Smartlinks
💰 The Smartlinks feature is available only for certain plans. Contact your Affise account manager to get the feature.
The Smartlink is a special link that contains several offers. Through the link, you can redirect the traffic to a suitable offer based on geo, device, os type, os version, etc.
This option helps use traffic as effectively as possible, without losing it.
Smartlinks are based on the algorithm that decides which offer to show for each specific user. The algorithm takes the user data and analyses all the information. As a result, the user gets to an offer that is most likely to be converted.
On Affise, a Smartlink URL looks like this:
http://rocketcompany.g2afse.com/sl?id=5a8c148a94864100413a7922&pid=4925
You can create smartlinks in the SmartLinks section.
Smartlink algorithm
The algorithm takes all offers united by a Smartlink and distributes traffic among them. It takes four steps to define the offer where traffic goes.
A click avoids offers where there is a reason to be sent to trafficback:
Targeting groups: the system checks whether there is an offer with a suitable general or personal targeting group.
Offer privacy: the system checks whether the affiliate has access to an offer (the offer should be public or the affiliate should be connected to the offer).
Caps: the system checks whether the offer has cap rules of all types and time frames that aren't reached.
The algorithm distributes about 20% of traffic among all suitable offers. It allows new offers to be involved in traffic distribution. They receive traffic to recalculate EPC and detect changes in performance over time.
🔎 EPC = Revenue of conversions of all statuses except Declined / number of clicks.
The algorithm distributes the rest 80% of traffic among offers with the highest EPC. The system calculates EPC for the last seven days based on the following attributes:
EPC of this particular Smartlink.
EPC of this particular affiliate, who the click belongs to.
EPC of the country, which the click was made from.
EPC of the OS, which the click was made from.
If there is no opportunity to calculate EPC (not enough data, the Smartlink is new, zero revenue and payout in the offer, etc.), 80% of traffic goes to ten random offers.
🔎 To use the algorithm effectively, note the following:
Make at least one offer public (available for all active affiliates) to let traffic go to at least one relevant offer in Smartlink.
The number of clicks is not important for an algorithm to work: there's no minimum or maximum quantity.
The things that determine the effectiveness of Smartlink work are the number of offers, whether these are new offers or have some EPC, and whether affiliates, GEOs, and OSes have EPC.
To increase conversions, the offers for a Smartlink are usually grouped for a certain vertical.
Weights and Trafficback URLs
You can assign weights to specific offers and advertisers within a smartlink to promote them. For that, you can use the Priority offers and the Connected advertisers tabs. Also, on the Trafficback URLs tab, you are allowed to specify trafficback URLs to send traffic to.
Priority offers
You can add offers for weight-based traffic distribution among offers in the smartlink. It has priority over connected advertisers and category offers within the smartlink.
Weight is the percentage probability of the click going to the offer in case the click meets the offer targeting and other settings (whether affiliate is enabled on the offer, cap is reached, etc.). If it doesn’t meet the requirements, then it goes to the rest of offers.
⚠️ Sum of offers weights should not exceed 100.
Connected advertisers
You can add advertisers for weight based traffic distribution of all the advertiser’s offers in the smartlink. It has priority over category offers within the smartlink.
Weight is the percentage probability of the click going to the offers of this advertiser in case the click meets the offer targeting. If it doesn’t meet the targeting, it goes to the rest of offers. Individual offers have priority over the advertiser offers.
⚠️ Sum of offers weights should not exceed 100.
Trafficback URLs
You have the option to specify one or more trafficback URLs to send traffic to, in case there are no matching offers found in the smartlink. For that, you can use the Trafficback URLs tab:
🔎 If you don’t select an affiliate in the Affiliate field, then the traffic from any affiliate goes to the URL. If an affiliate is selected, the traffic from this affiliate goes to the trafficback URL selected for this affiliate.
How it works: if the click doesn’t match any of the offers selected in the smartlink (priority offers, connected advertisers, offers in the smartlink category), the traffic goes to the smartlink specified on this tab.
Thus, you have three methods of traffic distribution:
KPI based: you can add a smartlink to the SmartLink categories field in a certain offer (Offers > a certain offer > Tracking > Smartlink category).
The system will distribute traffic according to this smartlink algorithm.
Weight based: you can add offers to the Priority offers and the Connected advertisers tabs (Smartlinks > a certain smartlink).
The system will distribute traffic among these offers with priority.
In the example above, the system will send 30% of traffic to the first offer, 30% to the second offer, and 40% to the third one.
Mixed: you can use KPI and Weight based methods together.
In this case, the system will send 30% of traffic to the first offer, and the rest of the traffic will be sent according to this algorithm.
Smartlinks in Statistics
You can see the statistics on Smartlinks in the separate slice.
You can also filter by a certain Smartlink in the following slices:
Custom
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Advertisers
Account managers
Affiliates managers
Offers
Affiliates
Countries
Cities
OS
Device brand
Mobile ISP
Connection type
Landing
Smartlinks via API
Get the information about all Smartlinks in the Admin panel:
GET /3.0/admin/smartlink/categories
See the number of offers for a particular Smartlink:
GET /3.0/admin/smartlink/category/{id}/offers-count
Add a new Smartlink. Edit or delete the existent Smartlink:
Add: POST /3.0/admin/smartlink/category
Edit: POST /3.0/admin/smartlink/category/{ID}
Delete: POST /3.0/admin/smartlink/category/{ID}/remove
Affiliates can get the information about available Smartlinks:
GET /3.0/partner/smartlink/categories
Affiliates can see the number of offers for a particular Smartlink:
GET /3.0/partner/smartlink/category/{id}/offers-count
Add a Smartlink category to the offer by using the Smartlink_categories parameter with this method:
POST /3.0/admin/offer
What to do next
Please contact the Affise Customer Support team regarding all raised questions via the e-mail: [email protected].