Know the Importance of URL Masking in Affiliate Marketing

Concept of Affiliate Marketing
The fundamental concept of affiliate marketing is that an affiliate promotes advertiser’s product. When customer purchases that product, the affiliate earns a commission based on their marketing efforts. It is a universal rule of affiliate marketing.

The importance of Choosing the Best Affiliate Network
Whether you are an affiliate marketer or a marketer, associating with an affiliate platform equipped with advanced features like URL Masking, White label, Billing, Real time report, S2S and obviously performance and reliability is an extremely important to your marketing success. So choose best affiliate network for your business.

What is a Masked URL or URL Masking?
Masked URL plays a significant role in Adwalnut Panel. Masked URL is a third party URL which allows advertiser to gather information in a third party application. So when user will click on the campaign of the Adwalnut tracking link, first it will redirect to Masked URL and then to the Landing page URL. Advertiser must state the Masked URL in the offer details form while creating an offer. Masked URL can be different or same as Landing Page URL but it cannot be left blank.

What Is The Purpose Of URL Masking?
Suppose there is an advertiser who uses third party application. There is a network admin who uses Adwalnut for running his affiliate business. Actually network admin gives login credentials to advertiser user. After login into the panel advertiser can create an offer with Creatives, Landing Page URL and Masked URL. Through Masked URL advertiser gathers information about clicks. Basically Masked URL is often used with a tracking application that helps advertiser to track who clicked on links and where the clicks are coming from. When user clicks on the masked link, Adwalnut along with advertiser will gather information, and redirect to the Landing Page URL.

How Masked URL Works In Adwalnut Panel?
Masked URL means a third party URL by which advertiser accumulates information about clicks. Advertiser appends parameters (affiliate id, affiliate name, date, and datetime and so on) and the values are passed by the application in the macros. While user clicks on the tracking link first it will redirect to Masked URL then to the Landing Page URL. While clicking on the tracking link of the campaign then information (affiliate name, affiliate id) passes from the Adwalnut’s application and stores on advertisers’ database. Advertisers can see the report from their own third party application accordingly.
Let’s take an example, suppose there is an affiliate company named, Indo Asian and affiliate users whose name is Eliot Hughes and offer name is offer2016. If advertiser wants to see affiliate’s company name, offer name and offer id then advertiser appends macros in the following manner.

Assume this is a Masked URL www.adwalnut.com and macros are &affiliate_name ={affiliate_name} &offer_name={offer_name} &offer_id={offer_id}
After appending macros in the Masked URL it looks like
http://adwalnut.com&affiliate_name={affiliate_name}&offer_name={offer_name}&offer_id={offer_id}
While advertiser checks click reports then he will find the following report
http://www.adwalnut.com&affiliate_name=IndoAsian&offer_name=offer2016&offer_id=50713132269948416?
Please see screen shots to understand it properly.

Number of Macros in Adwalnut Panel
Macros are used to pass parameter values; by which database would able to know which values are required to pass. There are 24 kinds of macros in the Adwalnut panel. Like
Macro Description
{advertiser_id}ID of advertiser user
{affiliate_source}In the offer URL it will be replaced by the value of Affiliate Source passed in via an affiliate user tracking link
{adv_sub}Advertiser user sub specified in the conversion pixel / URL
{adv_sub1}Advertiser user sub 1 specified in the conversion pixel / URL
{adv_sub2}Advertiser user sub 2 specified in the conversion pixel / URL
{adv_sub3}Advertiser user sub 3 specified in the conversion pixel / URL
{adv_sub4}Advertiser user sub 4 specified in the conversion pixel / URL
{adv_sub5}Advertiser user sub 5 specified in the conversion pixel / URL
{aff_sub1}Affiliate user sub 1 specified in the tracking link
{aff_sub2}Affiliate user sub 2 specified in the tracking link
{aff_sub3}Affiliate user sub 3 specified in the tracking link
{aff_sub4}Affiliate user sub 4 specified in the tracking link
{aff_sub5}Affiliate user sub 5 specified in the tracking link
{affiliate_id}ID of affiliate user
{affiliate_name}Company name of affiliate user
{custom_variable}In the offer URL, the custom variable option is enabled and it will be replaced by the extra variables passed by the affiliates user into the affiliate tracking link
{date}Current date of conversion formatted as YYYY-MM-DD
{datetime}Current date and time of conversion formatted as YYYY-MM-DD HH: MM: SS
{device_os}Device operating system name
{offer_ref}It will be replaced by the reference ID of the offer
{offer_id}ID of offer
{offer_name}Name of offer
{source}Source value specified in the tracking link
{transaction_id}ID of the transaction for your network

How to Append Macros in Adwalnut Panel?
While including Masked URL in the offer details, on that time just append macros in this fashion in the Masked URL
http://adwalnut.com&affiliate_name={affiliate_name}&offer_name={offer_name}&offer_id={offer_id}

Synopsis
Masked URL constantly plays an important role as far as advertiser point of view is concerned. By providing Masked URL to network admin, advertiser will get crucial information about clicks and the source of clicks. To know more about it please sign up for free demo at http://www.adwalnut.com/signup.php

What Clients Say About Us
“We were looking for Server to Server Cookie-less tracking solution. Adwalnut provides robust Server to Server Cookie-less tracking solution. By using this application now we can able to track traffic on any cookie or cookie-less device. Adwalnut’s Server to Server Cookie-less tracking solution is accurate and reliable. It’s the kind of application that is taking our business to a different level”.
— Craig Adams, Client Relationship, WDS Media

“With Adwalnut, we are able to manage our campaigns more efficiently. The complete system let us have a complete view of all data, which allows us to manage our advertisers and affiliates in real time reporting.”
— Manish Singh, Business Director, Performance Metrics Solutions

Social Presence
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LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/adwalnut
Pinterest https://za.pinterest.com/adwalnutteam/

List of E-books
1) Role of Alert in Affiliate Marketing.
2) Necessity and Implementations of Additional Offer URL in a SaaS Based Performance Marketing Application.
3) Why E-Commerce Companies Hire a Commendable Affiliate Tracking Application.
4) Discover a New Affiliate Billing Process that Will Enhance Performance Marketing.
5) Implications of Affiliate Billing Report in Affiliate Marketing.
6) Significance of Affiliate Alert in Affiliate Marketing.
7) A View of Hosting Images Separately While Using Email Creative on SaaS Based Application.
8) 14 Smart and Latest Features of SaaS Based Application That Facilitate To Optimize Affiliate Marketing
9) Server to Server Cookie-Less Tracking Helps to Reduce Affiliate Fraud in Affiliate Marketing.
10) The Proper Use of Voucher Code Helps to Drive Sales in Affiliate Marketing
11) Effective Tips on Accuracy of Tracking Which Surely Boost Your Affiliate Marketing
12) How Affiliate Marketing Aids Your Business to Grow to the Next Level.
13) Appropriate Use of Custom Variables Make Your Affiliate Business Dream Simplified

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