Tool to track my affiliate code all the way to the lead/sale

[Romsonic]

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Hi All,

Is there a tool to track my affiliate code all the way to the lead/sale? Most - if not all - merchants don't allow personal G analytic codes on their "thank you page". How do you guys take care of this or do you just wait untill the network lets you know you have a sale?

[fubraltd]

As you say there is no way to know for certain if you made a sale, unless read it directly from the network you use (and they tell you the truth¿?).

The only thing you could do is use the "customId" (clickref, subId, reference....) to know which link is making the sale or something like that.

The other way is become your own affiliate network, but it's quite difficult as you need the technology and contact the merchant.

I hope it helps!

[Romsonic]

Fubraltd,

Thanks for your answer.

All we can do is assume they tell us the truth. I think this has to change soon and a new kinda system has to be developed to protect affiliates and give a little more peace of mind. The networks can use us at their will this way. What if there are some fraudulent ppl working at these networks and they exploit some kinda loophole in the tracking system? Like let's say for example at "Happy Hour" they turn off the switch and all clicks, leads, sales etc go untracked and disappear into their pockets instead of the affiliates? I know i'm being a little paranoid, but what if...

[Andrew Copeland]

Hi Romsonic,

Like let's say for example at "Happy Hour" they turn off the switch and all clicks, leads, sales etc go untracked and disappear into their pockets instead of the affiliates? I know i'm being a little paranoid, but what if...

It wouldn't do the networks any good to do this as

A) it would just be wrong and
B) we have to report transactions to the merchants and justify the costs of their programs

No merchant would be happy seeing commissions going to a network instead of affiliates.

One solution to your problem would be to use a network which offers an automated callback system like Webgains (shameless plug). Essentially, you supply us a URL you would like called when our tracking code fires with your ID. It works much the same way as having your own image pixel on the merchant site, except we alert you rather than having to go through the integration.

You can even supply a second URL so we can alert you of status changes to existing transactions as well as new transactions coming in.

If you'd like more info on this, please give me a shout.

Cheers

Andy

[Romsonic]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately this happens.

No merchant would be happy seeing commissions going to a network instead of affiliates.

I have heard many affiliates who did "test sales" that did not show. I'm not sure how the merchant handles this with the network or if they have some kinda agreement or wherever the commision goes, but it still happens.

Lets say for example the "fraudulent guys" all have their own aff ID and whenever some affiliate sale goes untracked the "fraud guys" put in their own aff ID? As far as i know i never heard of any network contacting affiliates that their sale went untracked. Affiliates solely know this because they did a test sale, else they would never know about this. This even occurs with the large networks.

I would love to hear/read about your experiences in how you handle this. I'm sure i'm not the only one thinking about this. Maybe some super affiliate here that would love to share his or her experience with this issue?

[Andrew Copeland]

No worries,

In all honesty, any network worth their salt would react quite quickly to a test sale that goes untracked. If an affiliate reports it to the network, I'd recommend keeping screenshots and header/redirect info to help the network look into it.

Unfortunately, it does sometimes happen that tracking goes down on occasion (very rare) so any untracked sales really do help us networks to identify these things quickly if that's the case. Contacting affiliates for untracked sales is pretty unlikely...as 'untracked' implies we don't know it happened so it's difficult to police.

However, fraudulent/replacement of IDs for 'untracked' sales would be a shameful practice IMO.