snapshot of each offer they are approved to run 
  • The accepted types of media compared to those that are not
  • Any other specific requests or requirements from the advertiser

• Access detailed data: Gain insights into real-time traffic trends such as traffic surges, decreases, as well as high-quality and fraudulent traffic. Leverage these insights to identify where clicks and conversions are coming from to ensure that affiliate partners are driving high-quality, approved traffic to the appropriate offer.
  
  For example, look for reporting that includes data regarding referrers and other metadata about location, device, operating system, ISP/carrier, language, and user agent.

What next?

Learn more about brand guidelines and other ways to protect brand equity by downloading the white paper, Brand Integrity: 6 Affiliate Marketing Pitfalls and How to Steer Clear of Them

Other content you might be interested in:

• Blog: Automating Email Compliance
• Blog: How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Program – 5 Tried and True Tips 
• Blog: Three Ways to Leverage Technology to Grow Your Affiliate Marketing Program

The post Brand Guidelines for Affiliate Marketing: How to Create and Enforce Them appeared first on CAKE.

Strong ratings in recent reviews and survey results

Based on a recent customer satisfaction survey, we are happy to announce that our Net Promoter Score (NPS) is well above the industry average. A high NPS score indicates an increased level of customer loyalty to CAKE.

We are also delighted to share that many CAKE customers expressed high satisfaction levels with our account management and support teams. Our support staff truly brings a positive impact on our customers’ experiences. Additionally, the survey found that customers gave favorable marks when asked about our product features.

“I love that the reporting happens within the hour and you can even track the link where the conversion took place. Most affiliate platforms don’t have this technology, and that’s huge. I like how you can add tags to the affiliate or the offer. It’s a great way to organize and filter your client list. I think there’s a lot of great technology built into the platform, you can really boil down to the details.”

Recent online reviews reinforce our survey results. Not only do reviews help those browsing for the best affiliate software, but they provide insights about what matters to our clients and how CAKE can help our customers continue to flourish.

“CAKE presents very detailed data about what we are looking for. I am able to filter and see the data in whichever way I need. I like that you are able to see data by phone type, medium, media, etc. Being able to login to the affiliate’s view is also helpful when troubleshooting issues.”

CAKE – The best affiliate software driven by and for our clients

This infographic highlights results from our recent customer satisfaction survey and reviews from our customers. Moving forward, we look forward to continue empowering our customers with the industry’s leading performance marketing software and world-class services.

Over the years, CAKE has on-boarded thousands of customers. Through that process, we have gained a collective knowledge of the industry. We’re always excited to share that knowledge and enable CAKE customers to build successful affiliate marketing programs.

Ready to connect with CAKE? There are plenty of ways you can do so.

• Share your feedback
• Access support 
• Learn how to get the most out of CAKE’s SaaS platform

Interested in learning more about our CAKE team and product? Get a free 30-day trial and experience first-hand what makes CAKE the best affiliate software.

The post CAKE Hits All the Right Marks in Customer Satisfaction – The Best Affiliate Software appeared first on CAKE.

Common examples of targeting are location (country-, region-, or city-level targeting), device, language, operating system (OS), and Internet Service Provider (ISP)/carrier. You can target any of these individually, but to substantially increase your chances of a consumer converting on the offer, it’s important to find ways to be more specific by layering these targeting capabilities.

For example, if you are advertising an app install for consumers across the globe, you likely have landing pages with unique messaging for the two major operating systems, Android and iOS, in conjunction with messaging that is unique to the major geographic regions you are promoting, such as North America, Central Europe, Asia Pacific, or others. In order to increase the conversion rate for this offer, you would set up targeting for each combination so that consumers using an Apple iOS device in North America are sent to landing page A and consumers using an Android iOS device in the Asia Pacific are sent to landing page B.

Leveraging Campaign Targeting in CAKE

With CAKE, you can use our Rules Targeting feature to layer multiple targeting requirements in conjunction with the Landing Pages and Offer Contracts features for robust management of traffic redirects. The combination of these three features will not only help you increase conversion rates by redirecting consumers to the appropriate landing page but will also help you manage payouts, caps, and affiliate pixels associated with the offer.

To learn more about Rules Targeting, Landing Pages, and Offer Contracts, and the use cases they support, please contact your Client Success Manager or visit our Knowledge Base. Or, visit our YouTube channel for a video walkthrough of Rules Targeting being applied to an Offer in CAKE.

The post Using Campaign Targeting to Increase Conversion Rates appeared first on CAKE.

To help our customers ensure system security, the following is a list of CAKE security features and best practices across system logins and APIs.

System login security settings and notifications  

The CAKE platform delivers the following security settings for system login.

First, be sure to use the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) functionality within CAKE to log in to your CAKE instance. MFA verifies a user’s identity by requiring multiple credentials and is a critical component of identity and access management. CAKE sends a Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) to an authenticator app (e.g. Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator) on your smartphone to verify credentials and securely access your CAKE platform.

While users do have the option to disable or change security settings within CAKE, we enable our default security settings based on best practices that ensure secure system login. CAKE security settings across admin and partner portals are:

• Failed Login Attempts: 5 attempts
• Admin Portal Session Timeout: 60 minutes
• Password Strength: Strong
• Password Usage History Restriction:10 passwords
• Password Expiration Policy: 90 days

New this month, the CAKE platform will now notify users via email if there is a login from a new location or device. The platform tracks logins based on IP address and device ID and indicates when your login has been compromised so you can change your credentials. This functionality is in addition to the existing system alert for when login credentials are modified, e.g. if someone changes the email address or password on a contact record.

API security settings

API security is of utmost importance in CAKE.

Our latest platform update encrypts (hides) API keys in the UI, requiring users to click a “show” button to see/grab the API key. This enables the platform to accurately log who accesses the API keys and when in case there’s an issue.

To ensure maximum security of your APIs, follow these four best practices:

• Give API keys custom names based on where the key is used. For example, if you want to generate a custom key for a third-party webhook integration, you could name the CAKE API key after the third-party system (e.g. Salesforce.)
• Utilize the role access/permission setting for API key visibility so that only the necessary admin users have access to API keys.
• If you know the IP address of the server that will be making API calls, you can whitelist the IP and choose to only allow calls from whitelisted IPs. You can do this through CAKE’s IP Whitelisting for API calls feature.
• Create new API keys often—at least every three months—in case an API key has been compromised.

CAKE is committed to safeguarding your performance marketing program, to learn more about CAKE security settings, contact your Account Manager, or visit our Knowledge Base.

The post CAKE Security Settings to Protect Your Platform appeared first on CAKE.

Jake has been with OPTIZMO since 2010 when he joined co-founders Khris Thayer and Grant Fern to expand OPTIZMO’s reach. During his time at OPTIZMO he has focused on new business development, overseeing customer support, developing strategic partnerships with key companies in the email and digital marketing industry, and now overseeing all revenue-generating and client retention initiatives for the company.

We discussed how CAKE and OPTIZMO partner to help performance marketers, pitfalls to avoid, and opportunities to expand your email marketing campaigns.

Here are some highlights from our conversation.

Who is OPTIZMO?

OPTIZMO is a CAKE partner that automates email suppression list management and streamlines subscriber opt-out preferences. The company’s SaaS platform allows users to collect, store, and automate much of the different tasks associated with maintaining compliant email campaigns.

“Compliance is such an important goal and something that has to be done, so we try to keep that a clean, simple, and enjoyable experience,” explained Jake.

That requires transparency into how affiliate partners are handling data on your behalf, such as ensuring an unsubscribe is honored or that opt-out links are functioning properly.

Once you start working with multiple agencies, partners, and publishers, you’re going to be tasked with collecting all of the unsubscribes that those different partners are generating in addition to those that might be resulting from your internal email efforts. OPTIZMO helps scale your program by automating and centralizing all of that data from different feeds and providing opt-out links to any number of publishers you work with.

How do CAKE and OPTIZMO partner to help marketers manage email compliance?

CAKE’s partnership with OPTIZMO began nearly 10 years ago, and is our longest-standing and most heavily used integration within the platform. The integration provides CAKE customers with the ability to seamlessly collect and distribute email suppression files through affiliate partners within the CAKE interface, as well as managing partner email campaign compliance.

Companies that use OPTIZMO with the CAKE platform appreciate the breadth of service we provide. Advertisers can easily manage everything related to their day-to-day campaigns within a single platform.

“Having the reliability, knowing the integration works well, and knowing that you have people who understand all facets of the business is truly invaluable,” Jake said as he described the integration for CAKE and OPTIZMO’s mutual customers.

At what point should marketers leverage suppression list management software? 

“If you’re already doing email marketing at a small scale, maybe with just one partner, managing suppression lists manually is a reasonable way to get started,” said Jake. “But once you start working with multiple agencies, partners, publishers you’re going to be tasked with not only collecting all of the unsubscribes those partners are generating, but also the unsubscribes that might be resulting from your internal email efforts such as newsletter sends.”

Performance marketing is all about scale. Once you find what’s working, the next step is to increase that effort and do more of what is working well. When your affiliate marketing program is starting to grow and expand, it’s often a good time to look into software solutions to help you automate those manual processes you’ve become accustomed to and find solutions that fit nicely into your existing tech stack.

What advice would you offer to marketers, especially those new in this space?

“No brand wants any of the three-letter agencies, like the FTC, knocking on their door, which can be expensive and deter your business,” explained Jake.

As the digital marketer, you represent the brand, so having the right tools and the right partners in place is key to ensuring compliance and upholding the brand’s reputation.

“No matter what happens out there with your brand and your image, it all comes back to you,” said Jake. “No matter who’s working on your behalf, know your partners, and put vetted solutions in place. If you spend a little extra upfront it can save you so much on the back end.”

For performance-based marketers looking to get into email marketing, Jake advises that you put in the time to thoroughly assess the affiliate partners you’re working with. Find out if the agencies and networks you’re talking to have dedicated teams for email compliance and optimization. And if you’re working with a publisher, find out everything from where they’re based to what their data looks like.

“It’s really about crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s and asking the tough questions,” he said.

To learn more about OPTIZMO and their capabilities for suppression list management, visit their website.

If you’re already using OPTIZMO for suppression list management, be sure to integrate your account within your CAKE system.

CAKE and OPTIZMO recently teamed up to uncover six dangerous pitfalls of affiliate marketing and actionable ways that performance marketers can steer clear of them. Our latest guide covers what happens when marketers attempt to manually track email compliance and how engaging with a third-party, automated suppression list management platform provides a scalable solution to grow your email marketing program.

Download the guide to learn more: Brand Integrity: 6 Affiliate Marketing Pitfalls and How to Steer Clear

The post Spotlight: Q&A with OPTIZMO about Automating Email Compliance appeared first on CAKE.

Brand integrity is a measure of how buyers perceive a company across all its touchpoints. With affiliate marketing, protecting brand integrity for advertisers – or in the case of networks, the advertisers they manage – becomes exponentially more complex in the highly interdependent ecosystem that also includes affiliates, and sub-affiliates.

Affiliate Marketing Ecosystem

Affiliate marketing is a proven model that has already generated $15 billion in revenue in 2020, according to CHEQ. A crucial element for affiliate marketing success is building and maintaining brand integrity while avoiding pitfalls that can steer you in the wrong direction.

The 6 dreaded pitfalls

Brand integrity is strengthened by stability, reliability, consistency, and trust. Conversely, brand integrity can take a significant hit and diminish by simply falling into these six major pitfalls of affiliate marketing. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to avoid these pitfalls altogether.

• Pitfall #1: Deviate from brand guidelines
  Failing to follow brand guidelines can lead to poor campaign performance and have a negative impact on your brand integrity. That’s why it’s important to stay on brand across marketing channels and campaigns. This enables company growth and sets you apart from your competitors.
• Pitfall #2: Overlook consumer privacy
  Consumer privacy is more important than ever as to how your company handles policies has the potential to seriously impact your reputation. If personally identifiable information (PII) is mishandled or inadequately protected, it can damage brand integrity and also result in hefty fines. On the flip side, effectively safeguarding privacy and security can be a boost for brand-building and corporate reputation.
• Pitfall #3: Make bad relationship choices
  In the affiliate marketing ecosystem, the partners you associate with influence your overall reputation and credibility which could strengthen, or unfortunately hurt, your brand integrity. A smart strategy involves connecting with the right partners, then consistently managing those relationships.
• Pitfall #4: Monitor compliance with manual methods
  Effectively tracking compliance is a necessity to develop a successful affiliate marketing program. And when it comes to monitoring compliance data, automation always outperforms manual processes.
• Pitfall #5: Fail to effectively combat fraud
  While affiliate marketing is a proven, data-driven model that drives traffic and increases sales, it also attracts fraud that can damage your brand integrity. Advertisers and networks can’t afford to risk fraud infiltrating their affiliate marketing programs. Ensure that acquired sales are authentic, valid, and profitable with a working fraud management process.
• Pitfall #6: Rely on unstable technology
  Depending on unstable technology can have a long-lasting negative impact on your brand, as well as lead to poor campaign performance. Be prepared for growth by relying on stable technology from providers with a strong success track record.

[Free Guide] Brand integrity: 6 affiliate marketing pitfalls and how to steer clear of them

Learn more about why these pitfalls matter and how to avoid them by checking out our new guide. Created with Optizmo, a leader in email suppression list management, the in-depth resource delivers expert guidance on how to successfully navigate through some common perils that advertisers and networks encounter in the world of affiliate marketing.

Download Guide

Curious to see how CAKE’s Affiliate Marketing software can help you combat these dangerous pitfalls?

• Learn more about our free trial and try out CAKE for 30 days.

The post Brand Integrity and Affiliate Marketing: 6 Major Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them appeared first on CAKE.

While already on an upward trajectory, Surge Logic’s successful lead distribution program was fueled by CAKE’s software that captures, validates, and distributes leads in real-time. The company chose to also measure and manage its affiliate program with CAKE, the only solution that offers lead distribution, affiliate management, and multichannel measurement on a single, centralized platform.

“By streamlining our affiliate and lead distribution programs on CAKE, we are armed with significantly better insights into campaign performance and the ability to maximize profitability,” said Carter Matzinger, President at Surge Logics. “This empowers us to provide our clients with the best leads at the best prices, helping them drive and expand their businesses.”

The business impact of Surge Logics deciding to streamline its lead distribution and affiliate management programs on a single platform, includes:

• Improved ROI
• Data-driven decision making
• Increased efficiencies, saving valuable resources and time
• Maximized profitability with intelligent lead monetization

“CAKE delivers clarity on data insights so we can now easily answer ‘what’s going on? It’s a lot more convenient to have one dashboard where we can see lead status, real-time campaign performance, unique commission structures, and more. With the API working with our CRM we have visibility into the full-loop, from when a lead enters CAKE to getting an update from our CRM after the lead has been called. Overall, CAKE helps us effectively manage, measure, and optimize campaigns that enable us to achieve our goal of providing high-quality leads to attorneys and maximizing profitability.”

– Carter Matzinger, President at Surge Logics

Interested in taking a more detailed look at how Surge Logics is successfully using the CAKE platform? Check out the full case study.

The post Surge Logics Boosts ROI by Integrating Its Lead Distribution and Affiliate Marketing Programs on a Single Platform – CAKE appeared first on CAKE.

Let’s face the ugly truth. The process of selling leads is not simple. Anyone who may have attempted to manually manage a lead distribution program can attest to this. The manual part doesn’t work. Yet, it is worth figuring out a better way (which actually doesn’t need to be hard) to make the most of lead revenue potential from your program. 

The process of capturing, validating, and selling leads in real-time involves an overwhelming amount of moving parts, along with a vast amount of customer and lead buyer data. Attempting to use spreadsheets or other manual tools to manage your lead distribution programs inevitably results in errors, wasted resources, unhappy partners, and ultimately lost revenue.

Thank goodness for technology. The right performance marketing platform delivers a tremendous advantage to maximize profitability. It enables you to efficiently and effectively automate your lead distribution program, whether it’s a new venture or the expansion of an existing one. 

The challenge is finding the technology solution that best meets your needs to manage your program, and ensure that you’re selling leads for the highest price, across a range of industries. 

Lead Distribution Technology “Must Haves”

We created a curated checklist of what a technology solution should enable you to accomplish to sell leads to the best buyer, at the best price.

• Automate the distribution of leads: Route leads in real-time to demand-side partners according to their requirements and respective bids and budgets. 
• Sell every lead for the highest possible price: Monetize lead traffic with advanced lead-selling tools (such as ping/post functionality and dynamic lead prices) to ensure every lead sold generates the highest possible price. 
• Perform data-driven lead routing: Determine the perceived price of a lead sale based on recent buyer activity, ensuring a successful sale for the highest possible price. 
• Control margins: Ensure you can earn a percentage profit on the sale of your lead. Know the exact acquisition costs and how much to sell it for in order to make a profit. 
• Validate and enrich leads: Make sure the leads you sell to buyers will not be returned because of fraudulent data or low lead quality. 
• Monitor and measure accurately: Keep an updated record of all results, including costs and revenue generated. 
• Remove risk and maintain credibility: Protect data and eliminate privacy concerns to safeguard customer data.
• Optimize customer acquisition strategies: Perform closed-loop measurement of the lead supply and demand chain to identify optimizations. 
• Unify programs on a centralized platform: Streamline lead distribution and affiliate marketing partners and campaigns within a single solution to easily manage and optimize campaign performance. 

Interested in learning more about how to sell leads?

Keep reading the complete guide, Keys to Successfully Launch and Grow a Lead Distribution Program with Technology.

• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: How lead distribution works
• Part III: How to choose the right technology for your needs
• Part IV: Vertical industry case studies
• Part V: Frequently asked questions

The post The Ultimate Guide on How to Sell Leads with Technology appeared first on CAKE.

What is fingerprint tracking?

Fingerprint tracking, also known as “session tracking,” attributes conversions to the traffic source. It uses metadata identifiers on a click (IP, device, location, operating system, etc.) to match the consumer’s actions—like a request for more information—back to the affiliate and ad they interacted with.

This probabilistic approach to measurement gives you a best guess assessment of your campaign’s performance and allows you to reward partners for their contribution.

As CAKE’s VP of Product Innovation Garth Harris recently wrote in a PerformanceIN article, Reclaim Accurate Measurement in the Age of Privacy, fingerprint tracking is “a valuable strategy to ensure nothing slips through the cracks with the deterministic tracking methods you have in place, especially for areas such as the walled gardens and cross-device user behavior that can be difficult to measure with absolute certainty.”

Using CAKE for fingerprint tracking

To use fingerprint tracking to track conversions in CAKE, enable the Session Regeneration feature on the Offer Attribution Settings.

This allows you to track conversions in the event that a Cookie or Session ID is not available to match the conversion to the marketing touchpoint.

With solutions like fingerprint tracking via our Session Regeneration feature, CAKE remains committed to providing the tools performance marketers need to maintain accurate measurement and increase revenue opportunities. For more information on our range of solutions:

• Using Direct Linking to Measure Google and Facebook Ad Performance
• Google Chrome 80: Everything You Need to Know as a Performance Marketer
• Accurate Measurement in the Age of Privacy: Commentary

How to Get Started

For more information on how to implement Session Regeneration within CAKE, please reach out to your Account Manager or the Technical Support Team today.

The post How to Attribute Conversions Using CAKE Fingerprint Tracking appeared first on CAKE.

Michael Ferree has spent over a decade in the performance marketing industry as both a buyer and a generator of Internet leads. He is well respected in the lead generation industry for his leadership on the LeadsCouncil, writings distributed on industry blogs and publications, and his presentations on the topic of lead management, call center services, and online marketing. Michael is the host of the Lead Generation World podcast where he speaks with leaders across the performance marketing industry. He has a deep passion for helping companies succeed within the lead generation and performance marketing industry. As the founder of Lead Generation World and LGW Jobs, he continues his passion for connecting companies and individuals together and helping them navigate the lead generation ecosystem.

To listen to his podcast, visit his blog here.

Below Michael shares more about his background in the performance marketing space as both a lead generator and buyer, best practices for succeeding in lead generation, and predictions for the future of performance marketing.

Tell us about your background in performance marketing and what inspired you to start Lead Generation World?

I entered the lead generation industry 15 years ago as a lead buyer for-mid size mortgage and insurance companies. We purchased approximately 300-400 leads per day across the two verticals and because of that large volume I quickly realized I had a target on my back. I also quickly realized that the lead generation companies that contacted me, and that I ultimately partnered with, did not always deliver on their promises. In fact, they all had the same sales pitch, but only a few really delivered on providing a quality product. I also spent a portion of my career on the other side of the table. I managed the marketing for a lead generation company as well as founded my own digital marketing agency that focused on the solar industry and knew the challenges with finding true partners that understand how to work leads. It is my belief that the catalyst for industry growth is the promotion of best practices and networking opportunities. Out of that belief came the Lead Generation World (LGW) conference series.

What is the focus of Lead Generation World? 

My goal is to provide an affordable community event that is hosted by industry professionals, not just another event company. Lead Generation World (LGW) provides an opportunity for lead buyers to learn about best practices that will help them be more successful with generating, buying, and closing leads. LGW is not just for buyers though! We have dozens of sessions and networking opportunities for lead sellers and service providers as well. We bring the entire community together with the intent of strengthening the industry as a whole. We love the fact that we keep our registration fee hundreds of dollars less than other conferences, we will never host a conference in Las Vegas, and limit attendance to a number that is more conducive to quality conversations.

What is the connection between affiliate marketing and lead distribution? How can affiliate networks benefit from implementing a combination of both? 

Lead distribution is the multiplier of revenue for affiliates and affiliate networks. Being able to increase your distribution by expanding your network from both the lead generation and the brand side of the table is an invaluable tool for revenue generation. Additionally, affiliate networks need to look further down the funnel and expand their distribution capabilities by implementing smart rules and filters. It is my opinion that the closer a network can get to the end brand, the better off they will be for the long run. Lastly, lead distribution platforms effectively provide intelligent ways for networks to match the right leads to the right brands. The better they can do that, the more valuable the partnership becomes between networks and brands.

As a former lead generator, what are some best practices you can share when it comes to generating the right kinds of leads for your buyers? 

I do have two core beliefs I tried to live by when I generated leads. The first is to commit to a partnership with your clients. Truly invest and optimize campaigns that increase, not only the campaign click-to-lead conversions, but also the lead-to-sale conversions. To be successful, you must be invested in the success of your clients. Secondly, and along the same lines, promote transparency. Don’t hesitate to share web properties and the content that generates the leads you sell. Also, strongly encourage your clients to share conversion data with you and actually do something with it! Don’t sit on the data. Use it to optimize campaigns where you can!

And as a former lead buyer, what mattered most to you in terms of the types of leads you received? 

As a lead buyer I understood that lead quality would sometimes ebb and flow like the ocean tide. When a company showed a real intent to optimize their campaigns and its lead quality dipped I would not simply shut them off. It is also important for buyers to show a level of commitment to the partnership and be willing to work through challenges that may arise. I am certainly not advocating for losing money over a partnership, but when a partner has shown that they are willing to work with you, it is important for you to reciprocate with the same consideration. The most successful lead buyers and lead sellers are ones that truly value and respect their partnerships.

How do you see the performance marketing industry evolving over the next few years?

There are a lot of nuances that can be elaborated on when answering this question, so I will forego the nuance and provide a general opinion. Over the next few years, I expect the maturity and sophistication of lead buyers across all industries to continue and increase. Transparency will increase, which will continue to build trust in the marketplace. I also predict that a new conference will continue to help bring the community together and subsequently help the industry grow and be more understood across the world, not just the United States :).

To get the full scoop on Lead Generation World, and the two conferences taking place in London and Denver, visit the website here.

Other content you might be interested in:

• Blog: How to Run a Successful Lead Generation Program on CAKE
• Vlog: How to Control and Improve Lead Quality
• Whitepaper: Better Together: Adding Value to Your Affiliate Program with Lead Distribution

The post Spotlight: Q&A with Performance Marketing Industry Leader, Michael Ferree appeared first on CAKE.

Let’s look at how to do this.

Use Sub IDs to Track Affiliate and Sub-Affiliate Performance

In campaign analytics, it’s possible to measure the source (such as your affiliate or media source), the campaign, and other information about the ad—but typically, measurement stops there. CAKE provides another level of transparency, enabling advertisers and affiliate networks to track and measure five additional parameters through “Sub IDs.” The most common use of a Sub ID is for a sub-affiliate.

Advertisers and affiliate networks work with affiliates, and those affiliates have partners of their own, called sub-affiliates.

It’s not enough to only know how the affiliates are performing. Advertisers and networks need insight into sub-affiliate traffic quality and quantity.

When advertisers have greater transparency into the performance of affiliates and sub-affiliates, they are better able to increase campaign budgets and in turn, provide more revenue opportunities for their partners.

Optimizing Performance and Rewarding Partners

Once you have insight into the different layers, then you can incentivize partners—affiliate networks or sub-affiliates—to do more of what’s working well.

The quality and quantity of campaign traffic (clicks and conversions) can vary greatly depending on the affiliate and sub-affiliate traffic source. With this in mind, it doesn’t make sense to pay all affiliates the same amount. Instead, the advertiser and network need to be able to determine payouts specific to the traffic source. For example:

• Affiliate Joe might get a $3.00 CPA because he sends a lot of high-quality traffic (conversions) with low return rates and zero fraud.
• Affiliate Rob might get a lower CPA of $2.00 because he sends an average amount of traffic with a higher fraud or return rate than top-tier affiliate partners.

Drilling down further, you can use CAKE Sub IDs to customize different payout amounts for sub-affiliates. This incentivizes affiliate partners to push for higher quality traffic and motivates sub-affiliates to want to work with a particular advertiser or network. It’s a win-win.

For instance, both Affiliate Joe and Affiliate Rob might work with a handful of sub-affiliate partners that drive exceptional traffic to the advertiser. To incentivize those sub-affiliates to drive even more traffic, the advertiser and/or network can increase the payout to those specific sub-affiliates. In this case, Affiliate Joe may now get a $3.50 CPA when the traffic comes from Sub-Affiliate Lisa, which means he can afford to pay Sub-Affiliate Lisa a higher CPA as well.

Using Directed Campaigns in CAKE to Manage Sub ID Payouts

CAKE enables advertisers and networks to customize Sub ID payouts through our Directed Campaigns feature. Directed Campaigns in CAKE allow you to uniquely manage commissions, caps and affiliate pixels specific to your Sub ID, without having to distribute additional tracking links to your affiliate. The rules to manage these payouts are handled within CAKE, making it fast and easy to optimize campaigns and increase revenues.

To learn more about how to pay out an affiliate based on Sub ID traffic in CAKE leveraging Directed Campaigns, watch our video tutorial.

Other content you might be interested in:

• Vlog: How to Control and Improve Lead Quality
• Blog: How to Run a Successful Lead Generation Program on CAKE
• Blog: How to Attribute Conversions Using CAKE’s Fingerprint Tracking

The post How to Customize Sub ID Payouts to Reward Partners   appeared first on CAKE.

As the largest source of software for performance marketing professionals and affiliate networks, CAKE has partnered with hundreds of companies worldwide over the past decade.

Based on our unmatched collective knowledge, we can expertly guide you on how to start an affiliate marketing program by sharing these five tried-and-true tips for finding affiliates, setting commissions, combatting fraud, understanding data security and consumer privacy, and continually optimizing your program for maximum profitability.

The key is to take things one step at a time. That said, let’s get going …

Find and manage affiliates (in-house vs. outsource vs. hybrid)

One of the first decisions to make when starting an affiliate marketing program is how to find and manage your affiliates. The three main choices are:

• Create and manage your own program in-house. This route provides greater transparency, control, and real-time insight into campaign performance, plus it allows marketers to develop direct relationships with affiliates, though marketers must find those affiliates themselves. This approach also opens the door to custom campaigns and flexible commission structures that would not be available when working with a middleman.

If you decide to go the in-house route, leverage resources that offer marketing advice such as industry trade outlet, PerformanceIN. Events such as Affiliate Summit and LeadsCon are also great conferences to keep you up to date on the affiliate marketing industry and offer opportunities to meet potential affiliate partners.

• Select an outsourced affiliate network and management service to work with. This is an attractive option since it requires minimal effort to get up and running. You can simply sign up and the service finds established affiliates (or “publishers” as they are commonly referred to in the affiliate industry) and matches them to campaigns with participating advertisers. The drawback of outsourcing is that commissions are paid to the third-party service, in addition to the affiliate. Additionally, there can be a limited selection of affiliates or minimal control over where offers ultimately appear.

• Implement a hybrid approach. Savvy marketers often leverage the best of both approaches. They use a third-party service for reach and managing a larger volume of their affiliate partners while running an in-house program to cultivate top-performing affiliates.

As you can see, each option presents pros and cons. In summary, outsourcing can initially seem easier, but an in-house program delivers more flexibility, control, and a potentially higher payoff. It also enables you to foster long-term relationships directly with affiliates that are built on a foundation of trust and performance.

Set commissions

One of the most common questions we receive from those looking to start an affiliate marketing program is “How much should I pay out per click or conversion?” This is a crucial step as determining the best commission structure for campaigns is vital towards affiliate marketing success. Yet, getting this right takes time. Setting commissions is always a balancing act of attracting affiliate partners to work with you over the competition while managing a positive profit margin.

When identifying proper payouts and commissions, a great place to start is to research payouts based on verticals or types of products and services. You can also leverage websites such as Offervault, oDigger, and many others which aggregate existing affiliate offers that provide insights regarding payouts and verticals.

Within affiliate marketing, there are also a multitude of payment methods to consider, and based on your unique business goals, some methods might work better for you than others.

Pay-for-performance methods: These are the most widely used payment models for affiliate programs.

• Flat rate per action (CPA): This is the most popular payment method. In this scenario, the affiliate receives a fee by referring a prospective customer who fills out a form, downloads an app, purchases a product, or registers for a service. Depending on the product or service advertised, this payment method might also be commonly referred to as cost per install (CPI) for mobile app advertising, and cost per lead (CPL) for lead generation campaigns.
• Shopping cart percentage (RevShare): This approach shares revenue with affiliates based on a percentage of the total shopping cart purchased by a customer. Typically, this applies to e-commerce campaigns.

Pay-for-volume methods: These payment methods are typically used for very specific campaigns and it is important to leverage budget caps to avoid overspending.

• Cost per click (CPC): If one of your goals is to increase website traffic, drive individuals to a landing page, or measure click-through rates on email campaigns, this is a great payment method to use.
• Fixed: Typically, with this method, you are working with a publisher on a set price, for example buying ad space. Often times, this model is driven by the publisher and the traffic options available, such as display ad space.
• Cost per 1k impressions (CPM): If you are launching an awareness campaign this payment method could be a great fit. However, this method should be approached with caution. Why? Because if affiliates aren’t providing high-quality traffic, marketers still end up paying for clicks or ad views that never convert.

What’s the best approach for you?

This is where measurement and ongoing monitoring is of utmost importance. By carefully monitoring results and routinely testing various payment structures, marketers can analyze which types of campaigns are yielding good results and which are underperforming. This enables marketers to determine the most successful commission structure for their businesses.

Combat fraud and poor performing traffic

To identify potential fraud and low-quality traffic, marketers must capture, monitor, and analyze very granular data about the clicks and conversions themselves.

This makes it easier to identify potential red flags such as:

• Are conversion rates for certain affiliates surprisingly high? If so, it might be worth the time to monitor their traffic further to confirm its legitimacy.
• Are high click counts paired with low conversions? If yes, that could indicate poor traffic from an affiliate partner.
• Are referring URLs all coming from the same address? This could mean a marketer has either landed a great affiliate partner or could be dealing with a bot.
• Is traffic coming from a site that has been previously banned? Unfortunately, this could mean an affiliate has gone rogue with your brand guidelines.

Managing affiliate marketing programs and data with diligence, plus setting up safeguards (such as only paying for verified leads) will enable marketers to avoid poor-quality leads and shady affiliate partners.

Ensure data security and privacy

When launching an affiliate marketing program, you need to protect your business and integral affiliate partnerships regulations amidst ongoing data security and privacy regulations.

These include a number of privacy initiatives that were introduced in 2018, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Apple’s Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) settings, and Mozilla’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP), followed by the more recently introduced, Google Chrome 80.

The influx of privacy-focused browser regulation changes can prove to be challenging for marketers to figure out how to accurately measure campaign performance. Now more than ever, affiliate marketers require powerful measurement tools that not only maintain accuracy for key performance indicators and campaign attribution, but that also to ensure the consumer’s right to privacy is not at risk.

Refine and optimize campaigns

A common mistake in affiliate marketing is “setting and forgetting.”

It’s crucial to continually test, measure, and refine your affiliate marketing campaigns. How can this be accomplished? First, learn as much as possible about how the affiliate industry works. It’s also important to dedicate resources to campaign execution and monitoring.

Most importantly, marketers must take action after discovering something significant – whether that means blocking a bad affiliate or incentivizing a good one with bonuses or higher payouts.

With affiliate marketing, a little can go a long way when starting a new program. Marketers that take the time to research, learn, and continually optimize will be the ones well-positioned to build a high-performing affiliate program that ultimately boosts revenue.

If you’re interested in how to start an affiliate program and want to learn more about next steps, reach out to us. Our team would be thrilled to help!

Other blogs you might be interested in:

• Which Pixel Should I Use?
• What is Performance Marketing and How Has it Evolved?
• In Good Company – Performance Marketing Software Reviews

The post How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Program: 5 Tried-and-True Tips appeared first on CAKE.

TUNE acquisition represents second major investment from the Perseus Operating Group of Constellation Software in performance marketing

It’s been almost a year since CAKE announced its acquisition by the Perseus Operating Group of Constellation Software (CSI), setting the foundation for the group’s first investment in the performance marketing technology industry. That was only the beginning. We are very excited to share today’s news – Constellation has also acquired TUNE.

CAKE together with TUNE is the largest source of software for performance marketing professionals and networks, globally. The two long-time industry pillars have served as a stable core of the performance marketing industry, and together are even more well-positioned to usher in a new era of expansion and innovation that activates our customers’ continued growth.

CSI assembles portfolios of vertical market software companies that exhibit the potential to serve as leaders within their particular market.

CAKE Customers: Growing together with more opportunities and continued stability

Together, CAKE and TUNE enter a new era, poised with the backing of a strong partner to collectively drive forward long-term growth and product innovation that advances the performance marketing industry.

From a day-to-day perspective, CAKE customers can expect business as usual. We will continue to focus on providing world-class performance marketing software, including solutions for affiliate marketing, lead distribution, and multichannel marketing to networks, advertisers, and publishers globally. We’re also committed to providing our customers with superior support, innovative solutions, and growth opportunities for their unique businesses.

In summary, our mission remains the same – to deliver trusted, innovative performance marketing solutions that create the best revenue opportunities for our customers worldwide. CAKE and TUNE also have the stability and backing of a strong partner in CSI that remains committed to our long-term individual and collective success.

Customers also benefit from the unique offerings provided by both companies. For instance, CAKE customers will continue to receive the benefits of advanced capabilities and knowledge for affiliate marketing, lead distribution, and multichannel marketing. Now, CAKE customers will also tap into the expertise TUNE provides for mobile and partner payment solutions. In summary, the right solutions are available to meet our customer’s needs, along with the best resources and tools that come from both companies. This offers more opportunities as a customer.

What’s next?

This is just the beginning. From this point forward, we will be looking for more opportunities that deliver benefits to our customer base of networks, publishers, and advertisers. As updates are available through our new ownership structure, we will be sharing this information through our customer channels.

This is a very exciting time not only for CAKE and TUNE, but the industry as a whole. Performance marketing is a dynamic industry, and we’re here to enable you to adapt and evolve with the changing landscape. Industry consolidation means more standardization between players of the ecosystem and a better customer experience.

This new chapter for CAKE highlights the company’s continuation of stability and promises to bring even more exciting things ahead with TUNE and CSI.

Thanks again to our customers and the CAKE team who bring it all together. We look forward to ushering in a new era of innovation and growth that elevates the performance marketing industry.

The post Together, CAKE and TUNE Push Forward the Performance Marketing Industry appeared first on CAKE.

• Measuring Google and Facebook ad performance: tracking links account for the large majority of how performance marketers track and measure campaign performance. But media platforms like Google and Facebook often reject third-party tracking links.
• Minimizing redirects: tracking links can lead to multiple redirects, which in some cases create a delay that leads to a poor consumer experience.

Direct linking addresses both of these challenges.

What is Direct Linking?

Direct linking allows affiliates and publishers to send consumers directly to an advertiser’s landing page from an advertisement, email, or other marketing material and attribute conversions and campaign performance back to the affiliate or publisher that generated the traffic.

With CAKE’s Direct Linking feature, marketers can utilize the landing page URL with appended query string tracking parameters — instead of a tracking link — as the destination for the consumer when clicking on the ad.

Challenge one: track and measure campaigns on media platforms like Google and Facebook

Media platforms want to validate the landing page that the consumer is being sent to, but with tracking links, that destination page could be different every time the ad is clicked on. So, platforms like Google and Facebook will often block tracking links to make sure marketers use the actual landing page URL in the ad and create a consistent ad experience for the consumer.

CAKE’s Direct Linking functionality enables performance marketers to use the landing page URL for campaign and measurement within media buying platforms. An advertiser will need to embed a CAKE JavaScript click tag on the landing page in order to read the tracking parameters that are sent through on the ad when the consumer clicks.

This enables performance marketers to quickly and easily spin up campaigns with media platforms like Facebook and Google that might reject tracking links, and effectively measure and optimize those campaigns.

Challenge two: minimize redirects from tracking links

You can also use direct linking to minimize redirects that occur with tracking links. In some cases, multiple redirects can cause longer loading times between the ad and the landing page which results in poor user experience and consumer drop off.

By using CAKE to read tracking parameters behind the scenes, you can send the consumer directly to the landing page. This reduces redirects and minimizes the time between clicking on the ad and getting to the landing page, helping affiliates and networks create a better consumer experience and improve Conversion Rates (CVR) and Earnings per Click (EPC) metrics.

Considerations when using Direct Linking

In the cases when you need to use direct linking instead of tracking links, keep these considerations in mind.

1. Direct linking does not allow for first-party cookies. It relies on third-party cookies for tracking and measuring conversions, which is highly inaccurate given today’s browser restrictions on third-party cookies. To utilize this type of tracking, you will need to use cookieless conversion tracking (also known as server-to-server tracking) with a Postback URL.
2. Direct linking does not allow for monetizing click traffic using 302 redirects. For instance, if the campaign is capped or expired, or if there is a more optimal landing page for the consumer’s region or device, a direct link would not be able to send the consumer to the optimized landing page because the consumer would have already been redirected to the landing page URL used within the ad.

Having a good understanding of the pros and cons of each type of click tracking method will help you make the best choice to accurately measure your campaign performance. Here at CAKE, our best practice is to use tracking links to accurately measure campaign performance and optimize click traffic, however, if you’re experiencing the challenges detailed above, then direct linking might be a good solution for you.

If you are a CAKE customer, please contact your CAKE Account Manager or Technical Support today to learn more about direct linking within CAKE.

To learn more about CAKE and our measurement solutions, reach us here.

Other content you might be interested in:

• Blog: Google Chrome 80 – Everything You Need to Know As a Performance Marketer
• Blog: Accurate Measurement in The Age of Privacy
• Blog: How to Attribute Conversions Using CAKE’s Fingerprint Tracking

The post Using CAKE’s Direct Linking to Measure Google and Facebook Ad Performance appeared first on CAKE.

We’ve been talking with our customers about how they can best leverage the CAKE platform that they already have in place. For many, that means expanding their performance marketing program with lead generation.

CAKE’s Lead Distribution product is easy to turn on; and coupled with our ability to ping/post and monetize lead traffic, it is effective in supporting lead generation campaigns across a range of vertical industries, including finance, education, and telehealth. Today’s blog post will focus on how to run a lead generation program on CAKE and highlight a couple of best practices to get you started.

The value of lead generation

Lead generation involves capturing, validating, and distributing a lead—a web site visitor who has filled out a form by providing contact information—in real-time. Also referred to as “host-n-post” or “lead management,” lead generation is a lucrative new revenue stream for affiliate networks.

Lead generation enables a network to improve its bottom line and bring more value to their partners. Unlike a traditional CPA program where every conversion is worth the same amount regardless of the individual’s details and what happens with that conversion, using a lead distribution software allows you to define the appropriate price point for varying quality leads.

This is a good time to find new opportunities

As the industry shifts, marketers are looking to diversify. This is a good time to explore additional opportunities with your partners.

First, look at new industries. Are there new verticals you can expand to? Are there options for lead generation within the verticals you’re focused on today?

Second, identify opportunities with existing partners who might already be running successful lead generation campaigns, and those that would sell leads to you and those that will buy leads from you. Launching a lead generation campaign is sometimes as simple as enabling a new opportunity for your pre-existing affiliate relationships that have access to lead data beyond the traffic they already send you.

How to get started with CAKE’s Lead Distribution Software

Once you have identified the partners that are ready to do lead generation with you and turned on lead distribution with CAKE, there are four best practices to get your lead generation program up and running.

#1 Determine when to sell leads in real-time vs. when buyers are available

Understanding the market and the type of leads you’re selling will help you determine when to sell leads in real-time and when to sell them based on when buyers are available.

When to sell leads when buyers are available:

• If you want to provide consumers with additional products/services while they are on the site
• If your consumer can wait to hear from someone within 24 hours
• If you want to enrich leads before selling them for greater quality/value

When to sell leads in real-time:

• If the lead buyer wants to follow up on the lead right away
• If the buyer of the lead wants the lead to be redirected to their website upon lead submission

Oftentimes, the type of industry will dictate whether a lead should be sold in real-time or not. For example, leads for consumers looking for financial or legal help might need to be sold in real-time, while someone looking into higher education options could likely wait a day before hearing back.

CAKE has the functionality to accommodate both campaign types. You can choose to have CAKE sell the lead in real-time (if it doesn’t sell right away, CAKE won’t do anything further with the lead) or try to continuously sell a lead over and over until someone buys it (e.g. within a set timeframe of 12 hours, or whatever you set it to.)

#2 Ensure leads go to the right buyer

To run a successful and profitable lead generation campaign, you need to validate your leads and ensure accurate lead routing. For instance, some buyers may only accept leads from a certain location based on their ability to service the leads.

CAKE automates the distribution of leads in real-time to lead buyers according to their lead data requirements, respective bids and budgets, and availability. Automated lead distribution helps to reduce wasted ad spend and lead returns, and makes sure leads go to the right buyer every time.

#3 Sell leads for the highest price

You want to sell leads for the highest possible price—and you want to keep your lead buyers happy. The good news is you can do both.

Once you’ve succeeded with step 2 and you have a large enough network of lead buyers who you can sell to, then you will be in a good position to get the highest price for the lead among multiple buyers.

CAKE’s Lead Distribution software can help you monetize lead traffic by providing you with advanced lead selling tools (such as Ping/Post functionality and Dynamic Lead Prices) to ensure you sell every lead generated for the highest possible price.

CAKE automates the entire process, and everyone wins: you get the highest price, and the buyer is happy because they set the price.

#4 Look for ways to monetize leads you can’t sell

If you end up with leads you can’t sell, you still have options. You can sell these leads—known as vintage, aged, or aftermarket leads—in bulk. This will help balance out profit margins by finding revenue to cover the acquisition cost.

Alternatively, if you’re an advertiser generating real-time leads for your own business but you can’t service them, look for other companies in your market that might be willing to purchase these leads.

CAKE enables you to easily monetize leads by providing bulk sell options directly from reports, as well as easy management of lead routing rules for those leads that don’t match your criteria.

Here to support our customers

CAKE was founded to address lead generation needs stemming from the 2008 financial crisis. We listened to customers’ needs and made sure to build products for exactly what was required.

Today, as the largest performance marketing software vendor with the industry’s most reliable and scalable infrastructure, we will continue to stand by our customers to help you run successful performance marketing programs—including lead generation—now, and for the long-term.

Reach out to your Account Manager, or email teamCAKE@getCAKE.com, to add CAKE’s Lead Distribution software to your account. We are here to help you identify the right partners for your business and help guide you through the process.

Other content you might be interested in:

• Blog: 3 Reasons Why CAKE Has the Most Robust Lead Distribution Software
• Whitepaper: Keys to Successfully Launch and Grow a Lead Distribution Program
• Blog: 5 Best Practices for Working with Your Lead Buyers on a Ping Post

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