automating stats from the networks

[lakrasia]

Hi,

I'd like to be able to put my stats from the networks into my database, using php. I realise I can download a spreadsheet from TD and then upload the csv using phpmyadmin, but I don't want to do this manually, as it's time-consuming and prone to error. I don't know XML (nor am I able to find the time to learn).

I am with about a dozen networks, so it's a general question and I know it might not be possible with all networks, but if I can do this with three or four of them, it would be very useful to me.

Would anyone be kind enough to give me a pointer, please?

[morleymouse]

g'mornin, hope your well.

as far as I know only one you can automate with is POR. Login data export under Accounts.

Other networks might have special deals with individuals (cash back sites) as these need it more etc.

[phildarv]

Take a look at http://www.afftrack.com/ - this may be of help to you

[lakrasia]

Hi,

Dan, thanks. Somehow I knew you'd be the first to answer! My knight in shining armour. Didn't know so few networks make it available.

Thanks Phillip, but I stand to make only a few pounds a week from my idea, so it's not feasible to pay for consultation work.

Glad to know - otherwise I might have spent days figuring out there isn't an easy solution.

I have a site with opt-in subscription fees and nearly everyone chooses free membership - I wanted to change it to "sign up to one of these five things" to get free membership. Just a bit fiddly to check every sign-up and amend their membership and hardly worth the time it will take, as I'll only be earning 60p or so for each one. It's easy to track, as I can use their memberids, but there will be a delay between them signing up and me checking stats to notice that someone has signed up. So many sites do this kind of thing, but I guess a lot are on a bigger scale and do have special access to the data.

Think this might be a job I do by hand or not at all then.

[pistol101]

We have an automated callback system which everytime a transaction or cancellation happens you get an alert. We basically call a url you create. For example:

http://www.yoursite.com/callback_tes...e=%ordervalue%

%programmeid% Indicates programmeID of the transaction.

%trackingref% Indicates your tracking reference provided against the transaction.

%commissionvalue% Indicates commission earnt from the transaction.

%orderref% Indicates unique merchant order reference for the transaction.

%ordervalue% Indicates the order value of the transaction.

It sounds like it's what you need, it's used by a number of our incentive or PPC affiliates as the callbacks happen in real time. We need to enable it on your account if you'd like to have a play.

[lakrasia]

Thanks Peter, I certainly would. I'll PM you with my login.

[morleymouse]

well I do try

one thing to do would be, with the data you collect when someone registers or whatever, use that to sign them up to a cash back site or something like that. Obviously you'd need to have a little "by choosing a free membership your data will be used to sign you up to.... tick here to opt out of this"

You'd also want to check with the merchant.

You could either do the sign up's manually (make sure to clear cookies and browser session after each - again make sure the merchant knows your doing this) or automate it with scripts.

Reason I mentioned a cashback site is once you sign them up, they receive the welcome email they may then realsie its a good idea and use it. Most good cashback sites will offer yo ua residual commission so a long term income! Also cashback sites are less likely to kick off about you registering users for them as they only pay out when the user shops through them.

Credit card and other 'big lead' type programmes may be a bit more against it as they dont know the type of traffic that you will be sending and they shell out quite a bit per lead.

Just some ideas anyways, just make sure you collect the right data on your form to be able to fill i nthe co-reg form

[lakrasia]

Ah Dan, I hadn't intended signing up for them. I thought if I signed up for them, all the sign-ups would come from my IP address and the merchant wouldn't like it.

I was going to get them to sign up through a link with their membership id as the "clickref". Then check the stats and each time I saw a member, I'd go and upgrade their membership accordingly. It's time consuming for the tiny commission I'll be getting, which is why I hoped I could completely automate it - ideally I'd read the network stats every couple of hours with a cron job which would amend my user's record with a different membership level. If I could get the data, the programming isn't difficult, but it sounds like I couldn't do this.

I'm not that comfortable with all this anyway, as the sign ups probably won't be genuine - and most of the visitors to that site are US and I am not familiar with the US sign-up market, so that's another task for me to look into. Yet businesses like Sweet Collect and Free IPod do this to a remarkable degree, so I presume merchants don't mind that much and maybe I should put my moral scruples to the side.

So - you think I should ask merchants if I can sign up on behalf of members? I'm nervous to draw attention to something that I view as somewhat dodgy.

[morleymouse]

sorry, yeah I knew what you meant just with lack of data thought of a way around it.

if the merchants okay with it, and your telling your visitors what your going to do, then theres no problem surely? like I said just try and pic ka service that isnt going to raise eyebrows. I agree with you something liek credit cards I would see as wrong, but something where they then have to continue to carry on using it for it to be of any benefit to you, hey you've just introduced them to something they will like and love!

As long as you ask I think its should be okay, and as long as your not already doing it before asking your not bringing attention to anything

Just pick a program wit ha nice AM

[lakrasia]

Thanks Dan, will do.

[pricethat]

Originally Posted by morleymouse g'mornin, hope your well. as far as I know only one you can automate with is POR. Login data export under Accounts. Other networks might have special deals with individuals (cash back sites) as these need it more etc.

Not true, you can with many of the networks. From the top of my head you can with tradedoubler, zanox, por, webgains, affiliate future, i am sure you can do it with cj as well as buy.at and i once discussed this with someone at awin who was more than happy to oblige however i still havent got back to them.

How you do it varies, for most its adding your user and pass into the url and just deeplinking into your normal csv reports links in their admins but the likes of zanox and webgains have dedicated webservices i believe, others may do too.