Subnetworks stand for transparency and fairness at Admitad

Last week, there was a class get-together in Germany where Admitad’ HQ is based. After two years of absence, the Who is Who of affiliate industry, advertisers, publishers and networks, got together face to face not only to declare hello to ancient friends and welcome recent ones at TactixX which Admitad supported and actively participated in. The much needed talk – Quo Vadis affiliate industry – took place.

The talk panel symbolically called “Roast the networks” took it all down to a few valuable points, and they are highly relevant, not only for the fairly competitive German economy.

Things got down to business when the networks had to face the critical questions from Ingo Kamps (Cayada, now MOR Münchener Online Rebels) and the spectators. Can an advertiser or publisher work with more than one network? How is the economy reacting to data privacy and standard of traffic issues? How do we deal with brand bidding? 

Expectedly, the talk moved towards sub-affiliate networks and its worth as a publisher model in affiliate marketing. While packed transparency – transmission and monitoring of each connected website – towards the advertiser is key, the question whether a subnetwork is a justified business selection, revolved again and again.

A topic on which Admitad can shed a word or two on its own. But first, we require a straightforward clarification of what a subnetwork is and what it does.
A subnetwork is a third-event CPA network that works with the affiliate network as a regular publisher. The subnetwork has its own publishers who are not registered with the Affiliate Network and interact with the structure only through the subnetwork.

How does a subnetwork work?

Subnetworks are a collection of publishers operating as a single publisher on an affiliate network or affiliate agency. Where affiliate networks provide the service and tracking answer for advertisers, subnetworks make the advertiser programmes and the tracking available for their sub-publishers to use without the require to sign up to an affiliate network. Subnetworks join affiliate networks as a regular publisher would, where as a sub-publisher signs up to join the subnetwork instead. This also allows the sub-publisher to access advertiser programmes across multiple affiliate networks all in one place.

What issue do subnetworks and subnetworks’ ad spaces solve?

If one of the associate network’s own publishers attracted low-standard traffic or violated the rules, the advertiser disconnected the subnetwork’s account from the affiliate program.

In this case, not only the violators but also the publishers who worked honestly and attracted high-standard traffic lost the chance to work with the program. That reduced the turnover for all participants: Admitad Affiliate Network, the subnetwork, and its own publishers.

Now, a subnetwork can add its own publishers’ ad spaces as subnetwork’s adspaces to their main ad space. Because of this, if one of the subnetwork’s publishers attracts low-standard traffic or violates the rules, the advertiser can turn off the ad space of the violator.

The account of the subnetwork will continue to work with the affiliate program, like other subnetworks’ ad spaces, whose publishers did not violate anything.

Challenges we address working with subnetworks

Transparency. We put it at the top of our priorities, and always make sure subnetworks clearly state as to which sub-publishers they work with. More specifically, information on which publishers are currently hosting affiliate links for a particular advertiser is almost immediately available. 

Auditing. It is tempting for sub-publishers that were barred from promoting a particular advertiser programme on an affiliate network to join the affiliate programme through a sub-network. This also applies to sub-publishers who conduct fraudulent activity or shatter advertising guidelines. Therefore Auditing is at the core of managing a high standard subnetwork.

Branding.  Advertisers do have visibility on recent sub-publishers joining their programme through a subnetwork. This helps the advertiser maintain control in regards to the suitability of a sub-publisher from a branding point of view. 

Solutions in place

“Subnetworks are part of affiliate collaboration businesses, it is happening already. Advertisers are actively looking to work with subnetworks – which should allow both parties to effectively work together, with the tools that we develop already. Subnetworks are in the very beginning of this trip, and we require to make sure we remain transparent in technology and fair in attribution and commissioning models” – says Alexander Bachmann, CEO and founder of Admitad.

Admitad has always advocated for transparency and pushed many products and initiatives that helped facilitate visibility and openness in affiliate marketing. Subnetworks Adspaces API is a tool that has been used by many partners in order to have packed visibility over the tracking data of several subnetworks. Furthermore, their publishers and subnetwork-managed advertisers have the ability to allocate their person fee rates. 

You would like to recognize more about subnetworks, or apply to work with Admitad? Contact us [email protected]

We continue with our piece series on recent products and solutions; remain tuned for more information and updates.