Affiliate Click Tracker is specifically designed for professional affiliates. Unlike many traditional
click trackers that require encoding individual URLs, Affiliate Click Tracker uses tracking templates.
The advantage of this, as many affiliates immediately recognize, is that the affiliate links share
the same URL structure except for the product id. For example, all Amazon affiliate links are of the
format http://www.amazon.com/dp/$ASIN/?tag=astoreproxy-20 where $ASIN is the variable. Affiliate Click
Tracker allows you to create this as a template. The process is explained below.
Say this application is installed at http://www.astoreproxy.com/
The url http://www.astoreproxy.com/rd.do is a script that does the redirection of
the actual affiliate URL using the template.
Say you want to track all your Amazon affiliate links.
Create a template with identifier as, say, amzn and the redirect URL template as
http://www.amazon.com/dp/$ASIN/?tag=astoreproxy-20 (obviously, replacing the tag with your own affiliate
id).
$ASIN is a parameter in the template. You can have as many parameters as desired. For example, if
tag is parameterized, then the same template could be used for tracking multiple amazon affiliate
accounts. However, note that one of the parameters can be designated as the link identifier. Typically, any
parameter that identifies the link that is clicked, such as ASIN for Amazon or a SKU (product number) for some
retailers can be used as the link identifier. This is used in the click log.
In addition to the redirect URL template, you can also specify the review URL template. Review url template
is useful if you want to view what items your visitors have clicked but without using the affiliate id. You can
specify http://www.amazon.com/dp/$ASIN. Note that the review URL can only contain the link
identifier as the parameter.
Now, accessing http://www.astoreproxy.com/rd.pl?tt=amzn&ASIN=some-asin will
redirect your link to http://www.amazon.com/dp/some-asin/?tag=astoreproxy-20
If your website supports URL rewriting, you can even create a rewrite rule such that the url
http://www.astoreproxy.com/rd/amzn/some-asin rewrites to
http://www.astoreproxy.com/rd.pl?tt=amzn&ASIN=some-asin
Advantages
Accurate tracking of clicks helps you in optimizing your website design and
layout and increase conversions
If you use CPC advertising to drive traffic to your website, you don't need
to do it in the dark, usually till the next day, waiting for your affiliate program
to tell you how many visitors actually clicked the links and visited the site you
are promoting. With better insight into your conversion rate and earnings per click,
you can adjust your advertising in real time through out the day by looking at the clicks
report
One side effect of using affiliate click tracker is that it provides link cloaking
that can help prevent spyware to hijack your affiliate links
If you participate in multiple affiliate programs, you don't have to login to
each program to check if you made any money. You can first check the reports and see
which affiliate programs have valid clicks and login to those programs.
FAQ
Can I use this script with widgets? This script can only track direct links.
Links created through javascript or iframes cannot be tracked.
Please contact staff at astoreproxy.com for pricing and hosting requirements.
