This week, at its Optimism event in Carlsbad, Rakuten Advertising announced a suite of innovative solutions to address evolving challenges for affiliates and advertisers.
The new offerings aim to enhance transparency, ensure brand safety, and bridge the gap between creator and affiliate marketing.
Leading the announcements was the Affiliate Conversion Journey – Transparency API, an enhancement that offers publishers next-day visibility into their role in a consumer’s purchase path, down to the individual order.
“This higher level of transparency empowers publishers to better understand and advocate for the value they provide – even beyond the last click,” said Rakuten Advertising CEO Nick Stamos.
Protecting conversions for affiliates has been a major focus for affiliate platforms this past year. Awin recently completed the first rollout of its Conversion Protection Initiative.
During his executive remarks, Amit Patel, CEO and President of Rakuten International, namechecked Awin’s CPI as a significant step forward for the industry, signalling a positive, unified commitment across networks and platforms to address this issue concurrently.
Another major reveal was Rakuten Advertising Detect, an always-on monitoring suite for affiliate program compliance and fraud protection. Leveraging proprietary AI and third-party partnerships with Marcode, AdPolice, and Search Monitor, Detect identifies ad hijacking, keyword bidding, performance anomalies, and competitor activity to keep advertisers protected and optimised.
To help brands engage with creators more effectively, Rakuten introduced Storefronts, a solution that enables creators to build branded, shoppable experiences with simple link-in-bio tools. The platform allows advertisers to scale creator partnerships efficiently while aligning influencer campaigns with business goals.
Finally, Rakuten debuted Prompt, an AI-powered reporting tool that generates real-time, custom analytics for advertisers and publishers. With ad-hoc reporting and data visualisation, Prompt aims to streamline decision-making and enhance programme performance insights.
“These new tools are a continuation of our Affiliate Intelligence strategy, designed to help brands and publishers adapt and thrive amid changing industry dynamics,” said Stamos.
