Use Case: Many of your campaigns need to have the same filters and settings.

LinkTrust feature:
We’ve given you more ways to customize your campaign settings in recent releases, but now you can set default campaign settings for every campaign created. These new settings won’t update campaigns already created, it just applies to new campaigns created.

To create your default campaign settings, visit the campaigns tab in your LinkTrust account. In the left-hand navigation select “Default Settings”.

From here you’ll be able to set the standards you want to apply to all future campaigns. You can change any setting on individual campaigns, but this will save time in setting up campaigns.

Default settings:

• Cookie life
• Group
• Impression URL
• Click Tracking URL
• Statistical Viewing Rights
• Transaction Export Rights
• Affiliate Pixels
• Impressions
• Clicks

For more information about how to set up your default campaign settings, please contact LinkTrust support.

All previous LinkTrust Tips of the Week.

When most people think of Utah,  rapid tech growth and unrivaled unemployment don’t usually come to mind. Yet with increasing speed, tech giants are setting up shop alongside thriving start ups like LinkTrust and calling the “silicon slopes” home.

Recently named the number one state for business and careers by Forbes for the third consecutive year, Utah’s economy is booming with consistent job growth and an environment that fosters innovative new products and solutions. Check out this awesome infographic from Utah’s Office of Economic Development and learn more about the perks of LinkTrust life.

Use Case: We often have customers who use the SubID and the affiliate reference ID interchangeably. This can end up with some incredibly large reports that take forever to sift through.

LinkTrust Feature:

LinkTrust has designed the SubID to be used for performance purposes.  That means that you can use the SubID to keep track of the sources of traffic for various offers.

Because traffic types are redundant, the sub ID value is repetitive. This allows you to use sub ID reporting to identify which sub ID is performing the best. It is common practice for affiliates to place a sub ID on a tracking link.

Popular uses of the SubID include:

• For an affiliate network to monitor affiliate traffic
• For affiliates to monitor traffic sources (Facebook, Twitter, PPC, banner ad)
• For affiliates to monitor sub-affiliates
• Detecting high-performing affiliates or traffic sources

LinkTrust has designed the affiliate reference ID to be used for tracking purposes.

Reporting information cannot be gathered on the affiliate reference ID because it should be unique data.

You can have common data in the affiliate reference ID, but since you cannot retrieve any reporting information like performance information, it is not worthwhile.

Popular uses for the affiliate reference ID include:

• third-party system value
• CRM value
• Unique Value for Server-to-Server tracking

SubIDs in LinkTrust:

To add a sub ID, do one of the following:

• To add a sub ID to your tracking link, add the parameter &SID=Sub_ID_Here.

For example, http://[TrackingDomain]/click.track?CID=XXXX&AFID=XXXX&ADID=XXXX&SID=Sub_ID_Here

• If you are using a search engine friendly (SEO) URL, add /SID/Place_Sub_ID_Here.

For example, an SEO tracking URL might look like the following:

http://[TrackingDomain]/click.track/CID/XXXX/AFID/XXXX/ADID/XXXX/SID/Place_Sub_ID_Here

Affiliate reference IDs in LinkTrust:

The affiliate reference ID is used by affiliates to pass data to LinkTrust on their tracking URL. The full tracking URL has a tracking domain followed by parameters and their values.

For example, a tracking URL follows the following format:

TrackingDomain CID=value&AFID=value&SID=value&AffiliateReferenceID=value

For more information about the difference between a SubID and an AffiliateReferenceID please contact LinkTrust support.

Use Case: Pre-populate a website with data from a previous page.  Let your affiliate capture information about the visitor on their site and pass it to the merchant’s landing page.

For example, the merchant has a website form with fields for a consumer’s first name, last name, and email address. The affiliate also has a website with a form that has already captured the consumer’s first name, last name, and email address. The affiliate sends the consumer to the merchant’s page along with the consumer’s first name, last name, and email address. When the consumer lands on the merchant’s page, those three fields are pre-populated on the merchant’s page with the data sent by the affiliate.

This happens because the affiliate appended the first name, last name, and email address parameters to the URL and passes the values to the merchant. This saves the consumer time having to re-enter the information twice.

Basically, by using additional data parameters and values, the affiliate can populate the merchant’s website with the consumer information it has already collected.

LinkTrust Feature: Propagate Additional Data

This option allows LinkTrust to append any additional data which was added to the affiliate’s tracking link to the landing page URL.

Why would I enable this?
If you want any additional data appended to the affiliate’s tracking link to be sent to the merchant on the landing page URL or the alternate landing page URL, enable the Propagate Additional Data option.

Why would I disable this?
If you want to block any appended data from being added to the landing page URL or the alternate landing page URL location, disable the Propagate Additional Data option.

Additional Data is any name=value pair that has been added to the Tracking URL.  When this additional data passes through LinkTrust, it is recorded and displayed for each transaction within the Transaction Details Report.  The ability for an Affiliate to pass additional data through LinkTrust can be limited.  By default, LinkTrust doesn’t allow additional data on a Tracking URL to be passed to the Merchant’s landing page.

However, if you wish to pass the CID, AFID, SID or ADID all you need to do is add a token for the appropriate value you wish to pass.

Tokens available for the Landing Page URL:

• Campaign ID : [=CID=]
• Affiliate ID : [=AFID=]
• Creative ID : [=ADID=]
• Sub ID : [=SID=]
• Click ID : [=ClickID=]
• Affiliate Reference ID : [=AffiliateReferenceID=]
• Alternate ID : [=AltID=]
• NonEncoded URL for Dynamic landing pages: [=NonEncodedURL=]
• Additional Data : [=Field Name=]

Additional Data Tokens
If you wish to place a token that provides a specific value from an Affiliate’s Tracking URL, place [= and =] around the name of the field that was provided on the URL.   For example, if your affiliate appended “&site=google&type=search“ onto their Tracking URL, you can pass these values on the landing page by adding “&site=[=site=]&type=[=type=]“.

Enable Additional Data Tokens in LinkTrust on the Campaign Settings Page below the Landing Page URL.

For more information about passing data, contact LinkTrust support.

Use Case: Avoid cookie-less tracking or to have accurate mobile tracking.

Server-side tracking is one of the most accurate ways to track your campaigns and offers. It’s also one of the more technical ways to track your affiliate marketing.

We’ve talked about cookie-less tracking before, but for this week’s LinkTrust tip we wanted to explain some of the basics of server-side tracking. Many affiliate marketers use server-side tracking to manage their mobile traffic tracking or when they want their normal web traffic to be extra-accurate.

LinkTrust Feature: ClickID Pixel Postback

ClickID Pixel Post starts by adding the click ID to the tracking URL. The click ID is a unique number associated with individual clicks.  The click ID can be passed to the landing page or the merchant/ advertiser’s server. When it is passed back to LinkTrust on a post back URL, LinkTrust will use it to track the conversions without any need for a cookie.

This method is considered very secure, because a transaction can only be generated by using a click ID. Because the click ID can be used more than once, you can secure the click ID post by white listing the posting server’s IP address.

The following is an example of a postback URL with the added click ID:

http://your_tracking_domain/pixel.track?&ClickID=04_835477_fb93f424-788d-4c48-bfb1-98516f855839

How do you add the ClickID to the tracking URL?

The click ID can be added to the landing page URL by adding the click ID token [=ClickID=] to the URL.

Why change a recorded transaction?

Every online retailer has a CRM that helps them keep track of all of their customers and the products that each customer has purchased. Affiliates drive traffic to these online retailers and get people to buy products or sign up for free trials.

But what happens when a customer signs up for a free trial and then cancels before the free trial ends?

The online retailer doesn’t want to pay the affiliate for a consumer who cancelled during a free trial. If you have LinkTrust, you can record the initial transaction. Then when the consumer successfully completes the trial offer, you can give credit to the affiliate by modifying the transaction remotely.

LinkTrust Feature: Transaction Modification API

When a conversion has already tracked in LinkTrust it is possible to change the payout, revenue or approval of the transaction. Using the Transaction Modification API, you can make these changes from anywhere. That means your merchant/advertiser can have access to editing their transactions, if you give them approval.

Even though this change can take place outside of the secure LinkTrust environment, we’ve enhanced the layers of security for this feature. That means that you must enable external transaction modification for each campaign separately and provide a custom password. You can also restrict changes to come from only specific white listed IP addresses.

NOTE: LinkTrust highly recommends using HTTPS for all transaction edit API calls to ensure secure communications. This requires your inbound URL to be configured for HTTPS. You must have a secure certificate setup with LinkTrust to do this.

To adjust a transaction, you need the updated affiliate payout, merchant revenue, or approval status with a valid click ID, transaction ID or a combination of merchant reference ID and campaign ID with the security password.

The ability to use the merchant reference ID and campaign ID combination requires you to enforce a unique merchant reference ID for each transaction in the campaign settings. Merchants can also modify transactions within LinkTrust by passing their own ID from their back office CRM or shopping cart instead of needing to record and use LinkTrust identifiers.

For more information about how to set up your advertisers with this ability to change recorded transactions, contact LinkTrust Support. 1-877-287-7822

There are many times when an affiliate payout might need to be dynamic. One example of a dynamic payout is when the advertiser doesn’t pay on a percentage basis and wants to be able to change the affiliate payout based on the amount of the sale.

There are many other instances that this might be useful, if you have questions about how this might apply to your company, please contact LinkTrust Support.

Using custom conversion parameters from LinkTrust on a confirmation pixel, you can control the affiliate payout, merchant payout and transaction approval on an as needed basis.

What is a parameter? A parameter, also known as a “key” is a fundamental data representation in computing systems and applications. In LinkTrust an example of those parameters are: AP, MP, A. When you combine keys and values, you get a custom conversion parameter. The value associated with those parameters (0.00) in LinkTrust becomes the actual monetary amount for the payout or the approval/unapproval of a transaction.

In LinkTrust, you need to set up your confirmation pixel with the following custom conversion parameters if you want to be able to dynamically change an affiliate payout, merchant payout and/or transaction approval.

Affiliate Payout =
“&AP=0.00″

Merchant Payout =
“&MP=0.00″

Transaction Approval=
“&A=N” or “&A=Y”

To enable this feature in LinkTrust, just visit the campaign settings page.

You can add these parameters to your confirmation pixel and then teach your advertiser where to put the appropriate values.

For more information about adding custom conversion parameters to your conversion pixels, contact LinkTrust Support. 1-877-287-7822

Even though LinkTrust tracks transactions in real time, approving them may come much later. If a qualified transaction gets approved later via the Transaction Modification API, you can use the same API to execute an affiliate’s server-side pixel for that specific transaction by adding a new parameter that tells LinkTrust to execute the affiliate’s pixel.

Whether you modify the transactions yourself through the new API or give your merchant’s the instructions, it allows you to adjust transactions based on click, transaction or merchant reference IDs.

Watch the LinkTrust training video to get a step-by-step walkthrough of using the Transaction Modification API.

For more information on how to start using the feature in your LinkTrust account, please contact LinkTrust support by email (support@linktrust.com) or phone (1-877-287-7822)

Global Pixel Management:

Affiliate managers can give the ability to individual affiliates to edit and manage their own global pixel from within the Affiliate Center.

Partner Center

Affiliate Center

For more information on how to use this feature in your LinkTrust account, please contact LinkTrust support by email (support@linktrust.com) or phone (1-877-287-7822).

It’s here!

Starting Feb. 27, 2013, logging into LinkTrust is easier than ever. No matter where you’re browsing, our mobile optimized experience will deliver everything you need to manage campaigns, check stats and make changes from the comfort of your smartphone or tablet.

Using LinkTrust on your Iphone is as easy as 1,2,3.
Add the site to your home screen for one-click access to LinkTrust on the go. Here’s how it works on an iPhone.

Step 1 Visit signin.linktrust.com.

Step 2 Add to Home Screen.

Step 3 Name the icon “LinkTrust”.

Android based operating systems vary in how to add a bookmark to the home screen, so we haven’t included step-by-step instructions. If you want help adding the icon to your home screen please contact LinkTrust support.