Isn’t it a big scary word? We are marketing to people and when we hit the ‘integration’ word it’s like hitting a wall. Indeed, ‘integration’ normally means that we need to speak to the IT manager and try to make ourselves understood. It also means that there will be delays and that the deal might not go through.
So let’s be clear about it: Integration is frustrating.
But what does it mean anyway?
To make a long story short: It’s making sure two web applications can speak clearly with each other.
And for affiliate marketers it means: Tracking conversions from the affiliate network you work with and your tracking platform.
Without knowing it, you experience these integrations during your everyday life. For instance, when you sign up with a service using your Google or Facebook credentials, the service and Google/Facebook talk to each other to identify you and register you to the service database.
In the affiliate marketing world, it normally means that when a conversion occurs on the advertiser’s site, this same conversion will show up in your tracking system.
Why would someone want that? Because, if you buy 1000 keywords on a contextual or PPC network, you will want to know which keyword has generated which conversions, revenues and ROI.
For that simple thing to happen, you normally need to collect information from your traffic source, pass some information to your advertiser {transactionid} which in return, if and when a conversion occurs, will call a URL called “postback URL” (i.e https://postbackurl.io/servrpix.php?conversion={transactionid}&commission={value}) which will match the information stored in your tracking system and update your statistics.
When I re-read the previous paragraph, I can put myself in your shoes and realize how exhausting it can be to deal with this tracking nightmare. Imagine now that you are alone and you don’t have access to the Russian geek who will frustrate you even more by doing this with a certain nonchalance…
While managing an affiliate program, I have seen my teammates dealing with this, trying to help their affiliates, attempting to buy media and struggling with tracking.
Do you feel the pain? Fancy a pain-killer?
At TrackingDesk, we decided to put an emphasis on integration. In other terms, we have integrated our platform with hundreds of affiliate networks and traffic sources so you never have to struggle with such issues and can instead focus on your marketing activities.
Practically, what it means for you:
- TrackingDesk automatically collects information from your traffic sources – i.e. Keywords.
- TrackingDesk automatically passes “subid” to the affiliate programs you work with.
- TrackingDesk provides you with postback URL’s pre-formatted for the affiliate networks you work with i.e. ClickBank, Peerfly, MaxBounty.
To get back to my initial definition of what ‘integration’ means: YOU can speak freely with traffic sources and advertisers, pass information from traffic sources to affiliate networks and back, without having to write or even understand a single line of code.
If you know the function: “copy/paste”, then you’re good to go!
If you don’t have an account with TrackingDesk, you can open one for free now.