tracking issues - time for action

[Elaine]

Tweet

Just had a problem with tracking on Webgains - although they had checked their data feed links and the banner links, when I first reported a percieved problem - no-one thought to check the actual link on my page - which I had constructed using their deep link generator - and that wasn't tracking.

Fair play to Hero - she looked into it straight away and has apologised.

But, like everyone else, I'm getting fed up of links not tracking and sales going astray and then getting fobbed off by the network or merchant - and I do think this happens across all networks - and some networks are a lot less pro-active when it comes to holding their hands up and looking at compensation.

Don't you think it's about time we had somewhere where we could report success or failure whenever we make a purchase through an affiliate link - not just failed ones, but also successful ones.

That way we could just check and see that Merchant X usually tracks OK - so the occasional one that goes astray wouldn't really indicate a problem. But we'd soon see if there was a problem with anyone in particular.

Don't know about anyone else but I'll probably do most of my Xmas shopping online and I'm quite happy to report when I've made a successful transaction - or not.

Heck, I'll even offer to collate and report the information in an easy!! to read format if some space can be made on here - might even think about getting a domain up and running solely for this purpose, if not.

Come on - this really does need sorting out properly and the sooner the better.

[aaclapham]

I know how you feel

A good estimate of the sales that I know have been done and actually tracked is about 60% success rate. Problem is its not just one network, its all of them.

... and for those people who say inform the networks, I have done and am still waiting for resolutions.

If the merchants only got paid 60% of the time, the networks would be quick to sort out the problems, or they would lose the trade.

[loquax]

I'd like to see indicators on network sites showing that sales are being recorded for a merchant - although I'm not quite if a network would be able to show it.

But, as a random stupid idea you could have charts showing sales activity over time - perhaps as %ages so that sales volume is hidden I dunno - with the previous week's data also showing to compare activity.

Or perhaps green/red lights to indicate that sales are tracking for Merchant X over the last hour/day/week.

I doubt it'll ever happen - especially as it would highlight merchants doing nothing - but who knows?

Jason

[ian]

One for the affiliate association website??? Independent of the networks and a great co-operative tool for affiliates.

I'm sure another feature could be added to indicate late or 'on time' payment, as this will be the next general rant from everyone once TD payments are due next week.

Thanks
Ian

[pricethat]

I must admit i get so annoyed nowadays at the amount of merchants that try to be clever with the tracking tag, one merchant even tried to serve the tag on a different domain name, via a proxy server, sat inside an iframe served up in javascript.......... and a certain network was quite happy to take them like that just to get the program live

[Rich]

But, as a random stupid idea you could have charts showing sales activity over time - perhaps as %ages so that sales volume is hidden I dunno - with the previous week's data also showing to compare activity.

Or perhaps green/red lights to indicate that sales are tracking for Merchant X over the last hour/day/week.

The thing that gets me is, even if they don't want to show that information to affiliates, they should be using themselves to monitor the programs.

From a networks broad stats it should be very easy to monitor programs that fail to report any sales for x hrs, that never report more than one sale per click, that only report sales within 24 hrs of a click when it should be a 30 day cookie, or that stop reporting sales from deeplinks, etc and automatically email account managers to look into things.

(Though, having looked for where I last posted that point, I see Webgains have such a system)

I'm not sure what problem Elaine had with her deeplinks but the other issue that is getting more and more annoying to me is the number of hoops that have to be jumped through for deeplinks to work. As far as I'm concerned, as long as the merchant ID and affiliate ID are in the link, then the networks redirect script should handle adding all additional parameters and any rewriting that needs to be done.

[gaj]

I think you have a good idea Elaine about setting up somewhere we can post whether a link tacked successfully or not because I have noticed some of my sales go missing too. I have also had many successful one too. Generally though aren't cash back site stats a good reflection of tracking success?

[Azam.net]

I know how you feel Elaine.

Approximately 30% of sales don't track back to the affiliate. It has been like that for years. I've built affiliate sites for people and they've bought stuff through their own links. They don't get paid commission for it and ask me what's wrong. I always tell them that a significant percentage of sales not being tracked back to the affiliate is just how things are.

It sucks big time and that's why affiliates should not be sucked in by the CPA hype too much: encourage advertisers to give you CPC and CPM on top of commission only. That way, you get something back even if some sales don't track back to you. As any expert will tell you, CPA benefits the advertiser/merchant, not publisher/affiliate as the latter takes most of the risk.

I don't know why people who would never sell double-glazing knocking on people's doors on a commisison only basis get so excited at the chance to do it on their computers.