Importing commissions data into a traffic stats package

[D-Mac]

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This post is related to these treads:
http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=30000
http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=13388

I run a few affiliate sites, and am very keen on stats and tracking. One of the difficulties we have is matching up converted sales with the user sessions on our sites.

I want to find out which sessions on my affiliate site result in a sale on the merchants' sites. E.g. I receive 100 visitors a day for the phrase 'blue widgets'. 50 of these come from organic Google, 25 from Adwords, and 25 from Overture. I get 10 sales a day on the merchants site. What is the referring source of the successful sales? Did they all come from organic Google? Maybe an even spread between all 3 sources?

Using Tracking/Session IDs it is possible to find out which user sessions resulted in a sale. This data is available from the networks, ususally in CSV format. The tricky bit is importing this data back into a traffic stats package, or rather, the tricky bit is finding off the shelf software that enables this to be done.

Once the networks CSV files have been imported, it would be a simple enough task to match up commissions earned with the recorded traffic on the traffic stats software. So for example, I would be able to ascertain that my PPC budget is wasted as all the conversions come from the organic Google listings. Having access to this info can obviously make a huge difference to the profitabilty of an affiliate site.

The only software I've found that has this capability is Urchin 5. Version 6 doesn't have this functionality.

Does anyone know of any other traffic stats software that has the necessary functionality to import network commission data and match this up with the relevant traffic stats?

Do any affiliates do this? Did you write your own software to make it possible?

I hope this post makes sense, it's too hot today and my brain is muggy

[pricethat]

some networks allow you to pass a perameter to the redirect, such as

?mylovelylittlereferencenumber=whateveryouwant

so it would look something like this

http://whatevernetworkyourwith.com?r...hateveryouwant

this parameter that you pass to the network is then recorded if you make a sale.

Now on your site you need to create that perameter based on where the traffic came from, if it came from google then of course you can make an adref=google when they come to your site and then pass the word google into your own perameter.

YOu need a little scripting though. Off the top of my head, dgm i think and zanox can report your perameter back next to the sale, not sure about the others.

[D-Mac]

Yes, thanks pricethat. Supercod explains that very well here: http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=13388

What I am really asking is does anyone know any off the shelf traffic analysis software that has the facility to import these parameters into it, along with commission values?

[KGP]

i am very interested into this as well david...i know of afftrack.com products which might have help you, the only case in my situation is that i wouldnt like to pay per month and/or per sales generated etc... i just want to buy a piece of soft to do it...if possible to hav the ability to customize it but have yet to find such a solution

[D-Mac]

Hi KGP

Just had a quick look at the Afftrack products. They are similar to Affcheck I believe (which I am currently using). They are handy tools, but as far as I can see neither offer the facility to compare the data against your incoming referrers.

A DIY job would have no recurring costs. Ideally though, and I suspect for many affiliates, the ideal solution is an easy to configure off-the-shelf piece of software that does it all with a nicer UI.

[pricethat]

If your site is database driven its about 10 minutes of programming per site at the most.

just go to scriptlance.com and place a works bid to get someone to do it, stay away from the indians though, you get more time waisters than anyone that would work and keep your credit card dats out of your database.

[D-Mac]

pricethat - 10 minutes of programming to write the code for importing into an existing traffic stats package, or 10 mins to do the whole job?

Why would the site being database driven be of relevance? (most of our sites are, but the product I am (perhaps badly) attempting to describe would work just as well on a static site). Basically, something the same as Adwords Conversion Tracking, but for all engines: organic or ppc: with the ability to import aff comms and session IDs.

The main advantage of using an off-the-shelf package would be having the nice features that come with them. And these weren't developed in 10 mins! As I mentioned above, the only product I have found with the capability to import the comms and session data is Urchin 5, but now that this is owned by G I have reservations about letting them have ALL our conversion data.

[pricethat]

The reason i say is it a database driven site, is because it is you have to be using a language like asp or php to run it.

If you are then you just add an incoming parameter to all the urls you list on google adwords as say ?adref=1 ?adref=2 for overture etc nothing for google etc that gets stored in the session (which most database sites have sessions) and it outputs the content of that session on the outbound links.

Its ten minutes to do that basically, maybe if you want a full blown management and admin panel etc then that will set you back 500 quid or something because its a lot of work, but what is said isnt much more than ten minutes.

Its probably just personal, but if you make your own software/scripts then you own them, you never ever have to try and see how you can use them to what you want to do, you can just say it would be better if i could do this or that or etc.

The other things is futureproofing, that technology in theory could be used for all manner of other things that you havent even thought of yet, and when it comes you can just say oh and i want that one..........yeah i know