Introduction
A conversion is an action a customer takes on your website that has value to your business, such as a purchase, sign-up, or view of a key page. These actions are called conversions because a customer's click translated - or converted - to your business.
Why should I implement tracking?
Successful conversions are interpreted differently by individual marketers, advertisers and content creators. For example, to online retailers, a successful conversion may constitute the sale of a product to a consumer whose interest in the item was initially sparked by clicking a banner advertisement. To content creators, however, a successful conversion may refer to a membership registration, newsletter subscription or other activity that occurs due to a subtle or direct request from the content creator for the visitor to take the action.
Tracking conversions can provide insight into what marketing efforts are working versus what is not. While it is important to pay attention to a campaign's impressions, click-through rate, etc., it does not give insight into what those users are doing once they reach your site. By implementing tracking and passing information from OddBytes Platform (OBP) to the landing page you will gain valuable insight into the value and behavior of users from specific campaigns, creatives and keywords.
What are the different ways that I can track?
OddBytes Platform offers four ways to track:
Global Tag & Tracking Events: You can generate a single tag to place in the header of your site. Once the tag is placed once, you can create specific events to track without leaving OBP. This is the easiest option but requires that you own the site and can make changes to the code.
HTML Pixel: You can generate individual HTML Pixels through OBP and place them in a tracking platform or on the specific pages of your site that you wish to track. This option is best if you are working with a tracking platform and need to track within the browser using cookies.
S2S Postback: Postbacks can be created through OBP and placed on a server, within your site code, or on a tracking platform. These calls are designed to work without needing to rely on cookie sessions, which makes them the most accurate form of tracking available. In order to work without cookies, you must ensure a unique ID is passed from OBP to the Landing Page through the Creative URL, and then that ID must be included when the postback is fired so that OBP knows a conversion occurred. This option is the most accurate of the tracking options but requires a bit more configuration than the other tracking methods.
Conversion Upload: If a pixel cannot be placed, but you still want to track conversions within OBP, you can upload conversions via our upload tool. For more information about the upload option, please click here.
Where do I set up tracking in OBP?
To configure any of the tracking options with OBP, you will want to first login to the platform and click on the navigation menu on the left. Within the menu, go to the Settings section and select Tracking Manager. Don't worry if you have never used our Tracking Manager before, once you reach the page, our system will help walk you through the options and steps involved.
Global Tag and Tracking Events:
How does the Global Tag and its tracking events work?
The Global Tag is a single piece of code that can be placed in the header of each page you wish to track events on. Once the code is placed, you can configure the specific conditions/pages you wish to track from the interface. This means that you no longer need to place a new code every time you have something new to track. If you have something new that you want to track, you can configure it within OBP and the code from the Global Tag will automatically take care of tracking the event.
How do I set up the Global Tag?
Getting the Global Tag configured can be done in just a few steps. Once on the Tracking Manager page, click on the button above the grid that says "View Global Tag". A window will open, which includes your unique Global Tag. Copy the tag by clicking on the code and place that code into the header of any pages on your site that you wish to track events on. We recommend placing it on page headers so that you do not need to update it later.
Warning: If you are using a tag manager, the OBP Global Tag will still work when firing tracking events, but the detection feature outlined below will not be able to verify that the tag is properly configured.
Once the tag is placed on your site, click next so that OBP can verify the tag is placed and tracking properly. In step 2, enter a URL for a page you wish to track events on. When you click Verify URL, we will check and confirm that the tag is working properly. If you experience any issues with this step, please contact our support team so that we can help.
How do I set up Global Tag Tracking Events?
Once the Global Tag has been placed on your page and verified, the rest of the work can be done through the interface. Creating and defining tracking events is how the Global Tag knows what actions to track from the page. To create a tracking event, follow the steps below:
Click on the "New Tracking" button in the top left corner of the page and select the Global Tag option
A window will appear where we can configure the tracking event. Here is an overview of the information required so that we ensure we are tracking the right events:
Event Name & Status: Enter the name and status of the event that will be tracked.
Event Type: Map the event to a category that best describes the nature of the event. This will not impact tracking but helps filter your events once the list gets longer.
Conversion Lookback Window: When a user on your site performs the action that this event is tracking, the Global Tag will look at the user's cookies to find a cookie from when they last interacted with an ad served from one of your campaigns. The lookback window defines how far back we are willing to look. If the value is changed to 20 days, then the Global Tag will track events from the user only if the user has been served an ad within the past 20 days.
Allow Repeat Conversions: Click on this checkbox if you wish to track users performing the same event multiple times. Leaving this setting unchecked means the Global Tag will only track the first time a user converts on this item. If the tracking event is for an email registration, then it may be best to only track once, but if it is tracking purchases from an eCommerce store then we may want to allow repeat conversions so that we track each purchase the user makes.
URL Filters: We need to specify what specific page(s) we want to track for this particular conversion
Enter the URL of the page where this particular Tracking event occurs.
There is a dropdown to the left of the URL field where can choose if the URL entered is the full and exact URL where we want to track (select option "URL Equals") or if the URL provided is only a portion of the total URL that we want to track (select option "URL Contains").
If there are multiple pages where this particular conversion can occur then we can click the green "+" icon to add additional URLs.
NOTE: When entering multiple URLs, we do not advise using the "AND" operator. This combination can be helpful for advanced configurations but is often not necessary for basic setups and can result in issues with tracking.
Action Filters: If the goal is to track every time a user visits a certain page on the site and it does not matter if they do anything specific on the page then we can proceed to step 3 without updating Action Filters. If the goal is to track this conversion only after the user clicks on a specific item on the page then we will want to call out the HTML element here.
NOTE: It is important to define the element with unique attributes so that conversions are recorded properly.
Once all of the information looks correct, click Save in the bottom right corner of the window.
How do I know the event is configured properly?
With the help of debug mode, you can quickly verify that your Global Tag tracking is configured properly. For information on this mode, please click here.
HTML Pixels
How do HTML Pixels work?
HTML Pixels track by using cookie sessions. When a user is served an ad from OBP, they generate an impression and a cookie is placed on their browser. When that user later performs an action that we want to track, an HTML Pixel can fire from the page (or tracking platform) and use the cookies from the user's browser to tell OBP which user converted.
How do I set up an HTML Pixel?
Click on the "New Tracking" button in the top left corner of the page and select the HTML Pixel option.
A window will appear where we can configure the HTML Pixel. Here is an overview of the information required so that we ensure we are tracking the right events:
Tracking Name: Enter the name of the event that will be tracked.
Conversion Category: Select the category that best describes the conversion's nature. (optional)
Revenue: Enter the revenue attributed for each conversion. This will be a static amount. If you would like to pass revenue dynamically for each conversion (ex. different revenue amounts based on shopping cart check outs), please scroll down to 'Dynamic Tracking Variables'. (optional)
Lookback Window: Select the timeframe which conversions can be attributed to this pixel.
Allow Duplicate Conversions: If individual users can convert multiple times on this pixel, check the box.
Click 'Save' to generate the pixel code.
The HTML pixel will appear in the grey box Clicking 'JavaScript' or 'iFrame' will change the code depending on what you have selected.
Click the grey box to copy the full piece of code and place it in your page code (or tracking platform). Ensure you are placing the code on the proper page for the event you wish to track.
NOTE: We recommend placing the HTML Pixel in the header section of the page to better ensure it fires when users reach the page.
Click 'Close' once the pixel code is copied.
S2S Postbacks
How do S2S Postbacks work?
S2S Postbacks are the most accurate way to track because they do not rely on cookies and therefore will still be able to track even if a user clears their cookie session or disables cookies altogether. In order to track without cookies, a unique ID is generated for each user that OBP serves your ad to. If the user clicks on the ad and goes to your landing page, then OBP will need to pass that unique ID to the page. The page (or server) will store the unique ID. When the user performs an action that should be tracked the server fires the Postback call to OBP and includes the unique ID. This ID will tell OBP which user converted.
How do I set up an S2S Postback?
Click on the "New Tracking" button in the top left corner of the page and select the S2S Postback option.
A window will appear where we can configure the S2S Postback. Here is an overview of the information required so that we ensure we are tracking the right events:
Tracking Name: Enter the name of the event that will be tracked.
Conversion Category: Select the category that best describes the conversion's nature. (optional)
Revenue: Enter the revenue attributed for each conversion. This will be a static amount. If you would like to pass revenue dynamically for each conversion (ex. different revenue amounts based on shopping cart check outs), please scroll down to 'Dynamic Tracking Variables'. (optional)
Click 'Save' to generate the pixel URL. The S2S pixel will appear in the grey box.
Click the grey box to copy the pixel.
Click 'Close' to close the window.
Notes:
The Creative URL(s) must include a OBP macro to pass the unique ID of the user to the page. You can automatically append this macro to your URL by clicking the option "Append Conversion Token". You will need to make sure that the variable you are passing the ID on is one that the site is able to recognize and store values from.
You will need to ensure that the site is storing the value that is passed in on the URL and that this value is returned to OBP with the S2S Postback in the token= parameter.
The unique ID, otherwise known as clickID or token, is an alphanumeric string made up of 33 characters.
Example S2S Postback
In this example, we have created an S2S postback that will be used to track purchases. Next, we will want to ensure our Creative URL for all creatives are passing the unique ID to the landing page. We can do this by opening the creative in OBP and clicking 'Append Conversion Token'.
In many cases, the site will not recognize "token" as a known variable. We strongly recommend working with the site's developers to find what variable this value should be passed into. In this example, the site will accept the ID in "clickID" so we have updated the URL to reflect this.
The last step is to ensure that the postback is configured on our site's server so that it fires after each conversion if the user making the purchase came to the site with a clickID. Since the site uses {} for macros the postback placed in the code looks like below:
https://www.conversionpx.com/?id=1GB170GA4B8GC463EB9B&value=0&token={clickID}
Dynamic Tracking Variables
Tracking Dynamic Revenue Amounts
If you would like to pass the US Dollar amount/revenue dynamically at the time of actual conversion back to OddBytes, you will only have to modify your tracking code slightly in two places. Having that recorded, your ROI can be checked quickly through the Conversions Reports.
How do I implement Dynamic Revenue Amounts?
Open up your "Thank you" page's file, or if multiple pages are generated from the same website code, find the section in your website's code that generates your "Thank you" page. If your site has a variable conversion revenue, determine the programming expression that displays that value. For example, in PHP it might look like <?php echo($myRevenue); ?>. Determined programming expression needs to be placed next to both of the &value=tags within your conversions tracking code.
Insert the modified conversion tracking code onto your "Thank you" page. Make sure that the code appears within a static HTML section, not contained within a PHP code section (delineated by <?php and ?> markers). As you insert the code snippet, make sure you place it directly into the body of the "Thank you" page, as described in the sections above. Or, if the <body> tag is not located within the static portion of the HTML page, make sure that you add the code snippet so it appears within the <body></body> section when you view the source of the page after uploading it to your Web server.
Example Implementation
An example of dynamic HTML/PHP code for conversions tracking is specified below:
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.conversionpx.com/?id=1G1253G5DA2G219E309E&fetch=0&value=<?php echo($myRevenue); ?>"> </script> <noscript>
<iframe style="display: none; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px" src="https://www.conversionpx.com/?id=1G1253G5DA2G219E309E&fetch=2&value=<?php echo($myRevenue); ?>"></iframe> </noscript>
The tracking code above is for using conversions tracking on pages with HTTPS level of security. Generating tracking code for HTTP pages is available in the same place under the "Tracking" section of your OddBytes account.
Dynamic Revenue Limitations
Passed dynamic conversion revenue value needs to be between 0.01 and 10000.00, representing the amount in US Dollars. Specifying zero as the value, or any value not falling between the above-specified constraints, results in using static conversion revenue amount as (and if) specified within each of the conversion tracking settings under the Settings → Tracking Manager section of your OddBytes account.
Tracking Dynamic Custom Values
If you would like to track dynamic values with each conversion then you can do so by using the c1, c2 and c3 parameters with your HTML conversion pixel or S2S postback. For more information on how to use these parameters, please see this article.