(3/20-9/20)
Challenge
Given a steady stream of revenue, fundamentally alter the underlying business model towards CPC/CPA.
Action
Phase 1
In March 2020 pre-COVID, did a quick dive on Skimlinks documentation and put together a quick explanation/overview to demonstrate how easy it would be to include. Business climate wasn’t right so didn’t pursue.
Phase 2
Sep 2020, post-CEO-stepping-down and several months after Phase 1, explored use of Viglink (Sovrn) only to discover that business had previously been CPA-based before fulfillment was brought in-house ~2017.
Digging around, found some old Skimlinks code, then leveraged updated documentation to prove click-tracking with custom params could still work.
Phase 3
The business, being unsure whether to use one or several affiliate networks, needed partnership to figure out the best implementation path forward. For four networks, I kludge’d scripts into production and verified clicks, evaluating custom parameters as they’d flow through the lifecycle and eventually be reported through APIs.
When the business decided to focus on Commission Junction and Skimlinks, I led development to integrate JS libs (monkey-patching CJ to play-well on the same page as Skimlinks) and verify clicks / custom params.
Result
Overcame fits-and-starts to deliver affiliate model.