Performance automation tools in TUNE help increase profit margins and phase out traffic with undesirable conversion rates. Once you define optimization thresholds, you can automate tasks like alerting partner managers and blocking partners based on those rules. This feature is for enterprise accounts only.
This article is part of our Popular Features series.
Required Permissions
Before an admin employee can manage automation settings, they must have the “Automation” permission. Administrators can update employee permissions on the employee’s details page. In Company > Manage Employees, select the employee’s name. Then, in the Permissions panel, click Edit.
Automated Warnings & Blocks
TUNE automates actions based on the performance of offer-partner pairs (“partner level”) and offer-partner-source groupings (“source level”) in a set data window.
To know when to act on your behalf, TUNE follows the automation rules you create. Automation rules allow TUNE to do the following without any additional input:
- Alert a partner manager
- Alert a partner
- Block a partner from the offer (partner-level block)
- Disable a tracking link (source level block)
When TUNE acts based on an automation rule, it sends notifications to any affected partners and their partner managers who have opted into notifications. You can see a history of automated actions in the automation log.
Excluding Offers, Partners, or Advertisers
To exclude offers, partners, or advertisers from automation, go to Automation > Exclusions. Then click Add Exclusion and select what you want to exclude. Automation rules exclude offers, partners, and advertisers in the exclusions table.
Automation Email Notifications
To receive email notifications for automated actions, edit your employee notification settings. Go to Company > My Account. Then, in the Settings panel, click Manage Email Notification Subscriptions. In the Automation panel, select each type of email notification you want to receive. Click Save once you’re finished.
Tip: Partners are subscribed to automation email notifications by default and can change their notification settings via My Account > Settings in the publisher interface.
Automation Rules & Settings
To set up and manage automation rules, go to Automation > Automation Rules. Here, you can see all rules being considered by TUNE, edit global rule settings, and add new rules:
Global Rule Settings
All rules use the same data window, click cost, and traffic source identifier field settings. To access these global settings, click Rule Settings above the Automation Rules table.
Important: Automation tools only act based on data within the selected data window. Clicks and conversions outside the selected data window are ignored for all automation rules.
Adding Rules
To add a new automation rule, click Add Rule above the table. In the modal that appears, decide:
- Which offer, offer classification, or offer tag your rule applies (Apply to)
- When your rule should trigger (If)
- How broadly to apply the rule (At the…level)
- What action to take when the rule triggers (Then)
- How early you want to consider taking action (Enforce after)
Automation rules can be enforced at the partner level (by offer-partner pair) and source level (by offer-partner-source grouping). This allows you to avoid blocking a partner’s access to an offer when only one of their traffic sources performs poorly.
Example: Avoiding Incent Traffic
Let’s say we have a non-incent offer called “Hungry Reindeer”. We want to avoid sending incent traffic to it, and we know that conversion rates higher than 30% can suggest incent traffic.
To deflect traffic generating these high conversion rates, we create an automation rule that triggers when a partner’s conversion rate for an offer passes 30%. When adding the new rule, we describe it to the best of our abilities:
- Apply to: “Offer”, “Hungry Reindeer.”
- If: “Conversion rate,” “is more than,” “30%.”
- At the: “Partner” level
- Then: “Block Partner”
- Enforce after: “100” clicks
After we click Save, the rule becomes active, and TUNE checks on partner conversion rates periodically for the “Hungry Reindeer” offer. TUNE now blocks partners if they exceed a 30% conversion rate and have more than 100 clicks in the automation data window on “Hungry Reindeer.” If necessary, we can unblock those partners from the offer later.
Rule Precedence
In general, rules with more severe action types (such as “block”) take precedence over rules with less severe action types (such as “alert”). If the action types are the same for two or more rules affecting the same offer, classification, or tag, then more-specific rules (such as offer-level rules) take precedence over less-specific rules (such as tag-level rules).
Viewing Automated Actions
Actions taken based on your automation rules are listed in Automation > Automation Log. There, you can see each action listed with the affected partners and offers, as well as with the automation rule that triggered the action:
Note: Automated actions can take up to 30 minutes to process. We recommend adjusting your settings to account for this potential time delay.
To revert partner blocks caused by automation rules, go to the offer and re-approve the partner in the Partner Access panel.
To revert source-level blocks caused by automation rules, go to Partners > Disabled Links. Click Delete to restore access to the relevant tracking link.