Over the past few weeks we have been taking a deep dive into the leading affiliate networks and tracking platforms of 2020. All solve for many of the problems both publishers and brands face today related to transparency, attribution, technological advancements, support and more. Today we are taking a closer look at a company that takes great pride in quality over quantity; Avantlink!

Brief History 

AvantLink’s approach to affiliate marketing is simple, grow your business through quality partnerships. Three unique international networks feature category-leading advertising brands that are all backed by accomplished publishers.

Headquartered in Park City, Utah, AvantLink was founded in 2005 and is privately owned and supports approximately 35 employees. The company takes pride in being profitable and debt-free and just recently celebrated 15 years of being in business.

As a leading affiliate marketing platform that offers multi-channel analytics, and referral tracking for quality advertisers and savvy publishers, AvantLink’s always looking to challenge standard practices and status-quo technology in the space. While continually working to evolve, AvantLink is very keen about keeping the network focused on a quality over quantity environment for the benefit of our partners.

AvantLink revels in working with both established, and up-and-coming organizations who see eye-to-eye with these core values:

• Innovation: They believe in challenging standard practices and disrupting status quo technology solutions. They believe in leading and not following.
• Integrity: Operating in an honest, ethical, and transparent way is foundational to our company. They can lead the industry and make it better.
• Excellence: They believe in being the best they can be, continually improving, and being 10x better than their competition.
• Quality over Quantity: They believe in working with quality partners that align with their values and beliefs rather than working with as many parnters as possible.
• Customer Service: They treat their customers as part of the team; providing the maximum value and doing everything they can to help clients and partners succeed.

Key Features and Capabilities 

AvantLink’s platform, Arches, is the heart of the AvantLink network and has been crafted for advertisers and publishers to grow their businesses at scale.

For brands, robust reporting provides unmatched insight into every element of activity within a program. For publishers, innovative tools that are easy to use and help understand and reach specific target audiences.

Real-time Standard Tracking & Reporting with additional parameters available that include:

• New Customer Sales
• Mobile Sales
• Exclusive Coupon Code
• Foreign Currency
• Shipping
• Custom Parameters

AvantLinks Advanced Click-Stream Analytics

• View all online marketing channels involved in a single sale & gain insights into how various marketing channels interact with one another.

AvantLink’s Advanced Commission Sharing

Bypass the traditional last-click-wins payout model and award multiple affiliates involved in the sale, based on where they fall in the clickstream.

AvantLink is committed to Innovation and the ongoing evolution of the Arches platform, watch for these additional feature releases coming soon.

Increased Availability to Data

• Improved Data Visualization
• Customized Reporting
• AI Predictive Modeling
• Advanced Tracking
• Cookieless and Cross-Device Tracking
• Additional Insight into the Customer Path
• Advanced Commission Rules
• Commission on Actions – (newsletter sign-up)

Core competencies include: Affiliate/Performance Marketing Technology platform, Multi-Channel Analytics/Attribution and commission Splitting Technology, and Affiliate Program Management services.

Advantages and Benefits 

One of the key differentiators of working with the AvantLink network should be starting to become  very clear. By design, they’ve chosen to maintain the manageable size. By keeping their network smaller they are able to provide relationships that are nearly guaranteed to drive sales more quickly once in the network. Furthermore, with the quality over quantity approach of AvantLink, they can provide a much better level of personalized service on multiple levels of the business.

AvantLink often focuses on the concepts of a “blended approach” to affiliate marketing. As you would expect, they provide access to all of the industries top loyalty, coupon and deal affiliates. Names that will resonate are Ebates, RetailMeNot, and Slickdeals, just to name few. Where the idea of blended comes into play is the access they give advertisers to targeted content affiliates that can be much harder to reach.  Since they are a technology driven platform with advanced capabilities, affiliate are able to thrive with AvantLink. The robust tool suite they offer enables affiliates/publishers to promote merchants in more targeted ways than just a simple banner or text ad. They are able to access product offerings from a new level, and they believe this creates more ROI without feeling “promotional” in nature.

Back to their strongest unique selling point… quality over quantity. They are not afraid to tell prospective merchants/advertisers that their active affiliate list is more than likely smaller than the networks they may compare them too.  The point they make is that merchants will spend much less time prospecting and creating meaningful, productive relationships.

To further ensure they provide the highest quality network, AvantLink takes security and compliance protocols very seriously.

Having a high level of integrity, combined with compliance teams, Avantlink ensures their clients and partner data is secure. AvantLink routinely reviews and updates its network technology, anti-virus programs, backup systems, and other technological security systems.   AvantLink encrypts information via SSL in transit, AES-256 at rest.  AvantLink’s security policy is based on SANS 20 CSC.

AvantLink makes brand protection a priority and takes this concept to a level that most brands have not experienced.  AvantLink’s Compliance Department handles the individual and personal review/acceptance/denial process for all new Affiliate applications.

In order to ensure an individual owns (or is directly associated with) the website they apply with; they authenticate all applications. Once ownership is authenticated, each application is then reviewed by our compliance team. Applicants with the following classifications or characteristics are not accepted; template driven coupon sites, generic duplicate content sites, Template driven coupon sites, generic duplicate content sites, and website banner farms, just to provide a few examples of their diligence.

Lastly, they use a mix of internal and third-party tools to identify violations. Because they have always required strict validation and qualification of Affiliate accounts, it mitigates the challenge of finding, contacting and (if necessary) removing violators. Their compliance staff are paid a fixed salary and their compensation has no direct ties to commissions earned from the Affiliate base.

Industry and Category Focus (Advertisers)

While AvantLink is known to have a strong foundation of partners and brands in the outdoor space, they excel in many other verticals as well. Early on, they gained momentum with outdoor brands due to their strong relationship with content publishers and the use of their Datafeed Tool Suite. Today they have synergy with partners in a wide range of business segments.

Their strongest vertical markets are; Outdoors, Fitness, Hunting & Fishing, Health/Wellness and Beauty, and the general sporting goods industry as a whole.

Other verticals where AvantLink continues to grow at rapid pace include; Lifestyle Fashion, Automotive (Overland Travel), Cycling, and Snowsports.

Publisher Relationships

Avant Link’s publisher-base is diverse, comprised of content sites and niche-blogs as well as top loyalty, deal, coupon, sub-affiliate & third-party technology affiliates.

They reject approximately 70% of publisher applications to ensure a quality-over-quantity environment for our advertisers, saving them time and money.

AvantLink has an industry-leading foundation of content publishers that are proven to consistently produce strong sales for advertisers. Here’s why their content publishers are effective:

• Typically niche audiences are hard to reach with traditional marketing channels. Working with content publishers ensures brands are hitting targets and spending budget efficiently.
• AvantLink’s industry leading Datafeed tool suite is easy for content affiliates to use, so showcasing, comparing, and promoting products to their  audiences is productive and converts well.

Attribution Capabilities

Avant Link’s leadership in the area of attribution technology is evidenced by being the first major network to design an actionable attribution tracking and commissioning system in 2011. Their system not only rewards affiliates properly for the vital work they are doing, but also helps advertisers save money in the process.

Avant Link’s clickstream analytics and attribution technology is able to categorize affiliates/channels into three different groups depending on when they enter the click stream, and an attribution model can be set up to split commissions between the referral groups. The three different referral groups are Introducer, Influencer, and Checkout Influencer.

Introducer referrals occur when a customer is introduced or directed to a merchants website for the first time.

Influencer referrals occur when a customer has previously visited the site and before entering the checkout phase.

Checkout influencer referrals occur during a customizable time frame after which the customer enters the checkout process. A checkout influencer is rewarded if the customer completes a purchase within the time frame.

By providing them with the URL(s) that identify the start of the checkout process, AvantLink can start to categorize referrals into the referral groups and that data can be used to determine an attribution model to split commissions between referral groups.  Site visits and orders associated with revenue traffic are a basic level reporting functionality with AvantLink.

Other Brands/Owned Companies

Avant Link’s, Fervora, is a simple performance marketing platform for brands and influencers. The Platform was developed to make influencer marketing trackable and accessible for all.  Brands can quantity and reward influencer impact on social mediums. Influencers get paid for promoting the brands they represent. It’s simple to start up and integrate whether you’re a brand or an influencer.

AvantLink understands influencer marketing is a unique channel with demands and functionality not necessarily met by an affiliate network. To this end, AvantLink has created Fervora, a sister company that brings the same cost-per-performance focus of the affiliate channel wrapped up in a platform that is incredibly easy to navigate for users with far less technical ability.

Fervora offers brands the ability to manage a diverse portfolio of influencers (macro, nano, and loyal guests) who have direct experience with the brand and products.

Influencers represent the brands they love and get paid directly for their impact, and setting up an account takes just a minute!

In Closing

Avantlink provides innovative technology for advertisers pursuing direct to consumer revenue growth. They accomplish this by providing the following:

• Quality, highly vetted, vertical-specific publishers and industry-leading coupon, loyalty and deal sites
• A robust tool offering for publishers to promote your brand
• Cutting-edge tracking, reporting, and commission sharing technology
• Customizable and engaging dashboards for advertisers and publishers
• Customer support that is responsive and easy to work with

To book a demo or get in touch with AvantLink about your affiliate, influencer or partnership marketing program, click here and navigate to the “Get in Touch” section at the bottom of the page.