Case Study
Artefact Germany manages one of the largest retail affiliate programs in Germany. This customer offers new non-food worlds (themed promotions) every week, which form the actual core of the affiliate program. The affiliate program itself has been in existence since February 2002 and is growing steadily. In particular, the issue of data protection and browser regulation and the associated challenges have prompted this client to evaluate its affiliate setup and to look for an additional service provider for its hybrid affiliate marketing strategy in 2020.
Ingenious Technologies has been actively supporting this project as a technology partner since September 2020.
At a glance
- Thanks to the close and trusting cooperation with Artefact, an extended function of our Conversion Requests was developed. This tool was originally intended for untracked sales and can now be used for complete conversion processing.
- Compared to the previous solution for the public network, the tracking differences to the customer's internal analysis tool were reduced by 66 % compared to the compared to the previous solution for the public network.
- Through the closer exchange with the partners invited to the program, Artefact has already seen the impact on the partners' activities and thus on the revenue generated by these partners. For example, one top partner was able to increase its performance in the last quarter (Q2 2021) by 166% compared to the previous year - a development that can be attributed to the improved tracking quality , among other things.
- The decision in favor of a hybrid partner marketing model with Ingenious is reflected not only in the improved tracking and reduction in manual workload, but above all in the client's greater independence from public networks.
About Artefact
Artefact is a global digital and data company that provides services that turn data into real value for organizations. With 800 employees worldwide, the company works directly at the interface of data consulting, data marketing and digital marketing to offer customers a comprehensive service portfolio. Traditional business and IT silos are broken down in order to help companies gain a competitive advantage through digital transformation processes.
Client type: Agency
The Private Network provides us with more transparency through detailed and structured statistics, which helps us to monitor and plan our success, but also to engage in dialog with our members.
The technology from Ingenious Technologies now also allows the shopping basket to be clearly assigned so that different tracking categories and commission models can be used. For us, this flexibility has a positive impact on the implementation and individualization of advertising measures.
Your challenges
The decision to adopt a hybrid network strategy
At the beginning of 2020, Artefact and one of Germany's largest retail advertisers decided to develop a private network solution for a hybrid network strategy to be operated together with the public networks. The reasons for this decision were manifold:
There was a desire for improved technology, particularly in terms of tracking qualitythe possibility of individual tool implementations, but also security with regard to upcoming challenges posed by browser updates and updates in the area of data protection. The latter focuses on regaining data sovereignty through independence from third-party providers, which is achieved through a private network solution. In addition, the top partners should receive the best possible support from all parties involved. Finally, a trusting partnership characterized by transparency was also important to the customer.
In order to fulfill these points, a detailed selection process tailored to the customer's needs took place in several stages, in which we at Ingenious Technologies had to prove that we were the right partner for the customer's partner program vision.
The implementation
The decision-making process
In order to identify the right partner, Artefact set up a multi-stage process in collaboration with the customer, which enabled an objective decision-making process.
After defining the goals to be achieved by using a private network solution, a list of questions was drawn up based on this. Various detailed questions were asked about overarching categories such as technology, reporting, billing, support and advertising media that are currently relevant for the customer or will become relevant in view of future plans. These were also given a weighting for a scoring system so that an objective decision could ultimately be made.
In a further exchange, we then discussed the mapping of the customer's commission model, more in-depth technological issues, consent management and the handling of the network interface itself. In parallel, discussions were also held with publishers, which were conducted by Artefact to ensure that there would be no obstacles to a publisher move.
After successful discussions and the decision in favor of Ingenious, the processes for setting up the program were started as quickly as possible: While the client took care of the technical set-up and all legal processes together with Ingenious Technologies, Artefact took over the filling of the interface and the publisher communication.
Results and efficiency
Tracking quality
After more than a year of collaboration, the cooperation is now proving to be consistently positive. The greatest success is the significantly improved tracking quality: the difference between Ingenious Technologies' technology and that of the client is currently only a third of the previous network. This not only leads to positive feedback from the partners, but also to less manual effort in the course of rebooking requests, which are frequently made due to the differences.
Conversion requests
In addition to the post-booking requests, the function conversion request function was also developed for post-booking requests, with Artefact providing the requirements from an operational perspective, which were then implemented in a sophisticated tool by Ingenious Technologies. The tool considerably simplifies the processing of requests by automatically assigning the correct commission levels. The tool is now also used for overarching processes such as sales reconciliation. As a result, processes have been standardized and made more efficient.
Partnership at eye level
Ultimately, however, the success is also down to the general cooperation itself. Support from Ingenious Technologies is quickly handled directly via Slack and individual requests are thought through, discussed and, where possible, implemented immediately. The positive feedback can also be felt on the part of the partners, who, in addition to the good support and improved tracking quality, are also experiencing an increase in performance.
The outlook
Looking ahead
After initially focusing on the implementation of the original goals (improved tracking quality, trusting partnership and satisfied partners), the collaboration is far from over. Over the last few months, a common status quo has emerged - now we have reached a point where we can talk more concretely about future plans.
The basic aim is to further expand the publisher base via the private network, above all with new partnerships, which Ingenious Technologies will also help to acquire by establishing contacts. Potential international use in Eastern Europe is also being considered and will be achieved through flexible country settings with regard to the currency used for billing.
At an operational level, processes will be made even more efficient and further automated. Among other things, the current manual sales reconciliation process is to be converted to enable API reconciliation.