Use Cases
Tool <-> Utility combinations allow you to promote advertisers in more innovative ways by allowing them to give you specific information for marketing.
An example would be a Tool that allows users to subscribe to the advertiser's newsletter. The advertiser has to explicitly want this (add the Utility) and has to choose different options like where he wants the email addresses sent to/added.
Another one would be a Tool that displays the latest coupons based on the Advertiser's Social Media feeds. In this case the information needed is the Advertiser's accounts in Social Media.
Implementation Details
Let's take the example with the newsletter as being more advanced. In this case the action (lead) is generated by the Application after the user subscribed to the newsletter and verified via opt-in.
You will need two Apps: an Utility and a Tool.
The Utility will be for advertisers only. It will allow you to get the data you need from the advertisers. And to generate the action when the time comes.
The Tool will be used by affiliates to choose the advertiser they want to promote and embed the Ad Unit on their website.
The Affiliate's Tool should be smart enough to know which merchants from the network have added the Utility.
Once a consumer fills out the newsletter form on the affiliate's website and the data is sent to the advertiser you have to generate the lead so that a commission is registered. In order to generate it you have to use the advertiser Authentication Token that is given to you when he adds the Utility. This token allows you to use the advertiser only methods lead_create() or sale_create().
Pricing Schema
In most normal use cases Utilities are payed via a subscription model. In the newsletter situation however you are interested in getting a cut from the leads.
You should set Price of Use in both apps to Percentage with the same value. Since you are using the Advertiser Authentication Token to generated the lead/sale when splitting the commission the system will take into consideration the Utility's Price of Use.
