Migrating from Thrive to Voluum

Switching from one tracking solution to another might be a hassle. Changing your working habits to accommodate for Voluum feature-rich user interface might take some time, but before you can do that, you need to migrate your data to Voluum safely. The following article will cover both topics: moving your data and how to get around Voluum.

Moving your campaign elements will require some editing in a spreadsheet editing software. In this article we show you in detail how to do that in Microsoft Excel, although any software that is capable of editing CSV files will do.

The first part of this article focuses on migrating three types of campaign elements:

• Offers
• Landers
• Campaigns

The data migration process is based on exporting and importing data through a CSV file. The CSV data format is widely used for storing information where values are separated with a comma, hence the name: Comma Separated Values. This format is used by both platforms: Thrive and Voluum. Thrive allows you to export your offers, landers and campaigns info and Voluum allows you to import new offers and landers with the Bulk Actions feature. The import of new campaigns is not supported by the Bulk Actions feature, however there is a workaround that helps you with campaign data import without the need of creating campaigns one by one.

If you want to learn more about The Bulk Actions feature, read the Export / Import article.

In the first step we will migrate your Thrive offers to Voluum.

• Exporting offers from Thrive

  1. In Thrive, go to the Offers screen by selecting the Offers option from the menu on the left.

     

  2. Click the Export to CSV button. 

     Voluum Note: Thrive does not allow you to export selected elements only. It exports all elements of a given type. You can remove offers that you do not want to move later in the CSV file.

     

  3. Wait for your download to be ready. Once the CSV created pop-up window appears, click the here link to download the CSV file.

     

  Your CSV file has been downloaded. Now you can read data from this file and transfer it to Voluum CSV template file.

• Import data to Microsoft Excel

  Depending on the type and version of the software you have decided to use to handle your CSV file, the next steps might differ from what is described here. In our case, we use Microsoft Excel. To edit your data, perform the following steps:

  1. In Microsoft Excel, go to the Data tab an click the From Text/CSV option.

     

  2. Navigate to the CSV file you have downloaded from Thrive and click the Open button. 

  3. Select the comma option from the Delimiter drop-down menu and click the Load button.

     

  Data that was separated by commas is now clearly visible in columns.

• Modifying a CSV file

  Voluum offers you a CSV file template to import new offers correctly. In this section you will copy data from the file that you have downloaded from Thrive and paste it into this template. In order to do this, perform the following steps:

  1. Download the Voluum CSV file template for importing new offers by clicking the following link: bulk_offers_create_template.csv
  2. Open the downloaded file. In row 1 you see names of the offer properties. 

  3. Go to the Thrive file and move contents of the following columns to the corresponding columns in the Voluum template file as shown below using the copy and paste function:

     Thrive column name	Voluum column name	Property
     name	1. Offer name	Required
     payout	5. Payout	Optional
     url	2. URL	Required
     tag	6. Tags	Optional

     Voluum Note: Keep in mind that, when moving tags from one file to another, you will have to remove all commas that Thrive uses to separate tags in the same row. You can have multiple tags per row, but they need to be separated with a single space to import them to Voluum.

  4. You can populate the contents of the remaining columns of the Voluum CSV template if you want to add additional information to your imported offers. To learn more about other properties, read the A CSV Template with New Offers article.
  5. Save the CSV file.

• Importing new offers to Voluum

  In Voluum, you can use the Bulk actions feature to import the file that you have created. In order to do that, perform the following steps

  1. In Voluum, go to the Offers tab. The Offers view will show up.

  2. Click More or Export/Import (depending on a window size) and select the Import new offers option from the drop-down menu.

     

  3. Drag and drop the modified CSV file to the Drag and drop a file here field.

     

  4. Click the Import button.

     

Congratulations, you have moved your offers from Thrive to Voluum. Time to do the same with landers.

Moving your landers falls under the same pattern as moving offers. So you have to do the following things:

• Exporting landers from Thrive

  1. In Thrive, go to the Landing page screen by clicking the Landing page option from the drop-down menu.

     

  2. Click the Export to CSV button. 

     

  3. Wait for your download to be ready. Once the CSV created pop-up window appears, click the here link to download the CSV file.

  Your CSV file has been downloaded. Now you can read data from this file and transfer it to the Voluum CSV template file.

• Import data to Microsoft Excel

  Import your landing page data to Microsoft Excel in the same manner as previously:

  1. In Microsoft Excel, go to the Data tab an click the From Text/CSV option.
  2. Navigate to the CSV file you have downloaded from Thrive and click the Open button. 
  3. Select the comma option from the Delimiter drop-down menu and click the Load button.

• Modifying a CSV file

  Once you have imported your landing pages to Microsoft, copy and paste appropriate columns from the Thrive CSV file to Voluum CSV template file for new landers:

  1. Download the Voluum CSV file template for importing new landers by clicking the following link: bulk_landers_create_template.csv
  2. Open the downloaded file. In row 1 you see names of the lander properties. 

  3. Go to the Thrive file and move contents of the following columns to the corresponding columns in the Voluum template file as shown below using the copy and paste function:

     Thrive column name	Voluum column name	Property
     name	1. Lander name	Required
     url	2. URL	Required
     tag	5. Tags	Optional

     Voluum Note: Keep in mind that, when moving tags from one file to another, you will have to remove all commas that Thrive uses to separate tags in the same row. You can have multiple tags per row, but they need to be separated with a single space to import them to Voluum.

  4. Again, you can populate the contents of the remaining columns of the Voluum CSV template if you want to add additional information to your imported landers. To learn more about other properties, read the A CSV Template with New Landers article.
  5. Save the CSV file.

• Importing new landers to Voluum

  1. In Voluum, go to the Landers tab. The Landers view will show up.

  2. Click More or Export/Import (depending on a window size) and select the Import new offers option from the drop-down menu.

     

  3. Drag and drop the modified CSV file to the Drag and drop a file here field.
  4. Click the Import button.

With this step complete you have moved two out of three important groups of elements.

Because of the vast traffic targeting options that Voluum campaigns might have, it is not possible to import them in the same way as you import landers or offers. You have to manually create a campaign in Voluum and use landers and offers that you have imported to Voluum when setting the campaign destination.

To learn more about how to create a campaign in Voluum, read the Create a Campaign - Part 1: General article.

There is a workaround that might help you chip off some work required to manually create several campaigns. It is useful when you have a lot of campaigns to migrate. If you have only a few campaigns, it is better to add them manually.

The workaround is based on an idea of creating simple, "placeholder" campaigns in Voluum and then exporting them in a CSV file. Then you can modify this file in a similar way as you have done so with offers and landers. The workaround is described in the collapsible section below.

You have just migrated your offers, landers, and campaigns from Thrive to Voluum. You have your campaign elements in Voluum. However, you will need to recreate all the traffic targeting options manually and finish setting up a campaign in order to create a fully functional campaign funnel. This includes:

• Selecting destination(s) (offers and landers) for each campaign. Read the Creating a Campaign - Part 2: Destination article to learn more.
• Setting traffic redirection options in campaigns' setup. Read the Adding a Rule-Based Path article to learn more.
• Updating offer links with Voluum tokens in place of Thrive tokens. Read the Pass Information to an Affiliate Network article to learn more.
• Switching click URLs on your landing page(s) to Voluum ones. Read the Adding Click URLs to a Lander article to learn more.
• Submitting your Voluum campaign URL(s) to your traffic source platform for approval. Read the Tracking with a Redirect Method article to learn more.
• Submitting Voluum postback URL to your affiliate network platform. Read the Submitting a Postback URL to an Affiliate Network Platform article to learn more.

This will allow you to direct all traffic through Voluum. Now, once you have done that, read the Part II to learn what are key differences b between Thrive and Voluum to seamlessly start your work.

Thrive and Voluum operate using the same logic, so adjusting to the new platform should not take you long. In both platforms you have to use offer, lander, and traffic source elements to create a campaign. The campaign element binds all other elements together and provides you with traffic targeting options. 

Differences come from various naming strategies and scopes of features. Familiarize yourself with the quick summary below to easily find yourself in Voluum.

The first difference comes from the organizational strategy in both platforms.

• Groups in Thrive: Thrive allows you to group offers, landers, and rotations in groups, like you would group your files using folders. Each element type has its own group and you cannot assign offer to a lander group.
• Workspaces in Voluum: Voluum uses Workspaces to separate its content from each other. A Workspace is a single working zone, where you can assign all campaign elements to segregate them by type, vertical or other. Combined with the Multi-User feature it allows different users that you have invited to work on shared or separated elements. Workspaces go across the whole Voluum platform and allow you to assign whole campaign funnels to them or all elements of one type.

The second difference you might notice is visible when setting up traffic targeting options.

• Rotations in Thrive: Thrive uses the rotation element to store all traffic targeting options. In rotations you define what landers and offers your visitors see in a given campaign and what conditional rules for redirection you use. You can create a separate rotation for each campaign or use the same rotation in several campaigns. The rotation is a required element in Thrive.
• Flows, paths and destination URLs in Voluum: Similarly to Thrive, Voluum offers a distinct campaign element, called flow, that stores information about your targeting options. In flows, you define paths for your traffic to follow and conditional rules you might use. You can use the same flow in several campaigns or in a single one. Contrary to Thrive, Voluum flow is not a required element when creating a campaign funnel. If you do not want to use it, you can set a path directly inside a campaign without saving it as a flow. Or you can use your path's setup as a basis of creating a flow if you decide that you need one later. And lastly, for the minimal setup, you can provide a simple destination URL that all your traffic will be directed to, without even the need of creating an offer element.

The other difference connected to the traffic targeting options regards the way you set up conditional rules.

• Redirections in Thrive: In Thrive, you can add conditional rules in rotations that, when traffic meets those conditions, will direct it to specified landers and offers. Each rule can have the priority value assigned.
• Rule-based paths in Voluum: Voluum uses a type of path called rule-based path to store rules and criteria set in those rules. The other type of path is a default path, where all traffic that did not match any criteria set in any rule is directed to. You can change the priority of a rule-based path simply by changing the order of rules in a campaign's setup.

Both Thrive and Voluum use HTTP request parameters as a way to exchange information with other platforms. However, they call them by different names.

• Variables in Thrive: Thrive calls every part of a request parameter a variable.
• Parameters and tokens in Voluum: Voluum makes a distinction between tokens (dynamically replaceable placeholders), parameters (names that allows a target platform to recognize a type of information that is carried by tokens) and variables (Voluum tokens that carry information passed from a traffic source platform).

The last key difference is an approach to other users.

• Sub users in Thrive: Thrive allows you to invite users with different roles. Roles define a set of permissions that this user has in the platform.
• Multi-User in Voluum: Multi-user allows you to invite users with predefined roles. The biggest advantage of this feature is that you can use it simultaneously with the Workspaces feature. This means that, depending on a role type, each invited user is given one or several Workspaces to work on and might not have any privileges outside those Workspaces.