Coupon Marketing & Affiliate Tracking

Jan Bischoff, July 6, 2019

Dear online marketers,

In 2019, I found two mid-sized companies working in an innovative way who could implement my preferred approach to coupon code tracking. This enables automated affiliate attribution as well as offline and cross-device tracking.

Here's the technical background: The shop implements a flexible logic for coupon and discount codes. The code is parsed by your shop or transmitted directly to us. Numbers correspond to values. For example, 231 or 38317 ("LOVE" on a calculator) represents the PartnerID. Separated by letters, you'll find 1, 2–3 or more numbers: in the example above, 15 is the discount percentage for the end customer, 33 is the Partner ID, and 8 is the SubID.

Once properly implemented (around 2–3 programmer hours including testing), this solution delivers ongoing benefits. Your creativity is the only limit. You can use arbitrary words as triggers for the discount level, add further codes or numbers for the ad ID or marketing activity, and ideally extend it with validation: you store specific codes for affiliates in the partner program system, and the shop checks whether the coupon is valid, assigned to an affiliate, and what discount is configured.

A further innovation built on this: use Commission Split to drive competition among your affiliates. In the best case, the coupon costs you nothing – because the affiliate determines the coupon value by splitting their commission.

Store the maximum discount level statically or via the code text in the shop system. We're happy to help with the programming on request. Once this logic is in place, you can generate any coupon for any affiliate without needing to pre-store it. The shop accepts the coupon code, deducts the discount for the end customer, and transmits the order with PartnerID and SubID to the partner program system.

This guarantees tracking whether the coupon is used offline, online without cookies, via TV campaigns, print, or any other channel.

Questions? info@qualityclick.com or request a demo.