Our platform hosts a single Marketplace that is shared between multiple Providers. When a Publishers registers the sign-up is for the open Target Circle Marketplace. There are however a lot of different places from where a Publisher can sign up: the Target Circle sign-up gateway, any of the Provider sign-up gateways, a branded gateway from an Advertiser, or even another Publisher’s gateway. All those different places might result in a different expectation from the Publisher about which brand they see at each stage of the signup. Below is a description of which brand is seen at which stage.
1. Sign-up gateway
The first place the Publisher comes to sign up is on the sign-up gateway. The sign-up gateways are completely branded. The only indications that the marketplace is hosted by Target Circle are the mention in the Terms & Conditions sentence and the subtle logo below the form that states “We run on Target Circle”.
2. Verification email
After filling out the form on the sign-up page, the Publisher has to verify his email address. For that, he receives an email with a verification link. If the Publisher signed up through a Provider gateway the email is 100% branded without any mention of Target Circle. If the Publisher used an Advertiser or Publisher gateway the email will also match the branding of the gateway, however, the email will also state that the Marketplace is powered by Target Circle. This is necessary because we can’t configure a from email address for the Advertiser or Publisher domain and so use @targetcircle.com. We want to avoid confusion with the Publisher and therefore state briefly who “Target Circle” is.
Example of the verification email in the Target Circle branding:
3. After registration
When the publisher clicks the link in the verification email, he will be directed to the sign-in page that matches the branding of the gateway he signed upon. After signing in, the platform appears in the branding that matches that of the gateway again. When the publisher has filled out all the required information for his account, a modal will appear that includes a link to this help article about how the marketplace works. This is also where Target Circle is properly introduced for the first time.
4. Activation email
After our publisher review team has verified all the account information provided by the publisher they will activate the account. When the account is activated we automatically send an email notification to the publisher. This email contains a description of how the marketplace works and links to some relevant help articles. This email is always using Target Circle branding.
An example of the activation email below:
