The Importance of cookie hierarchies
From Wiki
Not all publisher activity is the same.
Any single publisher programme is as likely to include behavioural re-targeting, site abandonment-triggered emails or downloadable software as it is to number ‘traditional’ publisher stalwarts such as blogs and incentive-based sites.
This is a good thing. Affiliate marketing should be as focused on targeting as any other online marketing channel and it is a sign of the health of the industry that new methods can find a place in an environment where the focus has always been on customer acquisition.
But while the publisher channel has always been hospitable to new and innovative methods, two questions have to be asked.
Firstly, how can such methods get recognition for their respective activities in bringing about those acquisitions; and secondly, how do these activities impact the work of a programme’s existing publisher s?
In this context, we see the re-emergence of issues that characterised the debate about whether the last click should win full credit for the sale. Just as the debate around multi-attribution within the publisher channel had at its core the desire to attribute better, so the same questions are being raised concerning new types of publisher s that have arrived in the channel in the last couple of years.
This time however, the emphasis is on the click itself rather than its place in the chain.
Whereas setting differential commission rates was the traditional lever that advertisers would pull to attribute value to publisher s’ activity, being able to control the priority given to certain cookies has, until now, been underexplored.
What options are available to advertisers and where might they want to apply them?
Hard and soft cookies
Traditional post-click cookies are now sometimes referred to as ‘hard’ click cookies and can only be overwritten by another ‘hard’ post-click cookie.
They are by far the most common that publisher s will drop and currently the vast majority of sales will be accredited using these cookies.
By contrast, a ‘soft’ click cookie will not overwrite any existing ‘hard’ post-click cookies. If an advertiser is concerned that certain types of publisher activity has an overly high chance of overwriting another publisher ’s post-click cookie they may wish to employ this option.
Browser Helper Objects (BHOs) such as add-ons or plugins triggered to remind the user that a product they are looking at is available cheaper elsewhere.
Toolbars urging a user to collect cashback on a product; or remarketing emails triggered by site abandonment are three examples of activity that some advertisers have so far chosen to set on a ‘soft’ cookie.
A post-view cookie is one that is dropped by a publisher after an impression has been served. These are very helpful for advertisers wanting to run some form of display activity remunerable on a CPA rather than a CPM or CPC basis.
Nowadays advertisers can gain access through the publisher channel to behavioural retargeting providers or ad networks, behind which sit premium display inventory, whilst still only paying when a sale is made.
When behavioural retargeting providers entered the channel 18 months ago, the eight member networks of the UK’s Affiliate Marketing Council of the IAB collectively agreed to implement a cookie hierarchy for this activity which privileges cookies dropped on a click above one dropped on an impression.
The click, it is argued, is a better measure of engagement on the part of the user than a view, and therefore should take credit for the sale where both post-click and post-view cookies are present.
Advertisers might want to check therefore that their publisher network is compliant with this practice. They may also want to question their network about other aspects of post-view display activity.
Transparency on where ads which drop post-view cookies are appearing, the length of the post-view cookie, and what frequency caps are in place to guard against over-exposing the user to these ads are some examples.
Moreover, advertisers might wish to ask their network what checks they have in place to assess the type of activity that could warrant a different type of cookie, and how the network makes this transparent.
The flexibility in the conditions around which different types of cookies can overwrite each other has two major advantages for advertisers.
Firstly, it is no longer necessary to run all activity on a ‘hard’ post-click cookie. Advertisers can become more sensitive to how their different publisher s impact one another and take steps to safeguard or ring-fence the work of their existing publisher s from negative impacts or false attributions.
Secondly, it makes their publisher programmes appear much more inviting to those that have previously worked outside publisher marketing, allowing advertisers to run more activity on a CPA basis through the publisher channel at zero upfront risk.