• Client ONLINE UNITED GmbH, affiliate-only marketing agency, Germany
• Industry Affiliate marketing
• Scale 30+ affiliate programmes across 11 European markets
• Stack Power BI, AWS data warehouse, multi-network affiliate APIs including Awin
• Delivery 3 to 4 weeks, plus one week for client-facing advertiser views

Affiliate performance scattered across networks

ONLINE UNITED GmbH is an affiliate-only marketing agency headquartered in Germany, delivering pan-European affiliate marketing solutions. The agency manages more than 30 affiliate programmes across 11 European markets, and campaigns run across multiple affiliate networks, each with its own reporting.

With a wide variety of clients and no single place to read performance, the agency needed a way of tracking everything in one report. Having already built other Power BI solutions with DA Lytics, they decided to put together a reporting solution giving them visibility across the entire affiliate operation. The technical challenges:

• Implementing dynamic API calls for each advertiser and year
• Blending data from multiple network APIs into one holistic view of performance
• Enabling drill-through functionality for extended analysis

What we built

The Power BI solution is a weekly performance reporting tool. It gives ONLINE UNITED full visibility over affiliate programme performance across advertisers, publishers, weeks and months, which is what the team's optimisation decisions are based on.

It was first designed for internal use, with access to every advertiser the agency works with, and then adapted so it can be shared with each client individually. Every client gets a tool to monitor their affiliate campaigns with full transparency.

Data and integration

The data source is ONLINE UNITED's cross-network, GDPR-compliant AWS data warehouse, aggregating transaction-level data from multiple affiliate networks accessible via API. DA Lytics configured the dynamic API calls and built the ETL pipeline that transforms raw network data into analysis-ready datasets.

Key KPIs tracked

• Turnover by status: approved, pending, declined
• Click and sales volume
• Week-over-week performance trends
• Advertiser programme rankings
• Top-performing publisher analysis
• Monthly programme performance

The core capability is extending the analysis by drilling down from programme level to individual publisher performance, adjusting filters at any level and slicing data across any dimension. The reporting week can be adjusted at any step, enabling both real-time tracking and historical performance benchmarking.

What changed

• At least 5 hours saved every week. By the client's own estimate, the new reports return five-plus hours of analyst time to the team weekly.
• One report across every network. Full visibility over advertisers, publishers, weeks and months, without stitching together network dashboards.
• Publisher segments across accounts. Analysis is faster and more thorough, because publisher segments can be viewed across accounts for each customer.
• Client-facing transparency. Dedicated advertiser views give each client a live window into their own affiliate campaigns.

As Matthias Feifel of ONLINE UNITED puts it: "We are definitely saving at least 5 hours per week with the new reports. We are also much faster and more thorough in our analysis, as publisher segments can be viewed across accounts for each customer."

What the client says

"Our collaboration with DA Lytics has been outstanding — they delivered a powerful, account-wide reporting solution tailored exactly to our requirements, while adding real value through their expertise and strategic guidance."

Matthias Feifel, ONLINE UNITED GmbH

An ongoing collaboration

Our work with ONLINE UNITED is still ongoing: we keep the reporting solutions up to date and build new ones for more efficient work and data-based decisions.

If your affiliate reporting still lives in network dashboards

Multiple networks, transaction-level data behind APIs, and clients asking for transparency. The shape of this work travels well beyond affiliate marketing. Download the full case study (PDF), book a call or see our services.