Merchants who have Insights (formerly known as AvantMetrics) enhanced tracking capabilities may see a difference among AvantLink and Insights sales reporting. Reporting differences can be caused by a few different factors.
Sales Tracking
Insights tracking identifies marketing channels based off of UTM parameters (specifically the AVAD parameter). AvantLink tracking occurs when a cookie is set. In some cases, the user's browser can strip the AVAD parameter, leaving the cookie present. In this instance the sale will track in the AvantLink reporting; however, the sale will not track in the Insights reporting.
Multiple Affiliates in the ClickStream
For merchant's using using AvantLink's Click Stream Solution Shared Modified Attribution, when more than one affiliate is present in the path to purchase, the order count and sale amount ($) is credited once in the Insights Referral Group Order Details report; however, the order count and the full sale amount ($) is credited to each affiliate in the AvantLink Performance Summary by Affiliate report. To account for the shared attribution (multi affiliate sales) the sales amount in the 'total' row in the AvantLink Performance Summary by Affiliate will be higher than the total sales in the AvantMetrics Referral Group Order Details report.
Order Inquiries
Affiliate Order Inquiries occur when an affiliate has an internal record of a sale through a merchant program, but the sale was not properly credited. When an affiliate submits an order inquiry and it is approved, the sale will appear in AvantLink reporting on the day the order inquiry was approved. The Referral Group Order Details will show the report and denote the affiliate referral group as "Unspecified" since AvantLink did not see an affiliate click in the clickstream. The Website Order Details report is based of the original order date that Avantlink tracked the sale and this report is not updated to show AvantLink as a marketing channel.
If you have any additional questions about these differences in your reporting, please email support@avantlink.com.