Why API Tracking Is Taking Over Affiliate Marketing with Artem Butov

Artem Butov: I'm sure that API tracking is something like next step to the market. Uh, so if you remember uh, back in the days uh, where market started it was like pixel tracking that is not alive anymore because of Google bans, restrictions of cookie policies. Uh, it's not no more working. Well I think it's more about uh, AI, not API because like API is still working with traffic and we are working on different AI solutions inside our platform. Uh, make testing a b testing, running traffic uh, way more easier. For example, this is the goal in the nearest future, like to make it, hey, generate me like 100 links, 20 for Facebook, 20 for PPC and other kind of traffic. The thing is now starting affiliate marketing business is way more harder than it was even like five years before. So it's not a secret. That is a lot of scam and fraud cases in the industry and people doing scam like um, on purpose just because this is their business, they cannot do it another way.

Narrator: You're listening to Revenue Optimization with Snapstrom. This episode is supported by a few companies pushing the industry forward. Want your iGaming brand to stand out in a crowded market? Otis iGaming are the experts in SEO, digital strategy and brand protection. They help operators and affiliates rank higher, attract the right traffic and turn visibility into real growth. Visit Otis Global igaming and own your market today. That's o D Y S global iGaming. And if you're serious about revenue optimization, you need the right data. Statstrone helps affiliates track performance, spot revenue leaks and make smarter decisions all in one place. Turn your data into growth@statstrone.com.

John Wright: Uh, let's start at the very beginning. How did you get into affiliate marketing?

Artem Butov: Oh, it's a long story. I started my career in a media and advertising. So I used to touch first step in affiliate marketing and back in the days 2011 or 12. And then I start to, I changed my uh, job to uh, affiliate marketing to digital traffic. And uh, in a few years I founded my own business, my own affiliate network and then it ah growed to the hoarding.

John Wright: Okay. So I think I kind of see where the story is going. Cause I think we have similar stories where we got in affiliate marketing we saw problems, people weren't solving them. So we're like let's build our own SaaS company to do that. So let's just jump uh, right to the end. Tell us uh, what you've been building with Markzell.

Artem Butov: Well more so from just in a very simple language is the tracker trading solution. But we are not about building just a tracker. Uh this is a complex uh business tool that helps to improve performance and solve different ah kind of issues and tasks uh for our users. For example it can track like do like any tracker can directly, um tracking, collecting stats, CRM of affiliates, advertisers, um employees. But from another part we are given a software to work with API, uh to send, receive fleets, to manage cascades, to uh, send uh by pink tree for some particular verticals. And uh, we're making life easier for our users because they don't need to build their own platform to manage servers, to manage the developer team. So we do all integrations in house and we are helping with everything. So our clients, all they need to do is just uh run traffic and do arbitrage or affiliate marketing business.

John Wright: Okay, it sounds like there's almost uh some small overlap of what we do with stats run which is we get stats for affiliates from affiliate programs and affiliate networks and we have affiliate networks using our tools. So um, how would you describe uh what your company does compared to ones on the market? Because like the second like we started chatting I went and looked up your site and I was like I don't really think of, I can't think of anyone out there on the market that does what you do. It's kind of like a unique collection um of solutions.

Artem Butov: Yes you're right. So we are given opportunity to collect leads to make uh like different operations on one platform. For example if our clients work by API they prefer this kind of sending so they collect data and so they can do later additional monetization of the data so they can do email sending, scout API, do like any kind of marketing they can with the data. Um and um well of course uh, uh it can be helpful if uh for like more pro affiliates, pro people who are working with traffic. It's just another level because I'm sure that API tracking is something like next step to the market. Uh so if you remember uh, back in the days uh where market started it was like pixel tracking that is not alive anymore because of Google bands restrictions of cookie policies. Uh it's not no more working and direct link tracking is just very simple way to start and to run traffic. But API is more complex solution. It's when you are at the point of managing data and outflows and so we're giving everything we are giving it to. So the work of our clients is make uh a good optimization of traffic and squeeze maximum from traffic they're getting and delivering to like their products or

John Wright: advertisers and like I come a lot, uh, I'm more from the igaming background where there's a lot of money, but I personally find the tech is uh, it's very lacking. I think when you go outside of iGaming in affiliate marketing, that's when you start seeing people that are more advanced, more advanced with tools. Do you think that uh, we're kind of now going into a new era where um, like I call this like before COVID uh, we did B2B tools, which is boring to boring. And I think now everyone finds the stuff that we're working on a bit more exciting. Um, do you see more of a shift where people are actually caring about data? More or less. They're kind of looking for help. They're like, I know I need to do this, like, where do I start?

Artem Butov: Yeah, of course this is uh, reality, ah, API tracking. API software are gaining its popularity among affiliate marketers and players across like a lot of industries. Of course there are some industries that are uh, I mean niches in the affiliate marketing industry that uh, have underdeveloped API kind of uh, sending. For example in igaming they were strict about data. So it's not something that works for iGaming for now, but for other verticals like payday loans, dating, um, Legion, uh, any kind of uh, sweepstakes. What else? Nutra. Uh, so the API tracking and many other. By the way, API checking is exactly what is like usual thing because for example in neutral or Forex crypto vertical or dating, there is like all players know about API, not all of them using it, but for some of them it's must have two must have thing and they for example, uh, such verticals as like for Forex and CFD crypto, those guys only standing by API. Like 90% of tracking is goes through API.

John Wright: Okay, do you see a future where maybe this is ah, lacking on the igaming side where um, like in a perfect world you'd be able to generate all of your tracking links from an affiliate program without having to log in. It's kind of like an API request where you can say, hey, I need 500 links right now, can I get them? Uh, that concept in iGaming is kind of not a real thing. Uh, I know one or two companies that are building it. So do you see this more as kind of being normal on outside?

Artem Butov: Well, I uh, think it's more about AI, not API because like API is still working with traffic and we're working on different AI solutions inside our platform. Uh, make testing, AB testing, running traffic way more easier. For example, this is the goal in the nearest future, like to make it, hey, generate me like 100 links, 20 for Facebook, 20 for PPC and other kind of traffic. So uh, put it there and we start traffic. So this um, is the goal of course for now it's not the reality but I think uh, sooner or later it will be like just normal things that our Microsoft.

John Wright: Yeah, I mean short term it's like we'll have browser agents that can actually do this for you which is better than nothing. But at some point we'd like to see this as more automated where like you said you can make this request on your side, it pushes through and it just happens without having to actually need any agents.

Artem Butov: Yep, yep.

John Wright: Okay. Um, do you think affiliate networks are going to get stronger as time goes on? Because I mean my take is affiliate networks outside of iGaming, they're massive. Like you look at awin, shareasale, um, clickbank, uh, and so many of them like these are giant companies. Do you think there's room for more of them?

Artem Butov: Uh, well those players you mentioned, they are really top. This is the biggest affiliate networks in the world and this is the uh, network that uh, belongs to big media companies, big media holdings all over the world. And uh, the thing is now starting affiliate marketing business is way more harder than it was even like five years before. Uh the competition is very tough and affiliates marketers goes to like a small teams prefer to work with few advertisers and this uh, it becomes like a massive. But still affiliate networks are existing and we cannot deny that if you do everything right so you will be successful in this business. The thing is why we are um, uh delivering markzill to market. Uh because with Markzill you can start your affiliate network having lack of sources. For example you can optimize like finance your marketing stuff like uh, your development stuff. Uh, so you can run your network having one, two people on board. And with markzwell this is easy to go and we are developing more and more tools. So that's why I'm saying we're not only tracker. The thing is we're building ecosystem ecosystem to uh, make it work faster better to make uh, running traffic uh easier than it was before.

John Wright: Okay. Would you say that people could use SmartSil for either launching a network or they could keep their existing affiliate network and still use your tools?

Artem Butov: They can keep network they use and um, uh use our tools, uh especially if they work with the API or if they Want to build a smart link because uh, we are given a platform that allows to build a smart uh link with API or directly connection in like uh either way with optimization of landing pages rotation and products inside the smartlink. So it depends on goals of our clients.

John Wright: Okay. I mean I'm a big fan of conversion rate optimization and I think more affiliates and affiliate programs and affiliate networks need to pay attention to this. I mean it sounds obvious but I think there's been a lot of people that have been able to kind of make very good money without having to focus on this. And I think now because you know if you're just looking at Google as a traffic source, it's very unstable. So I mean now we need to care about the click more than we've ever have before.

Artem Butov: You're right. I think like there is no stable sources right now. All sources like uh, kind of turbulence meta, uh Google also SEO that actually was the strongest kind of source for all businesses actually. But now all this like the only, only one source that I can mention is uh ad networks. Ah like uh bar users traffic that I think will, will be alive for a long time. It's like the dinosaurs and it will survive any crisis.

John Wright: And going back to the affiliate and publisher side, like do you think more of them should use affiliate uh agencies and affiliate networks to get better deals where I mean when you get started you don't have the traffic so you can't negotiate the better deals. Um, do you think that this is kind of like a must do for most affiliates or Depends.

Artem Butov: Uh, well the thing is you cannot grow without like some special deals, white labels or some special offers to grow with affiliates for affiliate networks for example. The thing is that you start growing having uh given to your affiliates additional caps when the caps are over. So your heroes networks to give it caps to make their flow work. But in the, in the same time uh, you have to understand that if they run out of caps probably this traffic is not very good. So and so step by step like starting from giving like additional caps and moving forward. So of course for every network, every agency, the thing is the main idea is to give to their affiliates some in house, some special products and this is how they can survive and scale their business. So that's why we took a focus on like in house solution that can be uh built with your tracking platform. Actually what we do for our affiliates as well.

John Wright: Okay. And I got like a more of a hypoth. No, it's not even a hypothetical situation. It's a real, it's a real reality of affiliate marketing. I mean on the iGaming side and I know this happens outside of iGaming. Uh, uh, we've seen big companies get bigger by acquiring smaller companies and they use arbitrage all day long. Like they have these amazing deals, they talk to a site that they could buy, they know what their deals are, they can pretty much calculate very quickly how long it'll take them to get that roi. And then you end up with like bigger sites owning more of the, the ecosystem where they go to operators and say okay, you now have to pay us These very high CPAs, flat fees and rev share deals. Um, do you think like the margins are getting squeezed uh all across affiliate marketing?

Artem Butov: Yeah. And we see like obviously the margins are squeezing like uh, across all the niches. Uh, uh first of all the uh, gray niches are affected mostly uh with this like restrictions from payment solutions from main traffic sources and it affects it market very hard uh, with the, with igaming, uh, I cannot say that marginality like decreasing uh with uh, like very high speed. But uh, there is like of course from year to year making money, uh, getting harder uh, when the prices are going up. So we have to survive in these realities.

John Wright: Yeah, it just makes sense. It's like I look at this from both sides of the fence, the affiliate side where if you don't have these deals it's kind of like it's very difficult to get started. But on the other side with the affiliate programs they kind of are eating their own tail by saying okay if you don't have this traffic we're not going to give you these deals. So um, the companies that end up getting the best deals have like very low margins. And I've heard in some cases the margins are paper thin where it's like uh, it's almost not even worth you know paying for the traffic. So I mean if you create those situations you're basically making this a self fulfilling prophecy that you know, only the big will get bigger. And then you're going to be dealing with affiliate networks which is kind of like a super affiliate, um, the biggest affiliates which uh, they ask for the best deals. And yeah, I think you're right. I think affiliate uh, networks and the operators, the affiliate programs, they need to, I think they need to start looking at their own data and going okay, where do we have our margins? Uh, where should we spend more time getting traffic? Both um, from existing affiliates as well as the new ones.

Artem Butov: Yeah, of course. But it always was like uh, you cannot play With a big margin with the top affiliates who is delivering traffic. Uh, but you can always like play with a lot of small affiliates. So network business is always like kind of negotiation from both sides. But if you do a media buying, so this is another point so you can find um, the nice bundles to make your ROI on a high level. And it always like this but still uh, as like have an experience in media buying as well. Uh, the marginality in igaming for example, again uh, it decreases if you see Nowadays the ROI from traffic sending like 100, 200% for sure there is something wrong or you get stopped like very fast. Either something like wrong uh with the stats or tracking. So you have to take care of everything and be very careful.

John Wright: And what would you say is the state of affiliate management today? Because it's like an igaming ideal with a lot of affiliate managers where I actually feel that they're, they come into the space with less training, they got a sales background so they come in with aggressive sales that don't build a relationship with me or anyone else in my strong opinion. And they all just look and sound the same. It's kind of like they just want more affiliate signups and they want more sales but they don't care about the quality of traffic. And um, like what you just said uh, two minutes ago is that they're not even looking at the stats and understanding like wait a minute, where are my problematic affiliates? Like which ones are actually fraudulent or you know, they're gaming the system.

Artem Butov: Of course it depends on the approach because always it should be a smart approach. So from one, one part you're sending traffic if it's good. Your uh, uh main goal is to scale this traffic to make more uh, money for you, for your clients. But of course there is a lot of, so it's not a secret, that is a lot of scam and fraud cases in the industry and people doing scam like um, on purpose just because this is their business, they cannot do it another way. And so that's why you have to be always like pay attention uh, on everything. If you are advertiser you have to pay attention to your affiliates and like daily and even hourly uh following the stats and ROI on your end. If you're a network you have to control the conversion rate feedbacks from advertiser just to make sure you avoid this fraud scam cases from uh, another sources because even trusted sources sometimes can mix some um, very suspicious traffic to your deal. And so the main thing is just to uh, uh, to make difference between like low uh, quality traffic and fraud traffic. Because fraud traffic is actually this is like uh, something very, very bad that this like all market I think fight against fraudulent cases fraud traffic. But from another point the traffic can be just. It cannot fit with the product for example or different approach. For example, uh, if affiliate runs some crash approach to slot, uh, lender, it will never convert, it will never work in a good way. So and of course this is violation of the rules. Of course it's again like the. This, this is equals to like fraudulent traffic. Uh, but what I would say that sometimes it's not the, it's not a fraud traffic but it's just not working for advertiser. And here is the point when you have to place uh, professional with uh, your affiliates and with advertisers to check and to find out uh, what kind of traffic is it is.

John Wright: Yeah, no, it makes sense. I mean from my point of view, the way I see it is that you could easily fill your database with leads that they'll register but they're never going to purchase. It's like why have them in your database in the first place? Like you're just wasting more resources. Uh, you're sending out more emails that, that's just going to affect your bounce rate. I mean, you know, you're going to get people asking dumb questions that eat up your customer support. I mean there's, there's no winning there.

Artem Butov: Yeah, you're all right.

John Wright: Yeah. Artem, uh, this was very insightful. I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about the tool and chatting uh, afterwards. So I want to pass it back to you. How can people get a hold of you?

Artem Butov: Uh, well, you can, you can drop me an email to be@marxel IO or join me, like ping me on Telegram. But in Telegram sometimes this is a lot of noise. So I think like, better to share some uh, of my like contacts to you. And so you will put it.

John Wright: Yes, video recording. Absolutely. Uh, LinkedIn for sure. And we'll definitely put a link to the website there.

Artem Butov: Yeah, LinkedIn. Yeah, of course. It always works.

John Wright: Awesome. Artem, thank you so much for doing this.

Artem Butov: Thank you very much.

Narrator: Let's give a shout out to a few affiliate program platforms that are supporting this podcast that includes IG Suite, Afilka and Intellytics. Thanks for the support. And if you're looking to launch your affiliate program program or affiliate network, check out these software and learn more at RevenueOptimization IO. This is Revenue optimization with Statstrom, where better data leads to better decisions. If you're not measuring it, you're guessing.

John Wright: See you next time.