Are you getting the most out of Awin’s tools and tech?

Awin’s Engineering teams continually improve Awin’s technical ecosystem and create new products for both advertisers and publishers. With so many changes taking place, it is easy to overlook some of the key releases that can have an immediate impact on your programme and administrative tasks.

A great example of this is the Campaign Parameter. This is an addition to our URL link structure which allows the addition of ‘campaign=campaignName’. The Campaign Parameter is shown in reporting, so it becomes very easy to see how these campaigns have performed. At first glance this appears relatively straightforward and an easy way of monitoring different marketing campaigns such as a ‘back to school’ promotion or a sale. However, shrewd advertisers have realised that it doesn’t technically have to be a campaign and it, in fact offers a new click parameter to use however they wish.    

According to Christian Mairs, Senior Product Manager at Awin,

“The Campaign Parameter gives advertisers an extra layer of detail for link performance, in a similar way that Publisher Tags gives greater insight and control over publisher partners. The ways in which the tool is used have surpassed our expectations and it’s great to see the creative ways in which advertisers cut and slice their traffic with the Campaign Parameter.”  

Beyond tracking simple campaigns, a common use is to split the traffic of a publisher such as email and paid placement so you can make quick performance comparisons. Some advertisers have taken this a step further to group publishers under one banner with the campaign parameter, for instance a group of influencers who all come from the same influencer network; however you use it is up to you.  

When you are ready to share your campaign links with publishers. Awin’s new look Communications Centre is the perfect tool. With an upgraded template creator, emails can be sent to your entire publisher base, or you can set distribution based on Publisher Tag or Promotional Type.  

When using Awin’s Link Builder to create links you can add in the campaign parameter as well as Click Ref 1 and you may notice that links created with this tool use !!!id!!! instead of a specific publisher ID. When sharing these links directly with a publisher it is important to replace !!!id!!! with the publisher ID unless you are using the Communications Centre. When these links are sent through the Communications Centre the publisher ID is automatically populated for the receiving publisher and they can go straight ahead and post the links making it the easiest way to share updates and promotions.  

In addition to the improvements that have been introduced for the Communications Centre, Awin are looking to improve publisher engagement with the release of Engagement Triggers, allowing allows advertisers to automate mails based on certain criteria such as a drop off or increase in performance. Due to be released in the coming months, advertisers will be able to automate targeted and engaging publisher content to help drive performance.  

Alongside taking advantage of the campaign parameter and the new look Communications Centre, advertisers should make full use of Publisher Tags to categorise and manage publishers joined to their programme. There is no limit to how many tags can be assigned to a given publisher and they are only visible to you. Typical usage would see publishers tagged to specific groups based around their activity such as ‘blogger’ or ‘voucher’ but feel free to use any tag that will help with both reporting and communication.  

For more information about how to get the best out of the Awin platform and to discover more new tools, visit the Advertiser Success Center.