De-Duplication Best Practice Guidelines
From Wiki
Introduction
The following document demonstrates best practice guidelines for merchants wishing to de-duplicate their affiliate marketing sales against those from other online marketing channels.
The intention of these guidelines is to ensure merchants meet their objectives in regards to reporting and ROI without compromising their affiliate programme. The advice is relevant for established programmes as well as new launches.
What is de-duplication?
De-duplication is the process of attributing a sale to one online marketing channel on predefined conditions, these conditions will decide which tracking tag is shown at the confirmation of sale page.
Example
Where a merchant runs their programme on two networks, de-duplication is essential to prevent paying for the same sale twice.
This can occur when a customer has visited affiliate sites from both networks, and ends up with two affiliate network cookies on their computer.
Using automatic de-duplication, the merchant only displays the tracking for the network that last referred the customer. Therefore, only one network receives notification of the sale, thus removing the need to decline duplicate sales manually at the validations stage.
What do I need to do to de-duplicate sales?
Affiliate Window recommends using a “Click Append” and setting a local cookie on the visitor’s machine when they enter the website.
A local cookie is one that is loaded onto the user’s computer by the merchant. This can then be used to recognise the last referring channel and determine which tracking tag to display on the confirmation of sale page.
This is the cheapest, most efficient and accurate way to de-duplicate and it provides the merchant with complete control over the logic employed.
This method is also referred to as “conditional tagging”.
Example
Merchant X added a click append to their URL for each online channel to define where the customer had arrived from, a few of these are shown in red below:
www.merchantx.com/?source=aw – Affiliate Window
www.merchantx.com/?source=td - Tradedoubler
www.merchantx.com/?source=google – Google PPC
www.merchantx.com/?source=email – Email campaign
They then wrote a script to place a local cookie on the user’s computer triggered by the presence of the click append.
They then established a rule that the click append source ID would be overwritten on a last referrer basis.
For a customer clicking through via a Tradedoubler affiliate who then browses and returns via an Affiliate Window affiliate the source id “?source=td” would be replaced with “?sourceid=aw”.
The tracking tag logic at the sale confirmation page would recognise the “?sourceid=aw” click append and show only the Affiliate Window tracking code, thus correctly awarding the sale to the last referring network.
All traffic must be tagged to ensure accurate cross-channel de-duplication. The last referrer wins method must be used across all channels to ensure fair de-duping.
Which online channels should I de-duplicate against?
De-duplicating sales reduces affiliate conversion rates, and therefore their EPC/commissions also decline. Merchants should therefore be cautious implementing de-duplication strategies as it could influence an affiliate to promote a competitor.
We would recommend providing adequate notice to affiliates prior to the implementation of any new policy, especially one that may affect performance statistics. It is important to be specific about which channels will be de-duped and explain the reasons why. Every merchant is different and policies vary considerably across the industry.
We have provided some example policies below and also some general rules that will ensure affiliates continue to support your programme.
Example Policy 1
Channels de-duplicated:
PPC Brand: No
PPC Generic: Yes
Price Comparison (merchant’s own activity e.g/ Kelkoo): No
Display Advertising: No
Email Marketing: No
Direct affiliates/partnerships: No
Other affiliate network: No, there are no other networks
De-duplication rule:
Last referrer is attributed the sale
Method used to de-duplicate:
Click append with local cookie
Note : For Example Policy 1 the merchant has only one piece of CPA activity which is the Affiliate Window programme. They have a substantial in house PPC campaign with many generic and long tail keywords which they wish to attribute referring sales purely to this channel. For other channels including brand PPC the merchant wishes to award the affiliate recognising their influence in completing the sale.
Example Policy 2
Channels de-duplicated:
PPC Brand: No
PPC Generic: No
Price Comparison (merchant’s own activity e.g/ Kelkoo): No
Display Advertising: No
Email Marketing: No
Direct affiliates/partnerships: Yes
Other affiliate network: Yes
De-duplication rule:
Last referrer is attributed the sale
Method used to de-duplicate:
Doubleclick floodlight tracking tag
Note: For Example Policy 2 the merchant uses a 3rd party solution to de-duplicate sales, they wish to reward the affiliates influence on the sale wherever possible. They are happy that a CPA rate be paid in addition to a CPC given the customer spent time on the affiliate’s site and subsequently browsed.
This merchant however has another affiliate programme as well as some direct partnerships. These are all also rewarded on a CPA model. The merchant cannot pay the higher CPA cost twice, and therefore they must de-duplicate the sale to the last referrer.
Example Policy 3
Channels de-duplicated:
PPC Brand: Yes
PPC Generic: Yes
Price Comparison (merchant’s own activity e.g/ Kelkoo): Yes
Display Advertising: Yes
Email Marketing: Yes
Direct affiliates/partnerships: Yes
Other affiliate network: No, there are no other networks
De-duplication rule:
Last referrer is attributed the sale
Method used to de-duplicate:
Tagman container tag
Note: For Example Policy 3 the merchant is using another alternative 3rd party solution to de-duplicate. They have decided to de-duplicate against all online channels.
They only ever want to attribute a sale to one channel. As a result of this they pay a higher commission to affiliates as they do not need to factor in duplication costs.
Further recommendations
• Do not de-duplicate against Brand Paid Search (PPC) This is one of the most common methods customers use to return to a site. Therefore, Brand Paid Search is more likely than any other channel to capture the last click, even when other channels have interacted with the user further back in the chain.
Merchants need to consider the complex nature of the buying process, and the value of affiliate involvement.
De-duplicating against brand PPC discredits the value merchants place on their affiliates and is seen as unfair practice. If the customer has taken a little more time to decide on their purchase and subsequently typed the brand name into a search engine, it is felt that the search activity cannot be 100% responsible for that sale.
Affiliates are understandably reluctant to promote merchants who adopt this strategy. Ultimately they will experience far superior conversion rates on merchants who do not de-dupe against brand PPC so will see greater value in sending their clicks elsewhere.
• Do not de-duplicate against display advertising Display campaigns are typically tracked on post click sales as well as post impression sales. This is to account for the influence the banner might have had for someone simply viewing the advert as well as clicking on it.
Banner campaigns tend to run across portals with high traffic, such as Hotmail, Yahoo and MSN Messenger. Much like a customer returning via a brand keyword, there is also the chance that a customer already influenced by an affiliate sees and clicks on a banner for the same merchant whilst searching the web.
Again, it is felt that this action alone was not 100% responsible for achieving the sale. It is even less likely where a merchant tracks post impression – the banner may have been on the page below the fold so the customer may not have seen it.
Summary of Key Points
- Use a click append and local cookie solution to control sale de-duplication
- Consider the impact of de-duplicating against PPC and Display activity
- Be mindful of the influence an affiliate can make on your customers purchase decision making
- Displaying your de-duplication policy within your programme details page
- Communicate any changes to your policy in advance to your programme