Experts Edge with Artur Kaczmarczyk. IDFA and Tracking

This month we’re hard at work unpacking tracking and some of the newest developments taking online advertising by storm.

From Apple’s new IDFA protocol changes and its performance marketing runoff effects to affiliate campaign tracking tips and more.

And who better to take us down the road ahead than Artur Kaczmarczyk. Head of Partnerships at Voluum and a world-class performance marketer.

Artur took some time to run through the new IDFA changes and their potential effects on the global mobile advertising market.

He also unpacks the Voluum platform, its latest features, and how advertisers can boost their revenue with systematic and effortless tracking. 

Or, you can check out the full video below.

A Quick Word on Voluum

Created back in 2014, the Voluum platform was developed by affiliates, for affiliates.

The platform is a globally recognized performance marketing and analytics software. Catering its services to affiliates, online advertisers, in-house media buyers, and agencies alike.

Voluum’s platform is an all-in-one campaign tracking, management, and optimization solution for paid and organic traffic sources.

What does your role at Voluum entail? 

I take care of and monitor key partnerships on the Voluum platform.

We work in collaboration with ad networks like Adcash to provide top campaign tracking solutions to our clients.

Additionally, I focus on customer integrations on the technical side of things. Getting online advertisers up to speed with the platform and setting them on the right track for success.

Our services cater to a wide range of clients with different needs. Also, it’s my job to see that they are constantly achieving the results they’re after with specialized tracking capability and performance metrics.

At the end of the day, the platform can only be as effective as it is with the right offers and promotions. And, that’s where our clients take the wheel. 

What types of clients do you have? 

As one of the most powerful ad trackers on the market today, we ensure our services cater to a wide range of customers.

Our clients range from first-time affiliates looking to grow their revenue to marketing agencies and media-buying houses.

On the more advanced side, we’ve added cutting-edge features making Voluum impactful to the widest range of clients.

Whether you own the product or are promoting it on behalf of someone else. We’ve got a tailored approach to suit every level of performance marketing experience. 

How much does a subscription to the Voluum platform cost? 

We have different tiers, and each tier comes in at a different price.

The higher you go, the more features you’ll have access to. Also, every plan can either be settled monthly or annually.

If you’re looking to stay in the performance marketing game for the long run, an upfront annual subscription works out to be more affordable.

Adcash Advertisers Get 30% Off on Voluum Packages.

The most optimal plan right now is the profit plan, which comes in at $128 (including a partner discount for Adcash Advertisers).

Head over here and get a 30% discount on any Voluum plan, just for being part of the Adcash team.

Track, automate, and optimize your online advertising efforts, and reinvest what you save back into your campaign.

A profit plan package comes with 6 months of data retention. So, if you track something today, it will be fully available on the platform for another 6 months. Meaning you can go back and see what worked for previous campaigns.

These full reports can be exported and saved at any time. There is an unlimited amount of campaigns that you can track.

You’ll also get a personal onboarding session from a seasoned tracking professional. Therefore allowing you to get to grips with the platform quickly. 

Additionally, the Voluum Automizer Feature allows you to control and integrate all of your online advertising efforts from one place. Giving you the space you need to focus on your campaign results without spending time optimizing. 

Voluum Profit Plan

Finally, the Profit Plan also includes the Rule-Based Ads feature. This optimization tactic allows performance marketers to define specific paths that the platform will target their traffic to.

When you’re targeting countries that have more than one native language, this feature is beneficial.

For example, in the United States, there is a strong Spanish-speaking community. By using the Rule-Based Ads feature, you can define where you want to send your traffic to.

If the browser language were in Spanish, you could send the user directly to a Spanish language page and vice versa. Above all, this is a great way to localize your ads and target traffic more accurately. 

Do you have any tips for tracking on the Voluum platform?

It pays to start by reading the basic setup guidelines on the Voluum homepage.

These support pages will take you through some of the more technical setup parameters. Like how to configure postbacks, how to set up your traffic sources, etc. 

Voluum Academy. Coming Soon

Within the next few months, we’ll be launching Voluum Academy.  A learning portal covering the platform and performance marketing for beginner, intermediate and advanced marketers. 

The Voluum Academy is free to use and you don’t need to be an existing client to use it.

You’ll also be rewarded certificates of completion for modules passed and future discounts to the Voluum platform. 

Looking for more strategies from industry-leading experts? You can check out the Ultimate Website Ranking Guide with SEO Guru Craig Campbell. Or up your performance marketing game with top tips from super affiliate Tom Bell.

How has the new IDFA protocol affected the industry?

Let’s first unpack what IDFA is and how it used to work.

The acronym stands for Apple Identifier for Advertisers. A unique tracking system per Apple device locates and identifies a user by their iPhone code (or ID).

Every single iPhone has this ID. Previously, this information was widely available for marketers to use for targeting.

Marketers were able to match a user’s iPhone with their online activity and consumer preferences.

I.e,  I would receive similar offers in line with my browsing habits at a later stage. 

Recently, IDFA restrictions have been strengthened and are far less lenient than they used to be. Having opened an app, you’ll now see a pop-up with two options appearing on the screen. These being “Ask App Not to Track” or “Allow.” In doing so, this puts a lot of decision-making capability back in the court of the consumer.

For online advertisers, this can be tricky, as they dont have as much access to user engagement/interest metrics that were once readily available.

Changes come in the form of three magic letters. These being ATT. App Tracing Transparency.

With the launch of iOS 14.5, in order to get this information, every app owner now needs permission to track. 

How do the IDFA changes affect the online advertising market?

It’s been widely discussed, and yes, it’s a blow to the online advertising industry in general.

Up to this point, IDFA has been a fundamental component of the mobile advertising ecosystem.

On average, only 4% of iOS users will allow an app to track their browsing habits.

That said, the overall opt-in rates are higher than we thought they would be.

At the end of the day, to stay successful and remain relevant, marketers need to pivot and be more creative in how and where they present this new prompting message.

Much like all aspects of digital marketing, it pays to adapt to the changing landscape, and to date, performance marketers are successfully dealing with this tracking revision head-on.

In short, it’s an ongoing, dynamic topic, and we’ll need to see where the conversation goes.  

How will the IDFA changes affect Facebook? 

I’m sure there was a small war between Apple and Facebook over this exact topic. Maybe in time to come, we’ll see some books or movies made on this very subject.

Facebook will be okay, especially in the long run. Their bottom line will likely be affected in the short term, but they will adapt to the changing landscape. Who knows, it might even be beneficial for them in the long run. 

Any strategies for small businesses to keep generating money? 

A sadder part of the overall story. With this new protocol, small businesses will suffer the most.

Targeting the right traffic will not be as easy as it used to be. In months to come, it may become more expensive and less efficient to advertise online.

Facebook went on record recently, stating that they will be focusing their efforts more towards small businesses. Giving them the tools they need to market effectively within the ongoing changes.

There may also be some interesting updates coming to the Instagram ecosystem in the next few months. Again, adaptability and agility are the keys here, and once small businesses can pivot towards this new norm, they should be able to pick up where they left off. 

Finally, what are Voluum’s responses to these changes? 

On the Voluum side, we haven’t seen a lot of impacts. Talking about mobile marketing specifically. Every campaign component can be tracked until an action has been taken or an app downloaded.

We also have and are continuing to expand our integration efforts by partnering with Appsflyer, a company able to track campaign activity post-app install. 

AppsFlyer is a well-recognized mobile attribution platform capable of tracking and monitoring everything that happens within the app itself.

So if a client were to install a game that comes with the option to purchase level up points/install additional premium features etc. Appsflyer will be able to track the data that this action generates. They cover around 75% of the total market share and are doing a stellar job in managing their existing services to maximum effect. 

When it comes to Voluum, the key element is a campaign’s Click ID.

While AppsFlyer is busy figuring out which campaigns the unique conversions come from, we have the challenge of attributing that same conversion into our own campaign tracking metrics.

The key element of our own integration is that we could grab the conversion coming to AppsFlyer without the ClickID or key element. 

Any final thoughts? 

We have a range of cutting-edge mobile marketing features on Voluum. We are integrated with the Digital Element Database, which shows us the different iOS versions traffic is coming from.

We also have an Anti-Fraud Kit that eliminates any suspicious traffic that might be flowing through a campaign. There is still a lot of mobile fraud globally, and we’re doing everything we can to fight it. 

As far as final tips go, always look for new trends in the market to monetize with. Experiment with a few different campaign setups, verticals, and tracking filters and refine as you go. 

Constantly adapt to changes in the market, and when a specific offer or vertical is not performing as well as it used to be, don’t be afraid to pivot and find a new strategy. 

That’s it for this edition of Experts Edge. Thanks again to Artur Kaczmarczyk and the team at Voluum.

Please feel free to reach out to Artur or us in the comments below, and don’t forget to claim 37% off on your Voluum Profit Plan, exclusive to Adcash Advertisers and readers. 

Bye for now.