Tracking sales and leads is the heart of Affiliate Marketing, without the ability to track results reliably performance marketing doesn’t exist. Affiliate Tracking is surprisingly simple. Each time a visitor clicks an Affiliate URL the Affiliate Network will set or store tracking information on the visitor’s computer so that the Affiliate Network knows which Affiliate referred that visitor to that Merchant.
The Affiliate Network will provide each Merchant with their individual HTML tracking code. This is added to the page at the end of any action the Merchant is paying Affiliates for, normally this goes onto the “success” or “thank you” page shown to the visitor after making a purchase. This tracking code will pass order or lead data to the Affiliate Network. When the Affiliate Networks tracking code is shown, for example after each purchase, the Affiliate Network will read back its tracking information, which was previously set, and pay commission to the Affiliate, if any, who referred the visitor making the purchase or lead.
Currently, Affiliate Networks in the UK operate on a “last click wins” basis, this means if before a transaction takes place multiple Affiliates refer the same visitor, only the last Affiliate who sent the visitor before the transaction takes place will be paid the commission. Other methods, such as splitting commission amongst all the Affiliates who referred the visitor, are currently in the early stages of consultation within the industry.
TRACKING METHODS
Most commonly, browser cookies are used to store tracking information. Unfortunately, some reports have stated that privacy concerns result in almost 40% of users routinely deleting their cookies. Newer web browsers make deleting cookies a one click process and even offer private browsing, where cookies are not stored or set. It sure sounds like we should just give up! Luckily, Affiliate Networks for a number of years have been investing in ‘cookieless tracking’ to ensure performance continues to be reliably tracked.
Cookieless tracking is the ability to track sales and leads without solely relying on traditional browser cookies to store the tracking information. There are numerous forms of cookieless tracking, and most UK Affiliate Networks will use at least one or two forms. These are used in addition to regular browser cookies, and will normally only be called upon in cases where there is no cookie available to use, in other words they are fall back options used when no regular cookie is available. Regular browser cookies are still the primary form of tracking.
In a recent survey Affiliates rated reliable tracking as the 3rd most important aspect of an Affiliate Program. This is understandable, since Affiliates are investing time and money into generating sales/leads for a Merchant - they don’t want to worry about their performance not being tracked reliably. If Affiliates believe a Merchant has reliable tracking, then they will have the confidence to support the Merchant. When a Merchant is considering which Affiliate Network will run their affiliate program, the tracking technologies that each network can offer them, should be a key factor in their selection process.
There are 5 common methods for cookieless tracking used today by most Affiliate Networks. Merchants & Affiliates should ask their Affiliate Network which methods they support.
FLASH COOKIES
Since version 6 of Adobe Flash Player, Local Shared Objects has been available to flash movies. These work much like regular web cookies, and offer flash movies with the ability to store data on the user’s computer and read it back at a later date. It is the closest replacement to traditional cookies available. When the visitor clicks through an Affiliate URL, the Affiliate Network will load a flash movie which sets the necessary tracking information. When a sale or lead takes place, another Flash movie will be loaded by the Affiliate Network to read the tracking information.
IP TRACKING
One of the most basic forms of cookieless tracking is to use the users IP Address. The IP Address is recorded when the user clicks an Affiliate URL. Later when a sale or lead takes place, the IP Address of the user is again taken and compared to the IP Addresses which previously clicked an Affiliate URL. If a match is found, that can be used for tracking. However, increasingly ISPs are using proxy or cache servers, so many users may share the same IP Address. Also dynamic IP allocations – where the user will have a different IP Address each time they connect to the Internet, means this isn’t a very reliable form of tracking and certainly cannot be used long term. It can be used for limited periods of time however – so for example, only used if that same IP Address clicked an Affiliate URL in the last few hours, you can then be pretty certain it is the same person who clicked the link. You do still have to remove and ignore common proxy and cache servers.
ETAG/CACHE TRACKING
It is possible to track visitors using the browsers web cache by manipulating the Etag or the Last Modified date of a page or file. Each time a browser requests a page it first checks its cache, and then sends a request to the server asking for the file if it has been modified since the version in the local cache, or if the file has a different Etag. Using this it is possible to cache a file in the user’s cache which contains the tracking information or to assign a different Etag to each visitor. It’s certainly not as flexible as other methods as it is much harder to update the information stored in the cache once set, also users tend to clear their cache regularly or have set a maximum size for their cache, so it's always being refreshed. However, this method will certainly help in situations where regular cookies are blocked from being set by the browser or third party software.
VOUCHER CODES
Recent years have seen a massive surge in voucher codes which is only going to grow as users become more and more savvy looking for a bargain. Voucher codes can also be used for tracking depending on the tools offered by your Affiliate Network. By creating unique customised voucher codes for a single Affiliate, your Affiliate Network can assign commission coming from sales which use that voucher only to the Affiliate who was assigned the unique voucher code. This opens up opportunities for Affiliates to promote the vouchers in printed or offline media, where an Affiliate URL cannot be clicked.
DATABASE TRACKING
Even with the best tracking platform, the time span of a cookie and even cookieless tracking options may be shorter than the time a visitor may take to make a purchase. A visitor may take days, weeks or sometimes even months before making a purchase, especially when it comes to high value ticket items. Merchants who prompt or encourage visitors to sign-up to a newsletter or create an account prior to purchase – perhaps with the incentive of exclusive offers or discounts, are able to make use of database tracking.
Once a Merchant is able to convert the user into giving their details, such as an email address, this can be assigned to the Affiliate who sent the visitor. Whilst no commission is paid at this stage, it means either the Affiliate Network or the Merchant knows which Affiliate is due commission when the visitor makes their purchase. This means that cookies are no longer used and it is a more permanent form of tracking, only failing if the visitor uses either different account details or email address. Your Affiliate Network may be able to make this process easy, meaning minimal development or integration cost to the Merchant.
In total, cookieless tracking accounts for 10-12% of all sales and leads.
Certain Merchants show a higher percentage of cookieless tracking. Adult toy/gift Merchants have a higher percentage of cookieless tracking than other types of Merchants, with Food/Drink and Health & Beauty Merchants showing the lowest percentage of cookieless tracking being used.
WHEN IS COOKIELESS TRACKING USED?
Every Merchant will pay Affiliates commission for sales which happened within so many days of the last click taking place. This is referred to as the “cookie period”. For example if a Merchant offers a 30 Days Cookie, it means sales which take place within 30 days of the last click will be tracked and paid to that Affiliate. The same principle applies to when cookieless tracking is used by the Affiliate Network.
Are cookieless tracking technologies only needed when a Merchant offers a long cookie period? Is relying only on regular cookie tracking reliable for short period of time? The answer is no.
THE FUTURE OF COOKIES
Each time a new version of a web browser is released brings with it more ways for users to block, clear or reject cookies. One recent example is Private Browsing. In Private Browsing mode, the user can browse websites without history being recorded or cookies set, this is now a standard feature of most new browsers. In these modes existing cookies are not transferred over, and cookies set within this mode are not stored.
Internet Explorer 9 when released will offer a new featured called Tracking Protective List. This is a list of websites which can or cannot set regular cookies on the user’s computer. However, a useful feature is that websites themselves can suggest the domain names which need to be added to the user’s white list. Therefore, websites which rely on third party domains being able to set their cookies, such as their Affiliate Networks, should be able to prompt the user to add these to their white/allow list. At the time of writing this it is unclear how the integration of this will work. This is certainly better than a complete block of cookies.
Newer browsers also offer new creative ways of cookieless tracking which will continue to provide an important fallback to regular cookies. Already some features in HTML5 offer the potential for cookieless tracking.
The good news is cookies are used for more than tracking users. Try disabling cookies and browsing your favourite websites, the constant prompts to log-in to each website is enough to make anyone re-enable cookies! Users take for granted the ability to visit sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Hotmail and be instantly signed in. This is all made possible with cookies, so they are not going away anytime soon and will continue to be a primary form of tracking for Affiliate Networks. Along with the continued investment by Affiliate Networks in other forms of tracking, the future of reliable tracking for Affiliates is assured.
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