Rakuten

Rakuten provides a robust affiliate marketing ecosystem to expand your reach by connecting with a vast and engaged audience across multiple channels.

Find the open source code for this destination in the GitHub repository.

Setup

1. In your RudderStack dashboard, go to Directory > Destinations > Cloud Destinations and search for Rakuten.
2. Connect your source and click Continue.

Connection settings

Configure the following settings to set up Rakuten as a destination in RudderStack:

• Name: Assign a name to uniquely identify the destination.
• Merchant ID: Enter the numeric merchant ID that uniquely identifies you in the Rakuten marketing system.

Connection mode

This integration supports sending events to Rakuten via cloud mode:

Track

You can use the RudderStack track event to track events along with any associated properties and send this information to Rakuten.

A sample track event is shown below:

rudderananlytics.track('event', {
  orderId: "OR122441",
  land: 1234,
  ranSiteId: "823421983a3-231824ft12-e12-gh1208b12-14"
  products: [{
      sku: 'sku1',
      amount: '8' // instead of 10 for 20% discount
      quantity: 1,
      name: 'Product1'
    },
    {
      sku: 'sku2',
      amount: 81 // instead of 90 for 10% discount
      quantity: 2,
      name: 'Product2'
    }
  ]
})

Property mappings

RudderStack maps the following properties to the Rakuten fields:

Item-level mappings

RudderStack maps the following item-level properties to the Rakuten properties:

Discount reporting

For accurate discount reporting, make sure to report only product discounts or discounts that reduce a product subtotal. Do not include free shipping in the discount amount.

Suppose a customer purchases 1 item of SKU A for $10.00 and 2 items of SKU B for $45.00 each and then redeems a 10% order-level discount. In that case, Rakuten provides two options for reporting discounts:

• Reduced item reporting (preferred)
• Discounts as SKU

Reduced item reporting

Rakuten prescribes this reporting method for selected goods commissioning, that is, if you want to commission by product type.

In this case, you can adjust the reported amount value to reflect the applied discounts. In the above example, you can send the amounts in a product array as $9.00 and $81.00 respectively for the two SKUs.

For multiple item purchases, disperse the discounts accordingly among each value in the total amount value.

Discounts as SKU

Rakuten prescribes this method if you intend to set the same commission on all goods.

For this reporting model, add an extra value to the sku, quantity, amount, and the product name fields that depict the discount.

• For sku, and name, use the string Discount.
• For quantity, use 0.
• For amount, use the negative dollar value of the discount.

A sample track event highlighting this method is shown:

rudderananlytics.track('event', {
  products: [{
      sku: 'sku1',
      amount: '100'
      quantity: 1
    },
    {
      sku: 'Discount',
      name: 'Discount',
      amount: -10 // Total discount of 10
      quantity: 0
    }
  ]
})

FAQ

Why are products commissionable even if iscomm is set to N (no)?

Note that iscomm is applicable for the entire order.

Even if you have iscomm=N in the postback, the transaction is still commissionable in Rakuten. You need to explicitly set the dynamic commissioning rules (for example, if iscomm equals N, pay $0 commission) in the Rakuten dashboard to avoid paying commission for a particular order.

How can I report a returned item in Order Cancelled or Partially Cancelled events?

Suppose a customer returns two items of SKU A and one item of SKU B, the cancellation records would look like below:

rudderananlytics.track('event', {
  orderId: "ord123",
  land: 1133,
  ranSiteId: "846t21983y3-231824et12-e12-ey1208e12-14",
  cur: 'USD',
  products: [{
      sku: 'A',
      amount: '-200'
      quantity: 2,
      name: 'name_1'
    },
    {
      sku: 'B',
      amount: -10
      quantity: 1,
      name: 'name_2'
    }
  ]
})

Note that the quantity shows the number of returned items and price is negative, reflecting the return. Quantity is not a negative number for returns unless the price in the original order was zero.

You must also account for any discounts applied during the order cancellation. For reduced item discount reporting, note that:

• If you are using discount as a SKU option, send a cancellation record for the discount SKU item in addition to the regular SKUs of the order for cancellation.

Questions? Contact us by email or on Slack