Today’s consumers spend more time on their phones than on any other device, and that includes when they shop, browse, and engage with brands.

If your affiliate program isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re leaving money and opportunities on the table.

In this post, we’ll explain why mobile matters in affiliate marketing, how tracking has evolved to keep up, and what you can do to make your mobile campaigns shine.

Why Mobile Matters More Than Ever

Mobile now makes up more than half of global web traffic, and users spend nearly four hours a day on mobile apps. That means your customers and your partners are already mobile-first.

If your affiliate program is still designed for desktop, you’re missing the biggest share of your audience. Whether it’s driving app installs, in-app purchases, or clicks through mobile web, mobile touchpoints are defining the future of affiliate marketing.

Apps, Web, and Why You Need Both

A strong mobile affiliate marketing strategy includes both apps and mobile web, as each has unique advantages for partner campaigns.

Mobile Apps

Apps create deeper engagement and higher retention than websites. They let affiliates guide users straight to specific products or offers with deep links, creating a seamless path to purchase. Industries like gaming, e-commerce, and fintech have seen huge growth thanks to app-focused campaigns, and affiliates appreciate the stronger conversion rates that apps deliver.

Mobile Web

Mobile web is just as important. It’s flexible, easy to access, and accounts for around 60% of affiliate-driven traffic. That’s why you should:

• Build fast, responsive pages
• Keep navigation simple
• Optimize load times

Together, apps and web create richer customer journeys that desktop-only strategies can’t match.

Tracking Mobile Performance: What’s Changed?

Mobile isn’t just a different screen. Because of the nature of mobile operating systems, this channel requires different tracking methodologies.

Cookies don’t work reliably in mobile environments, which is why modern affiliate programs rely on cookieless postback tracking and mobile measurement partners (MMPs).

Mobile Measurement Partners

Mobile measurement partners, or MMPs, integrate directly with your app, ad networks, and affiliates to deliver accurate attribution. You’ll know exactly which affiliate drove each install, click, or purchase, and you can reward them with confidence.

Server Postbacks

Server-side postback tracking bypasses browsers completely. It ensures you get accurate, real-time data, even when cookies fail.

With MMPs and postback tracking, you can have confidence in your performance data and help future-proof your mobile affiliate marketing program as privacy rules evolve.

How TUNE Helps Marketers Win on Mobile

TUNE was built with mobile in mind, and we continue to innovate within the space. We also have native integrations with the top five mobile measurement partners.

Here’s how our platform helps advertisers and agencies simplify mobile affiliate marketing:

• Seamless integrations with MMPs, apps, ad platforms, and affiliate networks
• Native postback tracking and cookieless tracking that’s easy to implement
• Real-time dashboards to show what’s working and what needs improvement

In other words: The TUNE Partner Marketing Platform makes it easier to measure, optimize, and grow your mobile campaigns.

The Future of Affiliate Marketing Is Mobile

Mobile isn’t just an option anymore — it’s a foundational part of modern affiliate marketing. Brands that embrace mobile-first strategies see better engagement, stronger partnerships, and higher ROI. With TUNE’s tools and expertise, you can connect with customers wherever they are and give your affiliates the transparency and trust they need to succeed.

Want to learn more about how mobile measurement partners can help to power your program? Check out our MMP vs Partner Marketing Platform Cheat Sheet, or download our Ultimate Guide to Mobile Partner Marketing.

Still have questions? Reach out to us at partnermarketing@tune.com with your questions.

Influencer marketing has been increasing in popularity for years, as more brands discover influencers to be some of their most effective marketing partners. But influencers can also be one of the most difficult partners to measure, since they work across multiple channels and platforms. Luckily for performance marketers, there’s a simple solution: clickless tracking via promo codes.

In this article, we’ll explain how clickless tracking works, where promo codes fit in, and why you should start using promo codes to measure your influencer campaigns. 

What Is Clickless Tracking?

Clickless tracking is a way to attribute conversions without requiring the customer to click on a tracking link. 

One of the most common examples of clickless tracking is the promo code. Promo codes, which are also known as vanity codes, discount codes, and referral codes, are perfect for measuring campaigns where tracking links are ineffective or impossible to use. 

For example, let’s say you want to promote your subscription meal delivery service on a podcast about cooking. Listeners who are interested in your service can’t click on an affiliate tracking link. Instead, the podcast host reads your ad, directs users to your website or app, and tells them to enter a special promo code at checkout. Whenever a listener uses that promo code to sign up for your service, the podcast partner gets credit for the conversion. 

With clickless tracking, the promo code acts like an affiliate tracking link, letting the advertiser know exactly which influencer drove which conversion. And because promo codes are not restricted to a specific link on a website or app, they offer advertisers valuable access to scale. 

Promo Code Basics

While popular with marketers for measuring influencer campaigns, promo codes can be used virtually anywhere that advertising exists (given you have the technology to implement them). This includes online platforms, offline media, and anything in between. That makes promo codes infinitely adaptable, and allows them to open up additional marketing channels for any advertiser or affiliate program. 

Examples of channels where promo codes can be used to track conversions: 

• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• podcasts
• brick-and-mortar stores
• billboards
• magazines
• radio
• TV

Influencers in particular are fans of promo codes because they are platform agnostic, making them perfect for cross-channel promotion. An influencer can use the same promo code in an Instagram feed, an email blast, and a YouTube video, and easily track conversions across each of those channels, despite the difference in how their fans consume each medium and message.

To make clickless tracking work across these channels, advertisers need to have a certain level of control over their shopping cart functionality and tracking capabilities. Specifically, you need to be able to add a promo code field to your website or app checkout page. You also need to be able to pass checkout data in a conversion link (i.e., identify what code is used at checkout and send that information back to a tracking platform like TUNE). You can learn more about how the TUNE platform handles promo codes in this help article.

All this sounds great, right? However, it is important to remember that promo codes are a niche solution, not a way of life. If you are an advertiser with an affiliate program, and you have the ability to use link-based tracking, use it — as long as you’re using postback tracking, not pixel tracking. Pixel tracking is an inherently risky attribution method to use, with browsers like Safari fully blocking the use of third-party cookies for marketing purposes and others like Chrome constantly changing their stance and technology for handling them. 

To future-proof your tracking, we suggest adopting server-to-server tracking methods like postback tracking as soon as possible. (Check out this help article to learn more.)

Final Thoughts

Promo codes are a great way for advertisers to diversify their partnerships beyond traditional web-based affiliate marketing. And because clickless tracking does not require cookies to work, promo codes will remain in use for the foreseeable future, even as other tracking methods become obsolete or fall out of favor.

If you’d like to learn more about how to track promo codes in a platform like TUNE, visit our Promo Codes help article. Still have questions? Email us at partnermarketing@tune.com. 

This article was originally published on PerformanceIn.com and has been updated with new data and insights.

The third-party cookie has been on quite the roller coaster over the last few years. In 2017, Apple introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), a WebKit feature designed to reduce cross-site tracking. A year later, ITP 2.0 killed the third-party cookie in Safari, leaving anyone who still relied on client-side tracking scrambling for a solution. And in 2020, Apple started to block all third-party cookies in Safari and iOS by default.

While all this was going on, Google, Mozilla, and other major browsers made their own promises and plans to phase out the third-party cookie. But in 2024, Google did what no other browser had done before: a u-turn on their third-party cookie plans. They announced that they were giving up on eliminating the third-party tracking cookie in Chrome, shocking the affiliate marketing industry and raising even more questions about the future of privacy and tracking.

The saga above is just one reason we’ve always said to “cut out the cookies” in resources like our tracking guide. Third-party cookies are bad for your health — your tracking health, that is. In the context affiliate marketing, what this means is third-party tracking cookies will compromise your campaigns. First-party tracking cookies aren’t great for them, either, but there are important differences between the two.

In this post, we’re crumbling the tracking cookie to show you what it’s really made of, addressing the differences between first- and third-party cookies, and reviewing why relying only on cookie-based tracking will only hurt you in the end. 

Browser Cookies: A Bite-Sized History

While the internet has been around in some form since the 1960s, it didn’t evolve into the World Wide Web we know today until 1991. The first websites were basic, clunky, and far from user friendly, but their commercial potential was obvious. 

However, unlike brick and mortar businesses, websites had no way of knowing who was walking in the door, so to speak. Every user was anonymous, so websites offered every user the same experience — a poor one.

That all changed in 1994, when Lou Montulli invented the HTTP cookie.

An employee of Netscape, Montulli had been tasked to find a way to store incomplete transaction information in a user’s computer, rather than a business’s servers. His solution was a browser-based “cookie,” or a piece of data that could be stored by a web browser on a user’s computer. (He borrowed the term from “magic cookie,” a data file used in programming.) 

Suddenly, cookies made it relatively easy for a website to collect, store, and monetize visitor data. So, naturally, every website started using them. 

Different Types of Cookies

Cookies improve user experience. They make it possible for websites to remember user preferences, store items in shopping carts, and do a thousand other useful things. Cookies also perform essential functions on the web, such as authentication. Some of these jobs are more sensitive than others, or require specialized functionality, so different “types” of cookies exist to handle different tasks. 

(We say “types” in quotation marks because, technically, every cookie is the same type of file. They can contain the same information and functionality. What’s different is how they are created and used.)

Some types of cookies include:

• Session cookies
• Persistent cookies
• Secure cookies
• HTTP-only cookies
• SameSite cookies (of Google Chrome 80 fame)
• First-party cookies
• Third-party cookies

If you’re a digital marketer, you’ll recognize the persistent cookie, just maybe not by name. 

A persistent cookie is simply a cookie that expires after a specific date or time frame. Until it expires, a persistent cookie will share its information every time the user interacts with the domain it belongs to. This interaction can be on the website where the cookie was created, or via a resource belonging to the original website that is hosted by a different publisher, like a banner ad. 

For this reason, persistent cookies are also called tracking cookies. 

Tracking Cookies: First-Party vs Third-Party

Tracking cookies come in two flavors: first-party and third-party. The “party” in both terms refers to the website that sets the cookie. 

First-Party Cookies

First-party cookies are set directly by the website you’re on, either by the publisher’s web server or JavaScript loaded on the website, and only the same domain can access them. The domain of a first-party cookie will be the same as the domain in your browser’s address bar.

As first-party cookies come from a trusted source — the website you’re actively visiting — browsers allow them by default. That’s generally a good thing, because these cookies enable much of the functionality you’re used to when browsing the web. 

If first-party cookies were blocked, you would have to log in to your favorite website every time you visited. You wouldn’t be able to purchase multiple items while shopping online, because your cart would reset with every item you add to it. And so on.

You can still choose to disable first-party cookies in any browser, or delete them at will — just don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Third-Party Cookies

Third-party cookies are not set by the website you’re on. Instead, they are set by an external server (e.g., a tracking platform) via a piece of code loaded on the website you are visiting. These cookies can then be accessed on any website that loads the code from the same third-party server. Since they share information across websites, third-party cookies are also known as cross-site cookies.

Third-party cookies are used in online advertising because they make it easy for marketers to collect data about consumers and use it to serve relevant ads across the internet. Unfortunately, many websites use third-party cookies to collect this data without the consumer’s knowledge, mine unnecessary personal and behavioral information, and track users wherever they go online. These practices have led to increased global scrutiny and mistrust of the digital advertising industry and driven new legislation to protect consumer privacy and data security.

Browser support for third-party tracking cookies is rapidly declining. Many major browsers now block them by default, and others have announced plans to phase them out entirely:

• In Safari and iOS, Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) blocks all third-party tracking cookies by default. (Remember ITP 2.0? It started the shift towards cookie blocking in late 2018.)
• In Firefox, Mozilla’s Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks all third-party tracking cookies by default.
• Google announced in January 2020 plans to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome within two years, while Chrome’s Incognito mode now blocks all third-party cookies by default.

Should You Use Cookies in Performance Marketing?

We admit it — not all cookies are bad. The internet as we know it couldn’t work without first-party cookies. Tracking cookies, however, are a different story.

When we tell you to cut out the cookies in our white paper, we mean tracking cookies in general, and third-party tracking cookies in particular. But even first-party cookies, when used for digital tracking purposes, have limitations and drawbacks. 

Third-Party Cookies and Pixel Tracking

Third-party cookies and web browsers power pixel tracking, also called client-side tracking or cookie-based tracking. Cookies are simple, and web browsers do all the work of storing and sending information in pixel tracking, so it’s easy to implement and use. Unfortunately, cookies are also easy for browsers to block, users to delete, and bad actors to leverage, leaving marketers and their campaigns at risk. Not to mention, pixel tracking works only on desktop web.

Pros: Easy to set up and share data. 

Cons: Inaccurate, unreliable, prone to fraud, doesn’t work on mobile, doesn’t work in browsers where third-party tracking cookies are blocked (i.e. Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox, and soon Google’s Chrome).

First-Party Cookies and JavaScript SDK Tracking

First-party cookies can be used as third-party tracking cookies in certain situations. This can bypass some browser restrictions, but it’s not a panacea for pixel tracking.

TUNE’s version of this tracking method is called JavaScript SDK tracking. It uses a JavaScript code snippet and first-party cookies, and still makes the browser do all the work. Therefore, it’s still susceptible to some of the same risks and limitations as pixel tracking. For example, Safari deletes all first-party cookies (and other script-writable storage) after 7 days without user interaction. If you use this tracking method, then your conversion windows on any Apple device are capped at one week. We go into more detail on the effects of Apple’s anti-tracking measures here.

Pros: Works on desktop web and mobile web, more reliable than pixel tracking, less sensitive to browser restrictions.

Cons: Implementation is more complex than pixel tracking, browser and cookie restrictions still apply, cannot track cross-channel, difficult to troubleshoot.

Conclusion: Cut Out the Cookies, Pivot to Postbacks

We stand by our point: All tracking cookies, whether first-party or third-party, will hurt your tracking health in the end. When superior solutions like postbacks are available, there’s no need to risk your campaign health with either one. 

Postback tracking, unlike pixel and JavaScript SDK tracking, does not rely on web browsers to work. Also called server-side tracking or server-to-server tracking, postback tracking uses direct server communication instead. This frees marketers from cookie-based browser restrictions and provides complete control over campaign tracking. Even better? It works cross-channel on desktop web, mobile web, and mobile apps. 

For the short list of pros and cons, plus how postbacks compare to cookie-based tracking, read “Pixels vs. Postbacks: Which Tracking Method Should You Be Using?”

For a more in-depth look at all of these tracking methods, download our white paper: How to Become a Track Star: Your Guide to Tracking for Performance Marketing Campaigns. 

Performance marketers who continue to rely on the dying third-party cookie do so at their own risk. Whether the same fate awaits first-party tracking cookies is unknown, but we don’t suggest waiting around to find out.

Photo by Nesa by Makers

When it comes to performance marketing, one of the biggest questions you can ask yourself (or your advertiser) is what kind of conversion tracking protocol you want to use: pixel tracking (client-side) or postback tracking (server-side). There are benefits and disadvantages to each, and it’s important to distinguish between them if you wish to be successful. So, let’s break it down.

First — definitions:

Pixel Tracking

Also called client-side, cookie-based, in-browser tracking. This method relies on the user’s browser to track conversions by placing a cookie on the click that is called again on conversion to authenticate the session and attribute the conversion to the correct affiliate. Pixel-based offers use cookies to track because they can store the session values in the cookie, and with the way pixels are designed to track, can extract this information from the browser easily. As a result, setting up an offer to track using pixels is very simple and only involves placing the HTML offer pixel on the conversion page.

Use pixel tracking when:

TUNE’s general recommendation is to use pixel tracking as little as possible, as pixel tracking only works for non-mobile web traffic where cookies can be stored. Additionally, major browsers like Safari, Chrome, and Firefox are moving away from allowing tracking-related cookies even for first parties.

As the last resort, use pixel tracking if the following are true:

The offer’s advertiser is unable to send server-side conversion notifications.
The offer does not involve mobile app installs.
The offer’s desired end users are on browsers that support tracking-related cookies.

For more information, check out this TUNE support article explaining implementation of pixel tracking.

Postback Tracking

Also known as server-side, server call, server 2 server (or server-to-server), s2s and, mistakenly, server pixel tracking, relies on the advertiser’s servers to track sessions generated on clicks to attribute conversions.  The servers record and then pass the transaction ID back to TUNE. This method is independent of the user’s browser. Postback tracking can be thought of as two separate processes: what happens when a user clicks on an offer and what happens upon conversion.

Leading up to the conversion:

1. User sees an offer.
2. User clicks on the offer.
3. Click goes to a TUNE server. The server records the click, then generates and records the ID for that session (in most cases the transaction ID).
4. TUNE immediately directs the user to the offer’s landing page, including ID for that session in the offer URL.
5. User sees offer’s page on advertiser’s site. Advertiser’s site handles recording that session’s ID however it deems fit, such as storing it as a variable in an e-commerce site or SDK in a mobile app.

When the user converts on that offer:

1. The advertiser’s server sends a signal to TUNE (a.k.a. fires a postback) that includes the ID TUNE initially supplied. The user is not directed back to TUNE in any way.
2. TUNE records the conversion for that session.

TUNE has another great support article explaining postback tracking.

Use postback tracking when:

You have the technical resources available to implement the server-side calls (see below for details on implementation).

Pros and Cons of Pixel Tracking

Pros:

• Pixel tracking is extremely easy to implement. Because it’s just copying and pasting code into the HTML of your website, you don’t need to be a developer to set up tracking. Along the same lines, the learning curve for implementation is not as steep.

Cons:

• Pixel tracking doesn’t work if the conversion occurs on a mobile device. That means conversions on mobile web, in the app stores, and in apps will not register. (Mobile devices and smartphones usually have cookies blocked as a default setting, so a cookie will never be placed on mobile in the first place.)
• Pixel tracking is much more prone to fraud. As you can imagine, because the tracking is done in the browser, it would be fairly easy for a tech-savvy affiliate to fire pixels without an actual conversion occurring.  
• Sometimes, pixels just don’t fire and you won’t know why. A possible reason for this could be that the user cleared their cache between click and conversion, but occasionally the reason is unknown. Reporting will be of little help for troubleshooting, because you won’t have server logs to utilize.
• For all of these reasons (and others), pixel tracking is highly inaccurate.

Pros and Cons of Postback Tracking

Pros:

• Much more reliable because all tracking is done server-side, so you’re leaving a lot less up to chance.
• Much easier to troubleshoot, using TUNE’s server logs.
• Less prone to fraud, and many more options available to mitigate fraud, like adding an offer whitelist, advertiser security token, or hashing the postback URL. Read more about preventing postback fraud.
• You have the option to set up a global postback (on a per advertiser basis), where a single postback implementation can register a conversion for all offers for that advertiser. Pixels don’t have that option.
• In general, postback tracking will allow more options for conversion firing beyond when the user is on the webpage. Instead of being limited to a simple page load, you can have your advertiser send back the conversion URL whenever they please. This will become helpful if your advertiser doesn’t want to register conversions until after an order has shipped, or a lead has been qualified, for example.
• Postback tracking works on mobile devices! Remember, pixel tracking will not work on a smartphone or mobile device.

Cons:

• Postback tracking is harder to implement. It requires direct communication between the network and the advertiser to make sure that the ID is passed into the correct parameter, and then it requires technical implementation on behalf of the advertiser to store and pass back the value. The advertiser will need to have someone with server-side HTTP experience in order to code the requests.
• Implementation time varies widely. Postback tracking could be set up in a matter of minutes, but for some advertisers, it could take an entire day to code the database to store the IDs.

Want more information? Check out our blog series on digital tracking methods, or download the full e-book: How to Become a Track Star: Your Guide to Tracking for Performance Marketing Campaigns.

This article was originally published in 2016 and has been updated with new links and information.

Photo by maria pagan on Unsplash

You’ve built an awesome new product.  You’ve already set up your online store. You’ve put up a few advertisements. And now you wait for the millions of people to come to your site and buy, buy, and buy! Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work because there are so many new products, and shoppers are continuously bombarded by competing ads everywhere they click. Perhaps you might want to try an affiliate marketing program.

Affiliate marketing is simplified as paying someone (usually a company that runs affiliate programs, or a popular website, or even an individual) to send qualified visitors to buy your product. When a product is purchased, then that someone receives a commission from the sale of the product.

Affiliate marketing programs are popular for both small companies trying to find their first new customers to multi-billion dollar companies, such as Dell and Amazon, who use affiliate programs to grow their revenues at the expense of margin.

If you want to build an affiliate marketing program, you have to be good at affiliate marketing management. Here are a few things that you should focus on from the beginning:

1) Get the Best Affiliate Tracking You Can Buy or Build

Because you have to pay either a set dollar amount per sale or a percentage of total sales, it’s essential to confirm the source of every sale. Many companies that facilitate affiliate deals have their own cookie systems to ensure that customers are tracked from the time they see an advertisement for your product on a vendor web site, through the time when that customer enters your e-commerce site, and then through the time when your product is purchased by that customer. If you are managing your affiliate marketing program in-house, then you will need to buy or build a transparent system that can handle all tracking.

For more tips on how to get your tracking right, download our guide: How to Become a Track Star.

Either way, you still want to make sure that you have your own affiliate marketing tracking system where you match up each one of those incoming customers to a real purchase on your e-commerce site. Having good tracking data means that you can protect yourself from any discussions that might arise if your company’s sales numbers do not match your affiliate vendors’ numbers. Some basic data may come from e-commerce tracking through Google Analytics, but you also want to ask your backend developer or database administrator if you can get that data directly from your sales management system.

2) Know How Much You Can Spend Per Lead

You need to understand how much revenue and margin that you think you’re going to make per each customer lead before you can start negotiations on how much you will pay in affiliate commissions. That way, you can manage affiliate expectations as well as your own.

If you are selling a physical product, then use the cost of the product and retail price to find gross margin. That margin is what you will sacrifice with affiliate fees in order to gain total unit sales and an increase in revenue. If you know your own margin, and your expected return rate, early planning will keep you margin positive even at high sales velocity.

If you are selling a subscription product, then you should understand how long the average subscriber will stay subscribed and how much that subscriber will pay per month. That understanding can provide a higher maximum amount that you can spend per customer while maintaining profitability. The risk is that if what you paid per customer is more than a single month’s subscription, it could take a few months to earn back what you had spent on that user.

If you are selling a free-to-play mobile game that has a zero download cost but in-game virtual goods, you need to be very good with your data. You can determine how many days an average player will keep playing your game and how much and when that player pays for in-game items. Keeping acquisition costs below the revenue per player is the first step, but you will also need to understand how many days it takes for every affiliate channel to pay back that cost. It could take many months for certain channels to be profitable against just the marketing spend, making proper affiliate marketing management a must.

3) Know Where Your Affiliates Are Advertising

You might already be invested in paid search marketing or you might have direct marketing deals for some sites. Advertising networks with affiliates who are not managed closely might start competing with you for your own keywords, copyrights and trademarks. Depending on how they promote you, they might be able to get their search engine rank higher than your company marketing site. This means that for organic search, you might end up paying for a sale that should have been free. It’s good to set some simple affiliate management rules for what each partner can do and where they can advertise — otherwise it’s like paying a company to compete with yourself, and that means you will be always paying for the most expensive option than the cheapest.

A good thing to do is always ask each new affiliate for screenshots of your placement. Understand what types of placement you are getting on their networks and understand what tools they are using. You should also ask for what demographic audience they are targeting for your product so you can manage how they use your marketing materials more effectively.

4) Always Measure Results Daily

Even with a solid affiliate marketing partner, I believe that there can be problems at times with their data, and comparing their data with your tracking data becomes very important. Not all partner sites are as transparent or well-managed as they should be, and it’s important to see if there are good or bad trends in the sales data by affiliate program partner.

If one of your affiliates goes from 10 sales per day to 1,000 sales on a random Wednesday, you should first check if everything looks correct or whether there are data errors. If it’s a real improvement, see if those new customers are behaving like the long-term 10 sales per day. If it looks profitable, then open your budget and see if you can again replicate that success by getting 10,000 sales from them.

If those new thousand-odd sales look like customers who aren’t the same quality as the typical 10 daily, then it might be in your best interest to shut it down rather than deal with 3,000 unprofitable customers by Friday and 5,000 by Monday. Do not forget, you are paying for them, so spend your money on good customers (and good affiliate marketing management). Here are some extra tips on how to get affiliate marketing results.

5) Build Good Affiliate Relationships

There are many elements about trust in affiliate marketing. As a buyer of these services, make sure that you can pay in a timely manner. Work with your management partners in finance (or whomever is running finance) to understand how much you can spend. Set up payment terms that are reasonable, like net 30 versus all pre-paid, and make sure that the affiliates you work with can agree with that schedule.

Spend time cultivating the best program partners and cut non-profitable dead weight affiliates. It’s very easy for an affiliate to promise a performance or lead number, but it’s far more difficult for them to deliver those customers in volume, and again that’s why you want to be the buyer that they want to work with long-term. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Affiliate Marketing Management for the Win

At long last, if you have done your affiliate marketing management correctly, you will have found new channels to reach those millions of customers who are perfect for your product.

Get more tips and tricks for managing affiliates and programs in our newest e-book, “10 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting an Affiliate Program.”

Acquiring new high-intent customers is a critical challenge for any business, especially in the finance market. Customers rely heavily on word-of-mouth and take many factors into consideration before converting, making the stakes even higher.

Traditional marketing strategies often miss the mark, struggling to hit the sweet spot between ad spend and customer quality. This is where outcome-based marketing (OBM) comes into play. OBM revolutionizes customer acquisition by offering a more effective, performance-based approach, positioning brands to access previously untapped high-intent traffic, all while sharpening their competitive edge in the financial services landscape.

What is Outcome-Based Marketing (OBM)?

Outcome-based marketing (OBM) is a results-driven strategy ideal for financial services marketers. With OBM, you only pay when specific KPIs crucial to your business are achieved, such as acquiring a qualified lead, loan application submissions, or new account openings. Campaigns are tailored around these down-funnel events, enabling you to test performance across various channels and pinpoint the most effective placements for converting traffic into customers.

Overcoming Customer Acquisition Pain Points with Outcome-Based Marketing (OBM)

Discover how an OBM model helps tackle common obstacles in scaling customer acquisition in the finance industry.

High Costs per Acquisition: OBM helps manage high acquisition costs by ensuring you only pay for specific, measurable outcomes such as qualified leads or completed applications. This ensures every dollar you invest drives growth. With continuous optimization, OBM pinpoints where your best customers come from, enabling you to scale effectively without overspending.

Inefficiency in Targeting: OBM enhances targeting by using placement-based strategies across digital channels, geo-targeting specific locations, and dayparting for optimal ad timing. For finance marketers, this means precisely directing ads to high-potential leads. AI-driven optimization further refines targeting, continuously uncovering new customer acquisition opportunities and improving campaign efficiency.

• Working with an outcome-based marketing expert like Perform^[cb] connects you with top-performing partners to reach your ideal consumers. For example, a national mortgage marketer achieved a 481% increase in biannual growth and a 78% boost in conversions in just one quarter by leveraging Perform^[cb]’s expertise in tracking KPIs, managing volume, and analyzing competitive payouts.
• Investing in a performance marketing solution that can accurately track cross-channel conversions while protecting consumer data and complying with industry regulations is especially important for finance brands. A privacy-centric tracking platform like TUNE can ensure that every conversion is measured, whether it takes place in a web browser or a mobile app, without using third-party cookies or storing sensitive customer information.

Regulatory Costs: OBM allows you to work with partners who understand and adhere to financial regulations. These partners handle compliance aspects related to their marketing efforts, reducing the costs and risks associated with regulatory adherence.

• From FTC and SEC advertising laws to content compliance and bank regulations, Perform^[cb] ensures brands’ campaigns are protected through enhanced compliance monitoring, in-depth partner vetting process, and patented, built-in anti-fraud technology.

Measuring ROI: OBM prioritizes measurable results, simplifying ROI tracking even with complex customer journeys and multiple touchpoints. By paying for outcomes, you gain clearer insights into which channels and partners are delivering value, improving your ability to evaluate and optimize marketing effectiveness.

Lead Quality vs. Quantity: OBM emphasizes paying only for leads that meet specific criteria and convert into customers. This is especially crucial for financial services brands, where high acquisition costs are exacerbated by a significant portion of unqualified leads. By focusing on quality over quantity, OBM helps mitigate these costs and ensures a more efficient allocation of ad spend.

How Financial Services Brands Can Get Started with Outcome-Based Marketing (OBM)

Here are a few tips on how financial marketers can begin testing on a 100% performance-based model:

1. Define Clear Outcomes: Set specific goals like acquiring qualified leads or increasing conversions. This helps measure campaign effectiveness and ensures you’re focusing on high-quality metrics.
2. Leverage Data and AI: Use tools like Google Analytics for segmentation, Salesforce for predictive modeling, HubSpot for behavioral tracking, and Perform^[cb]’s PerformSense AI to enhance traffic quality and conversion rates by filtering out non-converting traffic based on extensive data. Choose a tracking platform like TUNE’s that offers real-time measurement and a library of dashboards and reports to get insight into what’s working and what’s not. For finance brands with business intelligence tools already in place, consider using a fully automated event delivery service such as Firehose to live stream data into proprietary systems.
3. Optimizations to Scale Incrementality: Regularly review and adjust campaigns to measure and scale incremental impact. Perform^[cb] uses advanced methods to isolate and test traffic, accurately assessing the impact of your marketing efforts. Set goals for key metrics like conversion rate, then use performance automation tools to automatically optimize campaigns based on those goals.
4. Consider Speaking with an Outcome-Based Expert: Connect with performance marketing partners experienced in financial services who offer robust targeting and transparent reporting. Perform^[cb]’s Outcome Engine leverages a performance-based model to acquire new customers alongside your existing marketing channels. TUNE’s expert team is knowledgeable about the challenges of marketing for financial services and can share learnings and best practices from years of experience.

Cutting Costs, Boosting Results

Outcome-based marketing offers a transformative approach to customer acquisition in the finance and insurance sectors. By focusing on measurable outcomes, leveraging precision targeting, and utilizing advanced tracking and analytics, marketers can significantly reduce spend without losing out on qualified customers.

Are you a financial services marketer eager to dive into outcome-based marketing? Connect with Perform^[cb]’s team of customer acquisition experts and get started today!

Email TUNE’s Partnerships Team at partnerships@tune.com to learn more about performance marketing for financial services brands and how the right tracking platform can help.

In an unexpected and dramatic move (but really, not all that surprising), Google has announced it will abandon its plans to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser. The decision, which comes after years of pivots and setbacks, sent shockwaves through the digital advertising ecosystem. Those in the industry who weren’t left reeling have been scrambling to reassess their strategies.

Unpacking the Shock

Google’s about-face comes after years of preparation for a cookieless future, during which advertisers, publishers, and technology companies have invested heavily in developing alternative solutions. The shock is not just about the abrupt change in Google’s stance, but also about the timing. Plenty of tech providers and brands have started to implement new tracking technologies and adjust their data privacy practices, only to find that the old methods will still be in play.

What Publishers and Brands Should Care About

1. Data Privacy and Compliance

• Concern: With third-party cookies still in use, the onus remains on publishers and brands to ensure compliance with stringent data privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA.
• Action: Continue developing and implementing privacy-first strategies. Invest in technologies that enhance user consent management and data protection. Lean on first-party cookies where possible.

2. Consumer Trust

• Concern: Consumers are increasingly aware of and concerned about their online privacy — and how different companies acknowledge and respect it. Google’s back-and-forth decisions can create confusion and potentially erode trust.
• Action: Maintain transparency with consumers about data usage. Reinforce your commitment to privacy through clear communication and privacy policies that put the consumer first.

3. Ad Spend and ROI

• Concern: The uncertainty around cookie deprecation has made it challenging to allocate ad budgets effectively and measure ROI accurately. In addition, the transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 has many still learning and adjusting to the new reality of analyzing performance in Chrome.
• Action: Use this extended period to test and refine new tracking solutions, specifically server-side methodologies like postback tracking. Diversify your ad strategies to include first-party data and contextual advertising.

4. Technological Adaptation

• Concern: The industry has been caught in a state of flux, investing in new technologies while still relying on the old.
• Action: Balance your investment in emerging privacy-preserving technologies with the optimization of existing cookie-based systems. Leverage server-side tracking and advanced analytics to prepare for future changes.

Moving Forward with TUNE

At TUNE, we understand the frustration and confusion this decision may cause. (Oh, do we ever.) Our previous analysis highlighted the importance of preparing for a cookieless future despite Google’s delays. As we stated in our August 2022 blog post, “Google Delays Third-Party Cookie Deprecation Again to Late 2024,” the landscape of digital advertising is constantly evolving, and flexibility is key.

Our commitment is to provide you with the industry’s most advanced, privacy-friendly tracking solutions. With this extended timeline, we encourage our customers and partners to continue adopting innovative methods for data tracking and analysis. As always, we strongly recommend using server-side postback tracking over pixel tracking, as postback tracking does not require cookies and works on mobile and desktop. You can learn about the pros and cons of postback tracking and other conversion tracking methods in our free e-book.

Where Will the Cookie Saga Take Us Next?

While Google’s decision to retain third-party cookies may provide a temporary reprieve, it underscores the importance of continued innovation and adaptation. Publishers and brands must remain vigilant and proactive in their privacy practices and tracking technologies. TUNE is here to support you through these changes and ensure your marketing efforts remain effective and compliant.

For more details on Google’s decision and its implications, read the full article on The Drum.

By staying ahead of these changes and continuously evolving our platform, TUNE aims to provide our customers and partners with the tools and insights they need to thrive in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

Questions? Get in touch with us at partnermarketing@tune.com.

How to Find New Strategic Partners for Your Affiliate Program

In affiliate marketing, not all partners are created equal. Long gone are the days when an affiliate channel was made up of only coupon and cash back partners. Today, the affiliate world overlaps with many other channels. Partners have become savvy at operating on a performance model, which is attractive for both brands and publishers. Below, we’ve outlined four strategic partnership opportunities that have grown substantially in this market that your brand may not have considered for the affiliate marketing channel.

Look for CLO Partners, aka Card-Linked Offer Partners

CLO partners are businesses that collaborate with credit card issuers to provide cardholders with discounts, rewards, or cash back offers based on their spending habits. Strategic partners like these use technology to link offers or promotions directly to the customer’s credit or debit card, eliminating the need for physical coupons and promo codes.

These partners are highly attractive because of their capability to granularly target a specific audience or demographic to gain net new customers, and to re-engage customers that have lapsed. Consumers receive personalized discounts and rewards, retailers attract more customers, and financial institutions enhance customer loyalty and card usage. Card-linked offer partners are a great test to add to your program to learn more about your consumer’s behavior and what offers or products they respond to.

Think: Drop, Dosh, Figg

Consider BNPL Partners, aka Buy Now, Pay Later Partners

We’ve seen an influx of traffic to these strategic partnerships due to a popular and evolving consumer payment option that allows shoppers to make a purchase and defer payment for the goods or services they acquire. Instead of paying the full amount upfront, buyers can split their payments into multiple, often interest-free installments over a period. In other words: buy now, pay later.

BNPL services have gained prominence in marketing efforts for e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail environments, and are often offered by third-party providers or integrated into the checkout processes of online stores.

Think: Affirm, Klarna, Afterpay

Research CUG Partners, aka Closed User Group Partners

Closed user group partners are business entities made up of large exclusive groups that are only accessible through a closed portal via login. These strategic partners work well for brands who have an appetite for testing within specific market segments and who have margin for offering an exclusive discount to consumers, whether that be evergreen or for a short duration.

Strategic partners like CUGs can work with you on your program goals to curate an offer that would resonate best with their audience and give directional feedback for what’s worked with similar verticals. Popular closed user groups include employee benefit programs, student portals, military benefit sites, airline rewards, and others.

Think: EBG Solutions, Student Beans, ID.me

Investigate the World of Technology Partners

We don’t have a fun acronym for this one, and it’s a bit more broad. However, there are unique technologies that operate within an affiliate payment model that can bring high-value, incremental revenue to your partnership program.

These strategic partners offer solutions that help manage, optimize, and track affiliate campaigns, making it easier for both advertisers and partners to achieve their goals. For example, you may want a partner to suggest product add-ons or schedule reminders for users in real time or after a certain amount of lapsed time on a webpage.

Think: UpSellit, RevLifter, Katalys

Get Started with New Partnerships Today

The changing economy and recent market trends have opened the doors to new opportunities for performance-based partnerships, including the four we’ve listed above. What other partnerships have you recently discovered or think are flying under the radar? We’d love to hear from you at partnerships@tune.com.

Once you’re ready to grow your program with these new strategic partners, consider a robust, SaaS-based platform like TUNE instead of using an affiliate network. We outline the benefits of working independently with partners and a solution like TUNE in this Partnerships 101 blog post.

Discover how to expand your affiliate program to new partners and channels in our Ultimate Guide to Mobile Partner Marketing. It’s everything you need to know to combine the power of performance-based partnerships with the focus and reach of mobile user acquisition efforts.

SheBuysTravel is an established, trusted, and actionable information source for women with a spirit of adventure. Millions of discerning and curious women come to SheBuysTravel each year for guidance on travel destinations, products, and experiences. SheBuysTravel writers have been there and packed that. We share the best ways to travel — with family, with friends, and solo — and the best gear to take along. 

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of SheBuysTravel?  

A: SheBuysTravel expertise is focused on building brand awareness and crafting sales funnels that drive our audience to convert. We have successfully partnered with destinations, products and services, delivering millions of dollars in sales.

Q: What are the top ways you promote brands?  

A: Content is the foundation for all of our campaigns. From there, we promote brands and destinations via video, newsletter, social media and ad sets.

Q: What is the total reach of your audience?  

A: In 2023, SheBuysTravel reached over 10 million women across all platforms.

Q: Can you share some insights about your company’s audience and demographics?  

A: As you might guess, the SheBuysTravel audience is primarily female (68%), mobile first (72%) and range in age from 25 to 54. SheBuysTravel readers want value for their travel spend and they want firsthand personalized information. They do their homework when it comes to travel. They use multiple platforms to research destinations, products and activities.

Q: Which verticals perform the best with SheBuysTravel?  

A: Hotels and resorts perform the best followed by products in our packing lists and product guides that save her shopping time and money.

Q: Can you tell us about a successful campaign you’ve run in the last six months?  

A: A luxury resort engaged with us to drive a lower click-through rate than they were able to achieve directly, and to drive bookings. We have created several campaigns for this client and the most recent, which started in January 2024, delivered a 26% ROI so far.

Q: What’s something unique about SheBuysTravel?  

A: SheBuysTravel is a consumer rich content platform targeted to women AND a marketing agency that curates audiences using digital assets. This is important to our partners because we can jumpstart campaigns quickly, distribute content among multiple platforms to reach diverse audiences and pivot on a dime when needed. SheBuysTravel content is original — 90% of our 75 writers are trained journalists who write from firsthand experience.

Q: Any industry trends or insights to share with brands?  

A: Women are increasingly conducting thorough research before making a purchase. They turn to online content and social media videos to stay informed through trusted third-party sources. When we provide personal experiences and context around the brands we promote, we notice a significant increase in click-through rates and conversion rates. The narrative surrounding the products and brands is crucial.

Q: Why should brands want to work with SheBuysTravel?

A: Adding on to our response above about how we’re unique, all SheBuysTravel campaigns are customized for the client, with high-touch service, guaranteed deliverables and dedicated project management. Our team has been working together for over 10 years. We LOVE what we do.

TUNE customers can request an introduction to SheBuysTravel directly in the TUNE Marketplace.

Questions? Click here to chat with one of our experts.

When social media influencers first stepped onto the scene, there were limited options for marketers to work with them. Sponsored posts, free products or services, and flat fees were the norm. Now influencers and creators are embracing performance-based advertising, opening a world of opportunities for themselves and the brands that partner with them. This doesn’t mean, however, that influencers and creators are the same as traditional affiliates. While both groups aim to drive conversions and boost brand visibility, they operate in fundamentally different ways and use distinct strategies to achieve their goals.

We’re covering the basics of influencer affiliate marketing in our new series, the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint. For an introduction to the series and the e-book it’s based on, read Part 1 or watch our on-demand webinar.

In this post, we’re diving into the differences between the two groups and why influencer-affiliate programs are gaining momentum in today’s marketing landscape.

Download the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities

How Do Affiliates and Publishers Differ from Influencers and Creators?

Traditional affiliates and publishers, rooted in the digital advertising ecosystem, have long relied on metrics like impressions, engagement rates, and clicks to measure success. In some cases, this focus on metrics can come at the expense of user experience. Navigating cluttered websites, wading through obviously AI-generated text, scrolling past pages of intrusive ads — it all harms the quality of users’ interactions with the content they’re looking for. When these less-than-ideal experiences add up, consumers can easily become frustrated, disinterested, and distrustful of the brands associated with them.

On the other hand, today’s influencer programs lean more toward authenticity and trustworthiness by leveraging the personal connection between social media creators and their dedicated followers. Brands that recognize the value of genuine engagement over sheer reach can foster deeper connections with audiences through relatable content and endorsements from trusted influencers. From this perspective, the affiliate industry’s leap to influencers makes sense, as it allows brands to create real connections and communities through their own ambassadors — without the corporate side of marketing getting in the way.

What Makes Influencer-Affiliate Programs Different?

Influencer-affiliate programs share the same pillars as traditional affiliate programs, but they require a different framework and fulfillment strategy. This is most evident in four areas of the program.

Program Strategy

Influencer programs come in all shapes and sizes. They can take a diverse range of approaches, categorized based on scope and the influencer’s degree of influence. From micro-influencers with niche audiences to macro-influencers commanding broader reach, brands have the flexibility to tailor their strategies to align with specific campaign objectives and target demographics. We’ve put together a graphic to illustrate this concept below:

Offers and Payments

Influencer programs also differ from traditional programs in their offers and payments. Unlike CPA (cost-per-action) offers, the bread and butter of affiliate programs, offers in influencer programs usually prioritize a tiered and blended approach. This means encompassing metrics beyond sales, such as views, likes, and shares. This multifaceted payment structure acknowledges the diverse contributions of influencers, incentivizing them to create compelling content that resonates with their audience while driving conversions.

The way you pay influencers and creators can also vary from the way traditional affiliates are paid. We go into this more in our e-book and on-demand webinar — you can watch a quick clip below.

Creative Production and Control

Creative is, hands down, the main differentiator between traditional affiliates and influencer affiliates.

Influencer-affiliate programs redefine creative production by moving beyond conventional banner ads and sponsored articles. Successful brands collaborate with influencers to craft authentic narratives and tell stories their audiences are interested to hear. This empowers creators as brand advocates rather than just another paid advertiser. This personalized approach nurtures brand loyalty and fosters deeper connections with consumers and communities.

For an example, check out ZeroTo1 (our e-book partner) and their Instacart case study here.

Tracking Technology

Influencer programs need specialized tracking technologies to effectively attribute conversions and measure campaign performance across channels. This is because the most popular social media platforms for creators are mobile-first, and the tracking works differently on mobile than on a desktop browser. For brands that are already running a traditional program, getting started with creator affiliates can be as simple as integrating an influencer toolkit. Adding dedicated influencer marketing tools to your existing tech stack will provide a holistic view of engagement metrics and ultimately allow you to run more effective, measurable campaigns.

How to Get Started with Influencer-Affiliate Marketing

As consumer preferences continue to evolve, influencer-affiliate programs offer a dynamic and adaptable approach to affiliate marketing. By prioritizing authenticity, fostering genuine connections, and embracing flexibility and creativity, brands can navigate the ever-changing digital landscape and forge lasting relationships with their target audience. Whether partnering with Instagram micro-influencers or the biggest names on TikTok, the key lies in building trust and telling stories to drive engagement and drive business results.

To learn more about the differences between creators and traditional affiliates, download the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities.

Check back soon for Part 3!

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash

Whether you’re a digital media buyer (i.e., advertiser) or seller (i.e., publisher), both depend on each other for a successful affiliate marketing program. Advertisers need real-time access and visibility into inventory. Publishers need to be able to show inventory as it becomes available, and provide insightful and accurate reporting. Without the right affiliate marketing platform to track, manage, and report on campaigns, the process becomes cumbersome at best — and can jeopardize thousands or millions of dollars at worst.

In this blog post, we recommend a few things to look for when searching for the right affiliate marketing platform for your business.

5 Things to Look for in an Affiliate Marketing Platform

1. Fully Customizable, White Label Technology

Every company has a different need, brand, industry, and process. As such, it’s important that you choose an affiliate marketing platform that you can customize to fit your company, instead of forcing your company to fit a certain affiliate marketing platform. At TUNE, our platform is white label ready and fully customizable. Whether you want to use our platform’s features and tools out of the box, or leverage our API to build your own on top of it, you can create the perfect platform for your business.

2. Best-In-Class Support

No matter which affiliate marketing platform you choose, there are some things you will need help with from time to time. That’s why it’s important to choose a platform with stellar customer support. The last thing you want to do is spend valuable time waiting on an answer while you could be optimizing your campaigns.

One of the best ways to identify an affiliate marketing platform that prioritizes customer service is whether customer satisfaction is a metric they track. TUNE has a 98% customer service satisfaction rating, and our onboarding team always gets high marks from new customers. We’re also continually looking for ways to get even better, asking our customers for feedback at every opportunity possible.

3. Real-Time Reporting and Campaign Optimization

New inventory becomes available every second of the day. For buyers, success depends on making more timely buys, and sellers need to be able to expose inventory quickly and easily. A top priority should be choosing an affiliate marketing platform that provides real-time data and optimization opportunities so you can make instantaneous decisions. The faster you’re able to optimize, the faster your revenue can scale.

Unlike our competitors, TUNE offers real real-time reporting and management capabilities, including A/B testing and landing space splits, so you can discover what performs best and make instant (or incremental) changes that add up to massive results. (Go ahead — ask any platform how they define “in real time,” and get specific numbers. You’ll see their “real-time” reporting is closer to “delayed by a few hours or a day” reporting.)

4. System Reliability

When assessing an affiliate marketing platform, ask for statistics about uptime. It’s critical as a seller to be able to provide timely and accurate data and analysis. In the fast-paced world of affiliate marketing, nothing can be more frustrating (or result in more lost revenue) than dealing with unnecessary downtime.

We’re proud to say TUNE can report 99.9% system uptime, having built our technical infrastructure to the highest standards in security and redundancy, so your platform will be ready for any situation.

5. All-In-One Functionality

It’s no secret the marketing technology landscape is only getting more complex, with more than 14,100 vendors in 2024. (That’s an increase of over 3,000 vendors from the year prior!) The last thing you want to do is sign up for a point solution and have to integrate with 10 more. That’s why we strongly advise looking for an all-in-one affiliate marketing platform that allows you to manage everything from mobile marketing campaigns to publisher relationships, conversion tracking, payouts, creative assets, lead generation, transactions, automation, and more.

Your Choice, Your Affiliate Marketing Platform

We’re proud of what we’ve created at TUNE, but don’t just take it from us. Read more about what our customers say or see their success stories.

Questions? Reach out to partnermarketing@tune.com to ask our experts, or download The Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing to jump right in.