Basic tracking for a beginner

[davesev]

Hi,

I was hoping anyone could help me understand tracking, or at least what type of tracking is the most important that I make sure I have. If you know what tracking to set up its not difficult but I am confused as to what I need in order to make my campaigns successful.

Please let me know if you can give some recommendations or suggest which tracking I must make sure I include?

I know postback URL are important, and tracking links from the traffic source to the landing page. But there seems to be many options as to what you can use and some appear to overlap and track the same things.

If anyone can direct me as to which tracking I should make sure is working on my funnel I would be most grateful.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[internalsoul]

You can get all the basic features you want in all the tracking software's. If you are going for mobile/web offers then all the major tracking software will help you do the job.

If you can be more specific about your needs or looking for specific features then answer that would be more easy.

 

[lafftar]

Hey man, you can start out with just prosper202 on your server so you get the hang of tracking. If you decide you need more out of your tracking (specific mobile/carrier redirects), you can then buy into the new prosper or any other trackers.

 

[Dylan Barns]

There are a lot of tracking softwares that deserve your attention. You can check Voluum and Prosper202

 

[davesev]

You can get all the basic features you want in all the tracking software's. If you are going for mobile/web offers then all the major tracking software will help you do the job.

If you can be more specific about your needs or looking for specific features then answer that would be more easy.

Hey thanks for the response.

I'm not looking for software, but rather what I must make sure I have set up in the software?

I know postback URL is important, but there are things that maxbounty mentions like sub id's which I don't know what this is.

I know you can also include some tracking info on Bing, but I want to know which is important? I have read {keyword} is important but which others? And how do I use this? Does this go to the tracker or is that in my Bing account?

 

[davesev]

I have worked out there is a default callback code I can set up. Does this mean I do not need to set up the individual sub-ids for each offer I promote?

Or is this also required to properly track the conversions?

 

[internalsoul]

davesev after reading your posts i understand that you need a tracker with the basic features needed to track everything. This is what a tracker would for you.

1. It will track your traffic and will provide you with data like country, city, ip, browser, device, carrier/connection type, device type etc... there are loads of variable trackers can track.
2. It will track your conversions based on your subid and will help you in optimisation. For every click a unique id is generated and passed through subid to your network.
3. When a conversion is generated, the network fires a conversion pixel returning the unique click id to the tracker which you have set up in your postback url or pixel. So that's how you get to know which user got converted.
4. Keywords are important for PPC traffic, Banner ID/ Banner placement is important for display advertisement.. you need to track everything so that you can know which keyword or banner is bringing you conversions and which one is eating your money with any conversions.

These are the basic features every marketers need to track and optimise their campaign and all tracker provides the basic features. The advance features provided by the tracking softwares makes them different from each other.

Lastly, you need to play with trackers and go through their guides to learn & set up everything. We can tell you everything but it must be you to test it by yourself to get a better understanding of how it works. There are free trackers or trackers which provides free trials. Just set it up and play along with it.

Regarding your last query: You can set up your postback url and fill out the appropriate Clickid/Subid along with payout and set it up on your affiliate network's global pixel(many networks don't have global pixel/postback set up option, so you have to do it individually). While setting up networks most tracking softwares gives you the option to automatically append ClickID to your offers but that won't be a good idea as networks like clickdealer, adsimilis use subid S2 to S5 i guess for clickid. So if you can add the subids manually to those affiliate networks on your tracker, then it would be good for you.

For more information about the features some tracking software offers check out my post on my blog ANC.

I hope i am able to solve your queries.

 

[davesev]

davesev after reading your posts i understand that you need a tracker with the basic features needed to track everything. This is what a tracker would for you.

1. It will track your traffic and will provide you with data like country, city, ip, browser, device, carrier/connection type, device type etc... there are loads of variable trackers can track.
2. It will track your conversions based on your subid and will help you in optimisation. For every click a unique id is generated and passed through subid to your network.
3. When a conversion is generated, the network fires a conversion pixel returning the unique click id to the tracker which you have set up in your postback url or pixel. So that's how you get to know which user got converted.
4. Keywords are important for PPC traffic, Banner ID/ Banner placement is important for display advertisement.. you need to track everything so that you can know which keyword or banner is bringing you conversions and which one is eating your money with any conversions.

These are the basic features every marketers need to track and optimise their campaign and all tracker provides the basic features. The advance features provided by the tracking softwares makes them different from each other.

Lastly, you need to play with trackers and go through their guides to learn & set up everything. We can tell you everything but it must be your to test it by yourself to get a better understanding of how it works. There are free trackers or trackers which provides free trials. Just set it up and play along with it.

Regarding your last query: You can set up your postback url and fill out the appropriate Clickid/Subid along with payout and set it up on your affiliate network's global pixel(many networks don't have global pixel/postback set up option, so you have to do it individually). While setting up networks most tracking softwares gives you the option to automatically append ClickID to your offers but that won't be a good idea as networks like clickdealer, adsimilis use subid S2 to S5 i guess for clickid. So if you can add the subids manually to those affiliate networks on your tracker, then it would be good for you.

For more information about the features some tracking software offers check out my post on by blog ANC.

I hope i am ble to solve your queries.

Yes thank you! This is exactly the advice that I am looking for.

I have managed to set up some basic tracking on a trial so far. It seems to be going well and its been easy to set up. I have finally launched my first campaign and I will see what data i can understand from my tracker and work out what I am missing.

 

[internalsoul]

Best of luck.

 

[Direct Affiliate]

I think you can check out :
Prosper202 Pro

 

[Freddy63]

You seems confused bro. You knowledge about tracking is not in an order. You need to start from the begging. Postback is the last step, it comes after you get a conversion. And it's not that important. You can do what is does manually in under 5 minutes. I'm just saying, it's better to have it setup.

I'm in the process of creating a Prosper202 tracking tutorial. It's almost complete, just some final touches left. I think it'll help you figure out what is what. And tracking in the correct order. Here is the playlist,
Prosper202 Campaign Setup full Guide - YouTube

Videos are completed. But the articles not, which will contain much more information than those are on videos. Enjoy. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

 

[davesev]

You seems confused bro. You knowledge about tracking is not in an order. You need to start from the begging. Postback is the last step, it comes after you get a conversion. And it's not that important. You can do what is does manually under 5 minutes. I'm just saying, it's better to have it setup.

I'm in the process of creating a Prosper202 tracking tutorial. It's almost over, just some final touches left. I think it'll help you figure out what is what. And tracking in the correct order. Here are the playlist,
Prosper202 Campaign Setup full Guide - YouTube

Videos are complete But the articles not, which will contain much more information than those are on videos. Enjoy. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

Thanks, please update me when your articles are complete

 

[davesev]

Thanks all the tracking affiliates, but if u can tell me what tracking my software needs to do I will be able to decide better which platform is best suited - I will be able to see which makes the most sense and is easiest to use. At the moment all the tracking platforms I've tried give me roi, which pages had clicks, and split tests.

What else should I be looking at to help me?

 

[Kellen]

Hello buddy, compared with the tracking platform, i suggest you can have a look on Offerslook tracking platform, offerslook.com; this platform is similar to Hasoffers, but with much acceptable price.

this tracking platform are very cost-effective and having most features, what's more, the support are good, you can always get skype contact from the team if you run your network on Offerslook.

 

[Dahab]

You seems confused bro. You knowledge about tracking is not in an order. You need to start from the begging. Postback is the last step, it comes after you get a conversion. And it's not that important. You can do what is does manually in under 5 minutes. I'm just saying, it's better to have it setup.

I'm in the process of creating a Prosper202 tracking tutorial. It's almost complete, just some final touches left. I think it'll help you figure out what is what. And tracking in the correct order. Here is the playlist,
Prosper202 Campaign Setup full Guide - YouTube

Videos are completed. But the articles not, which will contain much more information than those are on videos. Enjoy. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

great! thank you for your video !