Add an Affiliate Network to Voluum

1. In Voluum, go to the Affiliate networks tab.

2. Click the Create button and select the Affiliate network option from the drop-down menu.

   

3. In this step, you have an option to use a template of an affiliate network and have some settings already configured or create a blank element by selecting the Other affiliate network option.

   

   Whichever option you choose, the New affiliate network form will appear.

4. In the New affiliate network form provide a name for the campaign element in the Name field.
5. (Optional) If you have the Workspaces feature enabled, select the Workspace that this element should be assigned to. Read the Workspaces: Overview article to learn more.

6. (Optional) Parameters. In this section you can edit or provide affiliate network tracking parameters to have them automatically added to an offer URL and postback URL. If you have selected to create the new affiliate network element from a template, this section is already populated with correct information.

   • Click ID placeholder

     This field contains an affiliate network specific token that is used to pass a click ID value back to Voluum in a postback URL.

   • Click ID parameter

     This field contains an affiliate network specific parameter name that is used to pass a click ID value to an affiliate network platform in an offer URL.

   • Payout placeholder

     This field contains an affiliate network specific token that is used to pass a payout value back to Voluum in a postback URL.

7. (Optional) You can select a tracking domain from the Tracking domain drop-down menu and a conversion tracking method from the Method drop-down menu. You can select between the following methods:

   • S2S postback URL
   • Tracking Pixel
   • Tracking Pixel URL
   • Tracking Script

   Once you select an appropriate option from the drop-down menu, click the Copy button next to the URL or script to copy it to the clipboard.

8. Select a default offer currency from the Currency drop-down menu. Each offer assigned to this affiliate network element will have the same currency as you have set in an affiliate network element setup. This is only a default setting and the currency set in offers setting is actually used for payout tracking. So currency set in an offer element overrides currency set in an affiliate network element.

9. (Optional) Additional settings. You might want to turn on the toggle to activate the following settings:

   • https://offer_url.com?s2=

     Append click ID to offer URLs

     When enabled, all offers created and grouped under this affiliate network element will have Voluum’s {clickid} token automatically added at the end of an offer URL to save time when adding several offers. This requires a dedicated, affiliate network specific parameter name for passing click IDs already mapped to the end of the offer URL. So to use this option, your offer URL should end with a parameter name followed by the "=" character. For example:

   • Accept duplicate postbacks

     By default, Voluum will not accept a duplicate postback request, if another postback request with the same click ID value was previously registered without a unique transaction ID (txid). This avoids registering duplicate postback requests as unique conversions and therefore skewing your reporting. Enabling this option will override the default setting and, as a result, postback URLs with the same click ID and empty txid will not be discarded as a duplicate. Use this option with caution.

   • Only accept postbacks from white-listed IPs

     With this toggle turned on, you can whitelist a selection of IP addresses for inbound postback requests. Any inbound postback requests originating from IPs that are not whitelisted will be discarded by Voluum. You can either provide a single IP address or define a range of IP addresses per line. If you want to whitelist the IP block, you should use the CIDR notation; otherwise, the range could not be accepted while saving the affiliate network's form. It means that the IP range: 198.51.100.0-198.51.100.255,  should be entered as follows: 198.51.100.0/24. If you need some help with defining the IP block in CIDR notation, you can try one of the free IP calculators available on the Internet (for example, http://www.subnet-calculator.com/cidr.php). 

10. (Optional) You can add notes with relevant information.

11. Click the Save button. You have added the affiliate network element to Voluum.

    

When you turned on the Append click ID to offer URLs option, a value of the click ID is automatically added to the offer URL. For example, when the click ID's value is c384EFV6JHQODRN70575OK6UG, it will be added to the offer URL as follows:

http://my_offer_URL.com/?aff_id=1337&offer_ id=13432?subid=c384EFV6JHQODRN70575OK6UG

This click ID is passed to an affiliate network in the offer URL using an appropriate parameter. Keep in mind that it is important that the parameter used to pass the click ID is at the end of the offer URL when this option is active. In the above example, the parameter's name is subid. If you do not pair it with the name of the parameter that identifies the passed value, conversions cannot be recorded in Voluum due to the wrong values passed in the URL.