Written by Brook Schaaf

Last week, about eight months after the implementation of its Conversion Protection Initiative (CPI), Awin touted that it had “helped customers recover more than $250 million in total revenue.” The reference point (the base without CPI) is not entirely clear from the press release, but any otherwise unrecognized revenue is surely good news. 

CPI was first announced on-stage at PI Live Europe last year in a presentation called, appropriately, “No More Free Sales.” CEO Adam Ross described the industry as having suffered tracking “blow after blow” from the likes of “GDPR, ATP, ATT, GA4, the rise of ad blockers, Firefox browser, Brave browser, and now, of course, consent.”

The problem is real and, in our space, somehow still underdiscussed—LinkedIn rants and Slack grumblings notwithstanding. During the panel after the announcement, Andreas Anreou, the CRO of FinTech publisher Zilch, cited “tracking issues between 50 and 60%,” not the conventionally held 10 to 15%, i.e., half of orders weren’t tracking(!). Zilch could see this because of its credit card integrations with merchants. 

Ross pointed out that “the problem is [workable solutions] are optional when they need to be standard.” Awin therefore made server-to-server and, if applicable, in-app tracking non-optional, else the advertiser would have to accept probabilistic billing. This took effect in April. What this means, in case you are not familiar with the terminology, is that advertisers had to upgrade to solutions less likely to fail or accept Awin’s estimate (and billing) as to how many orders would have come through. 

CJ presented a similar audit and comparable solutions at CJU in September. There are other efforts, too, so things are going in the right direction, though one does wonder why now and not, say, ten years ago. 

This is a bold step, and kudos to Awin for its leadership. But we should keep in mind that there are many more steps on the road to salubrity. All platforms should make their program configurations (server-to-server, advanced pixel, basic pixel, etc.) visible in the interface and accessible via API. This can be married to data from third-party companies like Moonpull to help publishers correlate successful partnerships with certain tracking approaches. 

For too long, “free” sales have deprived affiliates of critical revenue and data signals without actually being free to the merchant, who is probably overspending elsewhere because credit is scooped up by another channel. Instead, what should be free is critical data about the programs publishers trust as partners.

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