Credit groups allow you to prioritize or de-prioritize the attribution of certain partners. You can set partners as Preferred, Standard, or Non-Preferred. This feature requires informed and delicate use, as you can quickly make major changes to how your program attributes partners (e.g., turning a cashback partner into a non-preferred one will majorly decrease their commissions and result in cashback users being confused about why they are not receiving their cashback).
Setting the credit group for a partner is ultimately your decision, but there are recommendations for how to best use it. Refer to the table below for a description of each credit group and impact.com's recommendation on how to use it.
The following credit group descriptions apply if your program is configured to leverage last-click crediting for all conversion events. If you are using any form of advanced crediting logic or are unsure, please reach out to support for assistance.
Credit group | Description | impact.com's Recommendation |
Preferred | Preferred partners will be credited for driving an action when that partner is the last click of all preferred partners participating in the customer journey. | Select this option if you want this partner to be credited with driving an action over another partner lower in your hierarchy, if they were involved in driving an action. |
Standard | Standard partners will be credited for driving an action when that partner is the last click of all standard partners participating in the customer journey, provided no preferred partners participated in the same customer journey. | Select this option if you want this partner to be credited with driving an action if no Preferred partners were involved in driving an action. |
Non-Preferred | Non-preferred partners will be credited for driving an action when that partner is the last click of all non-preferred partners participating in the customer journey, provided no preferred or standard partners participated in the same customer journey. | Select this option if you want this partner to be last in line for being credited for driving an action. If any Preferred or Standard partners were involved in driving the action, they will be credited over partners with this credit group. |
Tip: If you begin changing credit groups for contracts, it's strongly encouraged that you start labeling each contract as Preferred, Standard, & Non-Preferred so that you can easily filter your Template Terms by label moving forward.
Let's say you're managing a digital marketing program using impact.com, and you have 3 channels that drive customer conversions:
Email Marketing (Preferred)
Affiliate Marketing (Standard)
Display Ads (Non-Preferred)
Now, you want to set up credit groups for these channels to determine how conversions will be credited and how your partners will be paid.
Last-click conversion for all channels:
A customer clicks through the following journey before completing a purchase:
The customer clicks on a Display Ad (Non-Preferred).
The customer clicks on an Email Marketing campaign (Preferred).
The customer clicks on an Affiliate Marketing link (Standard).
The customer makes a purchase (Final action).
In this scenario, Email Marketing, being in the Preferred credit group, would receive the credit for the conversion. This is because the Preferred credit group takes priority if it's the last click of all participating credit groups.
When no preferred channel is involved:
Now, let's imagine a different customer journey where the Email Marketing channel is not involved:
The customer clicks on a Display Ad (Non-Preferred).
The customer clicks on an Affiliate Marketing link (Standard).
The customer makes a purchase (Final action).
Since no Preferred credit groups were involved in this conversion, the Affiliate Marketing channel (Standard) would be credited for driving the action, as it's the last-click channel in the Standard credit group.
Preferred | Always takes priority for credit if it's the last click from any Preferred channels. |
Standard | Gets credit for the conversion only if no Preferred credit groups were involved. |
Non-Preferred | Gets credit only if no Preferred or Standard credit groups were involved, and it is the last click among all Non-Preferred credit groups. |
Optimize setup:
In the case where you have a preferred channel configured via Optimize and you also have partners set as standard in your Insertion Orders, the preferred channel will be credited rather than the standard partner.
Promo code setup:
Credit groups take precedence over promo code tracking attribution. In other words, a standard partner with a promo code set to Always Credit will lose attribution over a preferred partner using last-click attribution. However, if both partner contracts are set to preferred, then promo code tracking attribution wins.
From the left navigation menu, select
![[Optimize]](https://paligoapp-cdn-eu1.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/impact/attachments/f01cdffa431a4d75ff09c130b66974d4-c25216845aff9ccb7c26768fb689a623.svg)
[Optimize] → Settings.Select Channels.
From the left navigation menuelect Reports → More Reports.
In the search bar, input Contract History and select the relevant report from the search results. Alternatively, scroll down the list to find the relevant report and select it.
