Platform tool for assessing the impact of user consent on affiliate tracking
The Moonpull platform has established itself as the only platform for testing the efficacy of affiliate links. We've also simplified the evaluation of tracking to one primary question: Is the memory cookie present?
The Moonpull blog provides a series of articles explaining this approach. These include:
- The importance of the memory cookie
- An outline of consent platforms
- How user consent impacts on tracking and
- How these combine to be driving publisher selection of advertisers in the Flight to Quality
Moonpull tests at scale; now it drills down on a specific advertiser
The Moonpull Platform tests links at scale and this is necessarily done by an automated system utilising data centres in many territories for regional appraisal of links. It is used by many of the world's leading publishers.
We have now released a product for the other end of the spectrum -- to drill down to one specific link's tracking on a user's own browser. This has just been launched as a browser extension available to all Moonpull users.
The development is in response to our users wanting to see how an advertiser's consent process controls affiliate tracking. The browser extension allows the tracking status to be seen as the user interacts with the advertiser's website, any overlays and consent platforms, as well as navigating from the landing page to other pages on the advertiser's site.
Focus on first party tracking and user consent
The browser extension looks at the status of first party tracking specifically; with the Moonpull platform continuing to report on both first and third party tracking. Our view is Google's recent change in approach to third party cookies is, from an affiliate perspective, deprecation by another method and thus a focus on first party cookies continues to be appropriate.
Bringing issues to life
The Moonpull platform highlights issues. The Browser extension is particularly good at illustrating the difference between a successful implementation and an unsuccessful one. It enables any issue to be highlighted to colleagues and other interested parties, either in screen shares, image captures or recorded video.
Our support of our users, as well as their own evaluations, have revealed:
- A hardware store not establishing first party tracking correctly on its product search box due to the interaction with the consent platform
- A motoring retailer failing to establish tracking on some navigation buttons, but not others
- Many advertisers only setting first party tracking if they actually refresh the page
- An advertiser implementing a CMP, and actually inadvertently removing the first party tracking
- Many advertisers having short first-party 'outages' for days or weeks due to the complexity of first party tracking being misunderstood by their developers
- Offers being coded in a way where extra redirects break the first party tracking
Impact of tracking on revenues
The challenges are such that, even before Chrome joining Safari in negating third party cookies, we see shortfalls across portfolios of links at the 10%-20% level, and 43% or more for specific advertisers. These shortfalls relate to both consent-related issues and more general tracking issues. The new Memory Cookie browser extension helps identify issues with both. For networks, publishers and performance-based agencies interested in maintaining revenues the browser extension helps definitively demonstrate a problem and can be used to inform conversations with advertisers.
"The Moonpull Browser Extension makes resolving tracking issues significantly easier and improves our understanding of the overall Affiliate tracking process. Using the Moonpull extension I was able to quickly rerun audits and even update the results for cases where an anomaly had occurred. I will be making sure that everyone in my team uses the Moonpull browser extension whenever they are auditing affiliate tracking links."
Chris Szczyglowski, Envolve
Powering Flight to Quality
At this moment, tracking is in a state of flux and Moonpull really helps players identify how it impacts them on an ongoing basis. The browser extension brings the many matters compromising tracking to life and can help colleagues more familiar with other models understand that the affiliate model requires a very high degree of tracking success in order to be grown.
The browser extension is available to all clients and we'll continue to improve it as users request further features. It will be an important tool in helping clients in their choice of advertisers as part of their own Flight to Quality.