Join us for a new series on how you can launch and grow a performance marketing program that drives measurable results with CAKE’s tracking framework. We’ve curated the thoughtfully and intelligently designed features that fuel CAKE’s tracking capabilities and streamline operations for customers.

Today, we’re highlighting two specific features, Offer Contracts and Directed Campaigns.

Setting up for success: Pixels and tracking links

Within CAKE, an offer is the product or service that is advertised to consumers. When an offer is created, all of the essential tracking information such as the pixel, testing instructions, creatives, emails, subject lines, and suppression list management are implemented. The goal is to get an offer live as quickly as possible.

While placing a pixel is a simple and straightforward process in CAKE, ensuring advertisers place the pixel on their end can take time. Between managing multiple digital channels, and launching new products and services, advertisers are busy. It’s not uncommon for there to be a lag of half a day to a month for a pixel to be placed, even if the advertiser is using a tool that simplifies pixel management like Google Tag Manager.

Additionally, affiliates must also test their tracking links. In affiliate marketing, any delay translates into lost earning potential.

Harness the power of Offer Contracts and Directed Campaigns

Once the essential steps of placing the offer pixel and testing tracking links are complete, customers can leverage Offer Contracts and Directed Campaigns. Here’s why these features are an important part of CAKE’s tracking ecosystem and how they reduce the number of pixels and tracking links required to go live.

Offer Contracts

Offer Contracts are a variation of the offer. The real value however, is that Offer Contracts inherit the original tracking pixel from the offer level. This saves customers time and eliminates having to task advertiser partners with placing another tracking pixel for each new offer variation.

Additionally, Offer Contracts provide customers with the ability to efficiently enhance their performance by experimenting with different redirect strategies, rules, geotargeting, landing pages, caps, and events.

For example, suppose you are earning a $10 cost per acquisition (CPA) from the advertiser in the first billing period, however next month you are going to earn a $12 CPA. Users can easily generate a new Offer Contract to reflect the pay increase instead of creating an offer from scratch with a new pixel that needs to be placed by the advertiser. This ensures you are maximizing revenue while nurturing positive relationships with partners.

Directed Campaigns

Directed Campaigns empower customers to build profitable affiliate relationships.

This is how it works. Within CAKE, a campaign is created once an affiliate is assigned to an offer. From the campaign level customers can adjust an affiliate’s payout and caps, generate tracking links and place affiliate pixels.

What happens if you want to take things a step further and manage an affiliate campaign based on the sub-affiliate or creative? This is where Directed Campaigns, which is the relationship between an affiliate and an Offer Contract, come in. Because Directed Campaigns maintain the tracking information from the Offer Contract, customers can easily create multiple campaigns for an affiliate and their sub-affiliates in real time. This enables continuity with traffic flow without needing to distribute new tracking links.

This feature is especially beneficial when users want to set caps, payouts, events, and expiration dates, include a different redirect offer, or leverage voucher codes.

Let’s take a look at Directed Campaigns in action. Suppose you are going to incentivize a specific sub-affiliate to drive more quality traffic by offering a higher payout. Because the Directed Campaign takes on the pixel from the original offer, your affiliate can immediately increase their traffic flow while earning the higher CPA assigned to the new Directed Campaign.

To learn more about how to implement Offer Contracts and Directed Campaigns, visit our Knowledge Base resources here and here.

Explore other CAKE features:

• Maximizing Efficiencies With the Mass Adjustment Tool

• 5 Reporting Features You Should Be Using in 2022

• 5 Features to Streamline the Onboarding of New Affiliates