Cashback tracking

**stevieboy1101** · 27-12-11

How do cashback sites track the id of the user in order to credit them with the sale? Ive been racking my brains on this one. It must be a deep link with the user id but i just see how cashback sites like quidco can know who the commission belongs to.

**Sam Surry** · 29-12-11

Hi stevieboy,

Cashback sites use unique identifiers to track sales back to individual members. Each cashback site member has a unique account number (e.g. QUIDCO12345 or TCB67890) which can be appended on to the sites affiliate tracking links.

The Affiliate Window functionality for adding additional information into affiliate links is called Click Ref and you can find out more on our wiki. A Click Ref will be displayed in your sales reports if a sale is generated by a cashback member, allowing you to view it onscreen or export it as a .csv file and then apply the cashback to the correct member’s account.

I hope this helps,

Sam

**enjoymarcus** · 30-12-11

As Sam said above, each cashback site will input their own unique variable in to the affiliate network tracking link - this variable is unique to the user account, and is reported back to the publisher.

Many networks have different terminology (SID, EPI, Clickref etc) but all are essentially the same.

I happen to have a set of examples to hand (these are from Quidco tracking URLs) - the variables in blue are the unique reference.

Code:

http://valuemobiles.at/quidco?LID=2x90894842
http://clk.tradedoubler.com/click?epi=2x90894957&p=2554&a=1089147&g=17981984
http://www.awin1.com/cread.php?clickref=2x90895018&awinmid=2533&awinaffid=54760
http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-1699685-5590799?SID=2x90895069
http://being.successfultogether.co.uk/click.asp?subid=2x90895111&ref=394365&site=3982&type=text&tnb=3
http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?tracking=2x90895161&affiliateID=23992&merchantID=4668&programmeID=12062&mediaID=0&url=
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?u1=2x90895201&id=3w57gQxcGGY&offerid=187513.10000005&subid=0&type=4
http://track.webgains.com/click.html?clickref=2x90895389&wgcampaignid=3920&wgprogramid=3083

As a side note - I would recommend all affiliate utilise this functionality, regardless of whether or not they are a cashback site. Suggested uses could be for tracking paid search activity (optimising keywords) or tracking which adverts/placements perform best on your site. Or at the very least, if you offer any form of promo codes on your site, inserting that so you can see how well they convert.