PeerClick guide for beginners

To begin with, a few words about why you need a tracker at all. This is a useful tool to optimize your campaigns and get the maximum profit out of traffic. It allows you to track landing pages, websites, and creatives with the highest conversion rate, as well as to detect the non-converting ones. With a tracker, you always have such information as user data — device type, geo, IP, etc. — and other important parameters at hand.

Now about the software itself. PeerClick is a cloud-based tracker that helps you analyze the information generated by users who click on your ads. You can also create detailed reports, distribute traffic, organize statistics, set up and track campaigns.

In short, PeerClick allows you to track the following types of data:

1. Events including clicks, visits, and conversions;
2. Information about devices, geos, costs, payouts, etc.

All the data is stored in one place which gives you a clear idea about the performance of the campaigns. All in all, a tracker is a convenient tool that saves a great deal of time and effort for affiliates.

Now let's have a step-by-step look at PeerClick's environment and figure out how to set up your first campaign.

STEP 1: Register with PeerClick

The welcome page looks like this:

We need to register an account. To do this, click on the "GET STARTED FOR FREE" button. Then we see a standard form, where you need to enter your name, second name, email, etc., and also agree to the terms and conditions of the service. A verification link to activate your account will be sent to the email address you provided.

After the activation, PeerClick will ask you to choose one of the tariff plans ranging from FREE with basic features to Exclusive with access to all analytic tools. You can upgrade your tariff plan at any time.

Then you will be asked to provide a couple more details about yourself for invoice purposes. After that, you can log into the system. Before you create your first campaign, you will need:

1. Affiliate networks (if necessary)
2. Offer (provided by your affiliate network)
3. Landing page (if necessary)
4. Traffic source (you can either add it manually or choose one from the drop-down list in the settings)

STEP 2: Getting started and creating your first campaign

First, we need to create an affiliate network. It helps to organize active offers by their source. To do this, go to the "AFF. NETWORKS" tab, then click on the "+New" button. It is located in the upper-left corner of the page. You will see a whole list of available options.

Here you can also set up a Geo and choose a Specialization. If the desired affiliate network is not in the list, add it manually by hitting the "Create custom template" button in the lower right corner. Learn more about how to create a pre-defined affiliate network in PeerClick Help Center.

STEP 3: Creating a traffic source

Go to the "SOURCES" tab and click "+New" as you did before. Here you can also create your custom template as well as use the provided ones. You can quickly filter through the options. Click "Add".

Data such as the campaign ID, ZoneId and other parameters is transferred automatically when traffic goes through the campaign link in the traffic source. You can add several sources. Save your templates by clicking on "Create traffic source".

STEP 4: Creating an offer

An offer is represented by your ads on the Internet. You can get an offer from an affiliate network, for example. Go to the "OFFERS" tab and click "Create offer". Enter all the data in the next window.

STEP 5: Creating a landing page

You can also add a landing page to the campaign funnel. This is a separate page users get to when they click on your ad. This step is optional, but a landing page helps warm the audience up. It also requires no additional scripts, since tracking uses cookies and referrer data saved after visiting the campaign.

So, go to the tab "LANDERS" and click "Create lander". To add it to PeerClick, it must already be available online. The lander form looks like this:

To set up the lander-to-offer tracking correctly, you need to copy the "http:// ..." link from the first field and paste it into the HTML code of the landing page instead of all the redirect links to the offer page. If your campaign funnel has more than one offer, then use the link from the second field, where N is the serial number of the offer.

STEP 6: Creating a campaign

A campaign combines traffic sources, landing pages, offers, and flows that create a funnel. Go to the "CAMPAIGNS" tab and click "+New".

Next, fill in the fields one by one:

1. Campaign name
2. Select the traffic source that you have created earlier
3. Set the cost per click. Here we also specify the cost type: 

CPC — cost per click;

CPM — cost per 1000 clicks;

CPA — the cost per click will be assigned only after the conversion;

RevShare — the type of cost that works with actual conversions and is calculated as a percentage of a conversion revenue;

Auto — select this option if the traffic source passes the cost automatically;

You can edit these options at any time.

When using a landing page, click "+ Lander" on the right side of the screen. Select an offer by clicking the "+Offer" button.

And finally, you have created a new campaign. Choose a suitable campaign type, in our case, it will be the Redirect type. Depending on your funnel logic you can also choose:

1. Direct — if you track through direct tracking URL and pixel without an initial redirect;
2. Website protection — if you need to pass moderation with substituted content.

After copying the campaign URL, you can start creating your campaign in the traffic source.

What else you need to know about PeerClick

Bot protection

Basic+ and higher tariff plans include the bot protection feature. The algorithm uses tracker scripts on your landing pages. Thus, the page content changes depending on the traffic type. In addition, PeerClick has its own bot databases for popular sources, including Google, Yandex, Facebook, etc.

Anti-Fraud

This option helps you detect suspicious traffic in your campaigns by analyzing clicks and statistical patterns that look unnatural. Separate reports are generated for this parameter.

Multi-user

The software is cloud-based and allows to share access to campaigns with other users. This feature will be useful for teamwork.

Landing page protection

To do this, a special key is integrated in the campaign link. The tracker correlates the time difference between the visit on the landing page and the actual click, as well as checks the IP address and User-agent. This allows you to protect the landing page against spyware parsing programs. 

Mobile traffic tracking

The account owner can track installs via postback from the AppsFlyer and Kochava services. 

Affiliate Panel

The tracker provides a workspace for advertisers where they can create offers and make them accessible for affiliates. The traffic is analyzed by more than 40 parameters. The analysis allows you to evaluate the performance and the quality of the incoming leads.

In their turn, affiliates have access to statistical data on offers, payouts, and traffic. Thus, you get a full-fledged mini-affiliate network located on your domain.

BONUS

1 free cloacking campaign for 1 month + $50 bonus on your account after using promo code THEFLOWMEDIA. And also get 1M bonus clicks when purchasing paid plan. Register here: peerclick.com