The discussion about "to coupon or not to coupon" is long and difficult. So let's leave it at that and look at coupon attribution as a potential solution to the current changes in the digital ecosystem like:
- The rise of adblocking software and current developments in privacy restrictions that prevent excessive user profiling (which then stop third-party cookie tracking) leading to revenue loss.
- Influencers and social media creators are a growing part of our partner ecosystem, often avoiding the overhead of technical implementation.
- How to best stop coupon code leakage and gain more control over your strategy.
Coupon attribution solves three main problems
1. It’s a cookie-less tracking solution that secures revenue and enables partnerships beyond the last-click model.
- Privacy measures like Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) block third-party cookies, making cookie-less tracking solutions increasingly important and necessary to ensure revenue and proper channel attribution.
- Coupon attribution allows for a wider range of partners, which increases your reach. As sales are only tracked based on a coupon code, you not only support non-technical partnerships, but also partners that exclusively use social media, where affiliate links are often prohibited. Read more here.
2. It supports exclusive codes to give your more control over your coupon strategy
- This tracking method supports exclusive coupon allocation, i.e. if an exclusive code is given to a publisher and another partner makes a sale with this code, the sale is automatically attributed to the exclusive publisher. This prevents code leakage and gives you more control over your coupon activity. It also strengthens relationships with preferred partners, as they can count on the exclusivity of the code and the associated impact.
3. With the newest enhancement you can offer unique single-use codes in no time.
- While the exclusive single-use codes previously had to be created and assigned to the partner individually, this can now be automated with the help of a prefix. This way, coupon attribution can be done automatically by matching them with the prefix of the code without having to add them individually. This reduces manual effort and saves time.
How do I get started?
Enable coupon attribution tracking
Codes with coupon attribution can be given to an exclusive publisher of your choice. When a sale is made using this code, you pass it to us via the tracking tag. This allows us to attribute a sale to the publisher the code was assigned.
To be able to track via coupon attribution, your integration must meet the following requirements:
- Either unconditional tracking in place or use the channel parameters to de-dupe against other channels
- Codes are sent in the coupon code parameter of our tracking tag
For more information on the setup, read more here.
Create coupons in UI
Once coupon attribution tracking is enabled, you can set up your code in the MyOffers section of the user interface as a general code for all / selected publishers, or as an exclusive code for a specific partner.
In our Success Center find step-by-step instructions on how to set up coupons on the Awin platform.
Automate single-use codes
If you work with publishers that can process dynamic single-use coupon codes, make sure to use our new enhancement. It is an easy way to facilitate unique codes at scale.
When adding a new coupon code, simply add the prefix provided by the publisher and a wildcard character [*]. The prefix is a static part of the code the publisher always uses for the coupon codes ithe offers to itshis users, e.g. AB123, AB234, AB345, AB…
Measure your campaign success with Awin reporting
To measure the effectiveness of your coupon campaigns and partnerships, use Awin’s reports. You can see all coupon codes that have been used for a transaction on our platform under Reports > Transactions > in the "Voucher" column. In your analysis, check the order value, customer type and sales volume, it’s a great way to evaluate the campaign and its success.
If you have any questions about coupon attribution, please contact your account manager.
