Click Tracking Script

I'm building a simple redirect / split test system where each of my (outgoing) llinks as a unique URL to my server, which does some logic then sends a 301 / 302 redirect to the user.

This is used for link tracking, split-testing various offers and allowing me to control which offers people land on - possibly based on psychographic information I already have in the db.

What is the best way, preferably using the server-side API (vs. javascipt), to track each of clicks?

I'm looking for a high level "how this could work" using Clicky for the reporting.

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't done a deep dive into the documentation - a friendly pointer to the right functions to look at would be greatly appreciated.

Clicky may have something like this built-in ... I see an API endpoint for "split-tests".

Can you recommend a few ways I could architect this in such a way I can use clicky for reporting to it's fullest?

I'm looking for both a simplistic architecture I can get out the door quickly, and possibly a more compex design that uses Clicky to it's fullest potential.

One problem I'm trying to solve is feedback from affiliate sites on correlating handoff with final orders, as once the prospect leaves the site I usually won't see the user again
after the completed transaction ... I can however sometimes manually correlate actions based on sales reports from the ecommerce site.

intellispire,

I do simple split testing and dynamic redirects to affiliate sites.

I was passing a split-test ID to a 3rd party tool, but that tool no longer exists and now I am contemplating how to do roll split test tracking into the clicky custom tracking capability I have already implemented to track affiliate sales.

What I describe below is the approach I intend to take next time I do some split testing. It provides a means to track visitors, split-test cases, click-thrus, and sales using some simple custom web site php code, the affiliate tracking system, and clicky, but without paying extra for a 3rd party split test tool.

I already use clicky goals and custom tracking capability. I would add my split-test tracking to the custom tracking ID but not use clicky split-testing API.

I rely on the affiliate system's capability to accept a unique tracking ID, correlate this tracking ID to sales, and then pass that back to me in sales reports in order to correlate a click thru from my web site to each sale.

The same custom tracking ID is passed to both clicky and the affiliate system. My existing tracking ID is unique to each visitor who clicks through and I would also encode it to include the split test case identifier.

Up to now, I don't care about visitors who do not click through and therefore I generate this tracking code on the outgoing link page, then log it to clicky before issuing the redirect to the affiliate-vendor sales site.

When I add split test tracking I probably will remove the tracking ID code generation from departure page and start doing it on the landing pages. Then I could analyze split test case behavior for all visitors even if they do not click thru.

The correlation on the back end is accomplished in spread sheets using imported sales reports bumped against CSV exports of clicky reports. If you are handy with excel, then exporting clicky visitor report data via CSV into spreadsheets provides unlimited ways to slice and dice the clicky data and combine it with inputs from other systems such as the affiliate tracking sales reports.

I am aware but not familiar with the clicky split-testing API. The logging code looks pretty straightforward. I'm not sure what reporting capabilities if any exist within clicky to use the captured split-test case information. A quick look at my favorite go to report, which is Visitors report downloaded to CSV, suggests that split test identifiers are not included in the Clicky report data.

BTW, there is a Clicky integration to a separately priced 3rd party tool called Visual Website Optimizer for test case design and reporting. Paying for another tool is not currently of interest to me, and so the clicky split test API does not look to be useful since I don't know how to pull the data from it using regular clicky reports.

Assuming your affiliate tracking system allows you to provide your own tracking ID and the affiliate system correlates and reports it back to you, then the approach I suggest above (i.e. encoding split-test case into custom tracking code passed to both Clicky and Affiliate system) would provide the capability to pull clicky reports and affiliate system reports into a spreadsheet and correlate visitors with split-test case and sales.

That's what I would do. In fact next time I run some split tests this is precisely what I intend to do unless something better comes along before then.

here are some references:

clicky.com/help/faq/features/split-tests/how

clicky.com/help/custom


hope this is helpful info.

edyodis,

Thank you, that really points me in what looks like is the right direction. I'll review and see what I can setup. I appreciate the reply!

Best,

Nick