Click Listings Overview
Visualize user engagement through click listings to gain a profound understanding of how users interact with your listings. In real time, adjust your thank you pages (or offer walls as Pingtree refers to them as) and capitalize on the chance to monetize your traffic through additional outlets.
Pingtree's click listing feature can be a very integral part of a campaigns success. This is a great no-code development feature where users can integrate a click listing tile that will facilitate traffic to an end buyer through the use of a redirect.
In many cases, users utilize click listings by applying it towards lead traffic that may not have qualified for the initial product offer. Instead of unsold traffic going nowhere, click listings can provide other channels and opportunities to monetize these leads through a similar offering via the click listing.
Pingtree provides the template which entirely customizable and includes a spot for the buyer or offer's logo, custom CTA verbiage, buttons, disclaimers and more.
These click listings will live within the campaign level. Users can track the amount of clicks from said click listings and send lead data to the partner as well as get postbacks with revenue and conversion events.
How Does a Click Listing Work?
Click listings function through the use of redirection URLs, Pingtree API's and transaction_id logic.
Provided by a buyer you have commercialized with, a redirection URL (or commonly referred to as tracking link) will be installed in your click listing builder, along with some additional parameters unique to your campaign which will also be provided by them.
Once their offer is created and active inside of your Pingtree campaign, you'll be able to render it on a page of your choosing in your flow.
When a lead lands on your offer wall page which houses your different click listing offers, they will have the option to click on one (or many). IF that lead clicks on one of these offers, they will be redirected to the tracking link which was previously provided and installed.
Pingtree tracks this click, down to the actual click listing itself that was clicked on. When the lead is redirected to this third party offer, Pingtree will append the URL with any additional parameters and values that you've configured in your click listing builder.
Depending on your agreement with the owner of that offer, they may send back certain "offline" conversion and attribution metrics. This may include certain events and revenue generated.
Creating Click Listing Buyers
Any buyer who has click listings will be created as a Custom Endpoint in your Pingtree campaign.
When setting up a Custom Endpoint (or Advertiser), there are different ways to configure the flow of traffic to them.
Lead Routing: The most common routing setup, in Lead Routing you are posting the lead data via API to the endpoint or buyer. You will need to add the endpoint into your routing logic and will follow posting rules you've assigned to it.
Click Routing: Somewhat of a hybrid between Lead Routing and Click Listings, Click Routing, can either redirect leads to a given redirect URL or endpoint. This can be done via tracking links or API. The difference between this routing method and a Click Listing is that you need to configure your endpoints/buyers in the routing logic and there is no specific UI creation tools for their offers.
Click Listing: Click Listings live separate to Click Routing and Lead Routing. They are not mutually exclusive meaning you could have a buyer where you are posting lead data to them through Lead Routing while simultaneously having and offer of theirs active on your offer wall.
**Click Listings represent offers of individual buyer. It is very possible and likely that a single buyer may have numerous offers to set up as click listings.
Click Listing Builder
The click listing builder is where you will actually build out the UI and tracking components of each click listing offer.
Inside of your custom endpoint for the buyer who's offer you're building, you will navigate down to the Click Listings menu item. This is where you will find any existing offers specifically for this buyer.
Select the Create Click Listing button to populate the builder.
Once inside the builder you will see the top section which will render your changes you make in real time and provide a preview of the UI. You cna toggle this between Desktop viewport and a Mobile Devices viewport.
**This is the just the building editor and depending on the templates and UI containers you've used in your offer wall inside of the funnel builder or externally, it may look different, however the content will still be pulled from here.
Click Listing Builder Components
Click Listing Title: This will represent what the click listing will be labeled internally in your campaign.
Redirection URL: The tracking link provided by the buyer/offer owner will be inserted here.
Image: The image that will be used for the offer - This should be imported as either a JPEG or PNG file
Main Call Action: This content will serve as the title in the actual UI of the Click Listing when rendered in a web form.
Button Text: The text of the CTA button which a lead will click on to be redirected
4 Call to Actions: 4 Additional non-clickable CTA's that render under the image shown commonly as bullet points
Footer Call to Actions: Additional CTAs that render at the bottom of the click listing offer horizontally. You can add 1 or many.
Click Listing Description: The content that renders below the Main CTA title. This section is typically used to add in the offer's slogan or a quick phrase about the offer itself.
Field Mapping: Much like in lead routing, you will need to map over certain fields that will append the URL when the lead is redirected. You can see if the buyer can pre-populate their form with certain values at which point you can map certain lead data such as first and last name, phone number, address etc.. You will also map Pingtree's transaction_id and any static fields such as unique ID's and tokens specific to your campaign.
What to Obtain From The Buyer
There are a few key things you will need to obtain from a buyer when running one of their offers.
The redirect URL (or tracking link)
Any unique key:value pairs such as an affiliate ID or token. This will allow them to differentiate a click coming from your campaign vs. others who are running their offers
The macro they use to ingest a unique click ID. This is extremely important as you will need to map Pingtree's transaction_id to that parameter.
Approval: It is good to send over a copy of your built click listing offer with the log to ensure it complies with their brand.
Setting up a Postback
In order to return attribution data for each of your click listings you will need to provide the buyer(s) with your global postback along with some additional parameters.
Inside of your Organization-level System Settings in the Event Management section is where you will find this.
The buyer will install this postback along with those additional parameters and fire this when a lead has successfully converted on their offer.
Additional Parameters
Event ID:
You will want to set up a custom event for these click listings conversions. It's good to differentiate this between other revenue generating actions or events. It's common to call this event "Offerwall Conversion" or "Click Conversion" Once the event is created it will be assigned an event ID automatically.
When sending the buyers this postback URL to install, you can include this as a "static key:value pair" meaning it won't need to change and is not dynamic. This would be structured like "event_id=100" but you would replace the 100 with your event ID value.
Transaction ID:
Extremely important to include the transaction_id parameter in the postback URL. This is NOT static as the event_id was, meaning it is a dynamic value. The buyer should've already provided you with the parameter that you are mapping the transaction_id field to. In the event that you know this parameter, you can structure it in your URL query string like this:
transaction_id={Insert_Buyers_Parameter}
The curly brackets indicate that the value that should be inserted within them is dynamic, and the parameter inserted in those curly brackets contains the parameter in which the value is being sent to them in.
Revenue:
In order show that this particular offer generated revenue and attribute with the lead and the source the lead originated from, you will want to have revenue sent back. This is once again dynamic, because in most cases, click listing revenue is not fixed on a CPC (Cost per Click) basis. In order to send this to the buyer, you can structure it in your URL query string like this:
amount={PAYOUT_AMOUNT}
The "amount" represents the macro or parameter Pingtree uses to ingest revenue. "PAYOUT_AMOUNT" in the double curly brackets once again indicates that it's a dynamic value. Since you will not be sending this to them in the redirect like you are with the transaction_id, you will likely not know which macro they use which is why it's best practice to structure like above.
An example of a postback URL you may send to a buyer for your click listing:
https://api.pingtree.com/api/event/global/609ddb7fdb968a84abbpo938?event_id=100&transaction_id={Buyers_Parameter_Here}&amount={PAYOUT_AMOUNT}
For a single buyer, you can have them utilize this same postback URL. This goes for any other buyers as well, although the "Buyer_Parameter" will likely be different.
You may be wondering, how does Pingtree know which offer to attribute the click to if it's the same postback URL. That's a great question, and it will be covered in this next section: