Cashback publishers are an essential component of the majority of affiliate marketing programmes and their continued success is important to the wider industry.
To preserve advertiser confidence in the model, Awin has produced the Cashback Best Practices Guideline, to which we encourage all cashback and loyalty publishers to adhere.
In addition to the information in the guide, we would also like to bring your attention to the following aspects and information:
Sub-ID Tracking
As a Cashback publisher, you need the information of which one of your end-users has made which purchase. To this end, Awin provides the possibility of sub-id tracking or, in Awin terminology, click references (Chapter 2 "Click ref data" in the attached guideline). Information on the technical details is available on: What is click reference and what can I use this for?
If you are just starting out, it might be important for you to know that Awin does not provide any special technical solutions for Cashback publishers apart from this, in which we do not offer any special pre-programmed solutions for Cashback platforms.
Choosing Advertisers
Terms and Conditions
Not all advertisers accept all business models. You can find this information within the advertiser's profile under the tab Terms > Publishers
If an advertiser accepts Cashback publishers, you will see a green hook in the respective checkbox:
Payment Times
For Cashback publishers, quick confirmation and payment times often are a high priority because they do not want to keep their end-users waiting. If this is an important factor for you, please pay attention to the column "Average payment time" in the KPIs in the program overview. For more information on this matter, please take a look at the article: What is the Average Payment Time
On the other hand, please make sure that your system pays out the cashback before a sale gets approved and paid by the advertiser, and install a so-called blocking period. Otherwise, you may run the risk of the sale getting rejected, in such a case, you will not be reimbursed.
This is also a good fraud prevention measure, especially since invalid sales will be rejected by the advertiser.
Compliance and Fraud Prevention
As a Cashback publisher, you are not only responsible for the quality of your own publisher account, but also for the monitoring of your users' behaviours. Every chapter of the attached guide contains information and tips on how to do this.
If you have any questions about the Compliance and Fraud Prevention aspect, our Compliance Team is available via global-partnercompliance@awin.com.
Please note that background information on Compliance topics is available in the chapter: Network Quality and Compliance.
