Rakuten Dashboard Tips and Power Features

Quick Answer Most managers use about a tenth of what the Rakuten console offers. The features that save the most time are saved/scheduled reports, deep links that send traffic to specific pages, bulk partner actions, and SubID parameters for granular tracking. Learning these four turns the dashboard from a chore into a tool.

What it is

The Rakuten Advertising console is deep, and like any powerful tool most of its value is hidden behind menus people never open. Power features aren't secret — they're just the options that pay off only once you know they exist. This guide is the equivalent of a colleague leaning over and saying “you know you don't have to do that manually, right?”

The four that matter most for an advertiser are: saved and scheduled reports, deep linking, bulk actions on partners, and SubID tracking parameters. Each one removes a repetitive task or reveals data you were previously flying blind on.

Why it matters

Time spent rebuilding the same report every Monday, or paging through partners one at a time, is time not spent recruiting or optimising. Worse, when reporting is painful you do it less often, and a programme you don't look at is a programme that drifts. Power features matter because they lower the cost of doing the right thing often — and because some of them, like SubID and deep links, unlock data and conversion rates you simply can't get otherwise.

How it works

Build the reports you check regularly, then save them so you're not rebuilding filters every week; schedule the important ones to email you automatically.
Use deep links to send partner traffic to the exact product or category page that matches their content, instead of dumping everyone on the homepage.
Hand partners SubID parameters so they can label their own placements, then read those labels in your reports to see which placement actually converts.
Use bulk actions to approve, decline, or message partners in batches rather than clicking through them individually.
Set up the creative and link library so partners can self-serve current banners and offers, cutting your inbound requests.
Export raw transaction data periodically for your own analysis when the in-console views don't slice the way you need.

! Common mistakes to avoid

Rebuilding the same report from scratch every period instead of saving and scheduling it.
Sending all partner traffic to the homepage, which throws away the conversion lift of landing on a relevant page.
Ignoring SubID, then wondering why you can't tell which of a big partner's placements actually drive sales.
Leaving stale creative in the library so partners promote expired offers and broken links.

💡 Reporting tips

The reporting power move is segmentation by SubID. Once partners tag their placements, you can see that a single 'big' partner is really one converting placement and four that just burn clicks — and you can have a far more useful conversation with them. Pair scheduled reports with a fixed weekly slot so the data lands in your inbox right when you've set aside time to act on it. Reports you have to go and fetch are reports you'll skip.

In practice: a worked example

One of your partners, a large coupon site, drives 5,000 clicks a month and looks like a star. You ask them to add SubIDs to their links labelling each placement. A month later the report tells a different story: one placement (their dedicated brand page) converts at 6% and drives nearly all the sales, while four others — sidebar, footer, a stale category page — convert near zero and just burn clicks. Now you can ask them to expand the page that works and drop the dead ones, instead of treating the partner as a single undifferentiated blob. That conversation is impossible without SubID, and it's the difference between managing partners and just paying them.

When to lean in — and when to hold back

Worth setting up when	Probably overkill when
You check the same reports on a regular schedule	You log in only occasionally for a quick total
Partners run multiple placements you want to compare	Each partner has a single, simple placement
You want partners to land on relevant pages	You only have one product or one landing page anyway
You manage dozens of partners and click fatigue is real	Your partner list is tiny and manual is fine

Related guides

Frequently asked questions

It's an optional label a partner adds to their tracking link to identify a specific placement, page or campaign. Those labels then appear in your reports, letting you see which placements convert.

Yes — saved reports can be scheduled so the data arrives in your inbox on a regular basis, which makes it far more likely you'll actually review it.

Usually, yes. Sending a shopper straight to the product they read about removes friction. Dropping them on the homepage forces them to navigate, and many simply leave.