Tracking Issues - Sub Ids

[thai_king]

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Hi,

I just need a bit of help on tracking for my site.

I was using query strings on the end of the destination url in Adwords and on the landing page I would use PHP session to put the query string into the Affiliate Link as the click ref and then look at my click ref reports and cross reference the query string with the keyword to see what keywords were producing sales.

However I wanted to cloack the affiliate link, therefore I did this by using a meta redirect - however it no longer tracks the click reference! I just need some simple tips on best method of cloacking (301, meta redirect, javascript etc....) which will still allow my PHP session to input the query string into the affiliate url.

Hopefully I made myself clear, if not please ask any questions you may have.

Thanks,

Darrell

[jramroop]

Hi Darrel,

Can you give a coding example of what you are trying to achieve.

thanks

[thai_king]

Hi,

No probs - example of coding below:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Adwords Destination url:

http://www.exampleaffiliatesite.co.uk/?kw=1234tracking

2. Merchant affiliate link on the landing page (cloack link)
"http://www.exampleaffiliatesite.co.uk/cloacked-link.php?kw=" . $_SESSION['track'];

Session on the page should copy through the referral string from Adwords destination url '1234tracking'

3. Cloacked-link.php

This page contains the affiliate link has a meta refresh redirect. The tracking '1234tracking' should now be put into the affiliate url and show in my affiliate reports as the sub id.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Previously I never had any cloacked links - just had the affiliate link on the landing page and used php session to put the tracking '1234tracking' into the aff link and that worked fine.

However decided to change to cloacked links and now sub ids not showing up.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Darrell

[jramroop]

Hi,

this may sound dumb but are you echoing $_SESSION['track'] in your affiliate link

eg.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://www.affiliatewindow.com/click=123&affiliateid=12345&clickref=<?php echo $_SESSION['track']?>" />

OR

Do you have <?php session_start(); ?>
at the top of Cloacked-link.php?

James

[thai_king]

Hi James,

I don't know a lot about PHP and sessions etc... so could well be something dumb that I've done . The code on the cloacked-link.php page is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['track'] = $_GET['kw'];


?>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://www.affiliatewindow.com/click=123&affiliateid=12345&clickref" . $_SESSION['track'];>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks,

D

[jramroop]

Hello Darrell,

If I understand correctly this is what you should be doing

In your index.php or landing page you should have the following code at the very top of the file:

<?php
session_start(); 
$_SESSION['track'] = $_GET['kw'];
?>

And on the other pages where you want to add your clickref to your affiliate urls do this

Add this at the very top of the page.
<?php
session_start();
?>

http://www.affiliatewindow.com/click=123&campaign=12345&clickref=<?php echo $_SESSION['track']; ?>

Please note, you do not need to add this

$_SESSION['track'] = $_GET['kw']

on your cloacking page

Because if the clickref is not in your URL on the cloaking page the 'track' session will be empty..

Hope this helps..
If you are still having problems, please let me know..

[thai_king]

Still not working for me

Maybe there is a better way to do this than 301 redirect and meta refresh....

[plus-sizeme]

Hi,

Came across this post whilst implementing the same sort of keyword tracking as thai_king describes.

Interestingly I am having the same problem ie no referrer URL appearing in sales reports after implementing a cloaked forwarding page.

I did assume originally this was caused due to my cloaked forwarder page being opened in a new window, but even when it doesn't open in new window same issue occurs.

thai_king - did you resolve your issue?

anyone - any suggestions appreciated...is there a better way to track keywords which lead to sales than utilising SESSION within PHP and tracking via affiliate reports?

Thanks
Mike