In the previous few weeks, PayPal-owned Honey, which claims to search out you one of the best coupon codes for a deal, has been on the middle of controversy. Allegedly, the instrument sneakily earned affiliate cash by altering attributes of product hyperlinks creators posted on their movies. On the middle of it, the issue was how affiliate hyperlinks work and the way the cash goes to whoever has the final hyperlink when the consumer makes the acquisition.
Former Vercel worker Steven Tey thinks his open-source URL shortener and link-tracking service Dub.co can resolve this drawback by eradicating the necessity to use coupon codes and embedding them within the hyperlink.
The corporate is constructing an attribution and affiliate product that creators can use to create their very own hyperlinks. And customers will solely get a reduction in the event that they use that particular hyperlink.
“We wish to make attribution rather more clear to creators in addition to companies to keep away from conditions just like the Honey scandal, the place anybody can steal the attribution,” Tey stated on a name with TechCrunch.
Tey began Dub.co whereas working at Vercel as an open-source URL shortener. He added hyperlink monitoring alongside the best way. He constructed this venture to higher perceive merchandise Vercel was transport. Over time, Dub.co grew to become a full-fledged SaaS service. Tey left Vercel in late in 2023 and began the corporate across the similar time.
“There was a giant drawback with attribution monitoring to know the place our income was coming from. At Vercel, at the moment, we didn’t understand how our developer advocacy work like creating articles and tutorials translating into income. So this planted the seeds for Dub,” Tey stated.
He added that after launching Dub.co, he realized that the affiliate area was antiquated and messy with not many instruments for personalisation. That’s when he understood that there’s extra to hyperlink monitoring area than simply URL shortening providers.
Whereas the corporate’s major income supply is companies and enterprises, it additionally provides a free plan for folks to shorten their hyperlinks and monitor them. Notably, the startup is working with Malaysian authorities to make the most of the open-source facet of the venture to construct out a hyperlink shortener and tracker for authorities. Plus, firms like Twilio use the SaaS hosted model of Dub.co and customise it in accordance with their wants to trace their hyperlinks, campaigns, and occasions. What’s extra, YouTube channels like Huberman Labs is utilizing Dub’s answer to trace associates.
Dub.co launched a brand new product referred to as Conversions this week, which might monitor real-time advertising and marketing clicks changing to signups or gross sales. The startup stated this may assist firms monitor granular metrics like buyer acquisition prices, retention charges, and lifelong worth to higher perceive advertising and marketing returns. Dub.co may combine with instruments like Shopify and Stripe to higher monitor conversions.
Tey famous that whereas Dub.co provides AI options, it doesn’t need them to take over core merchandise. At the moment, customers can use AI to create customized stories or get recommendations for title and outline for various hyperlinks. The startup can be utilizing AI for auto-tagging hyperlink to current classes.
Joseph Jacks, founding father of OSS Capital, stated that the Dub.co has a bonus over competitors with its open-source nature, higher consumer expertise and design.
The corporate has raised $2 million from buyers together with OSS Capital; Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch; Balaji Srinivasan; design service Framer’s founders Jorn van Dijk and Koen Bok; former Fb designer Soleio, who has been an early backer of Vercel, Perplexity, and Figma; and Cal.com CEO Peer Richardson.
“Hyperlinks are the muse of the online — pair that with attribution and the addressable market is very large, tens of billions minimal,” Jacks advised TechCrunch over e-mail.
“By turning quick hyperlinks into attribution engines, Dub can assist entrepreneurs reply the age-old query of ‘What’s my ROI on my advertising and marketing spend?’ — backed by real-world conversion knowledge.”