Real Affiliate Tracking (informational)

[nobluff]

Some of you might have noticed a few threads started by me, asking about a specific type of tracking, so this post is for informational purposes in case anyone else is interested in advanced tracking.

I have been away from the casino affiliate scene for a while, pursuing more profitable ventures (for me). One of the reasons was the hit I took when the USA market left and I lost access to my main income source. I could not recover in time, so I had to look for income sources that were in my opinion more stable. The industries I ended up in are not important however the knowledge gained in these industries have got me interested in the casino industry again, and I would like to see if I can transfer my knowledge over. The two main knowledge sources that have helped me tremendously are lead capture (auto-responder e-mail marketing) and detailed/cloaked tracking. I am only going to focus on tracking in this post.


The basic idea of detailed/cloaked tracking is that I send my visitors through my tracking software before I send them to my affiliate sites, my tracking software adds a unique identifier to my affiliate code, and then sends the traffic to my affiliate program. This is transparent to the visitor. Now if the visitor converts (buys something) I get an automated server call (postback pixel) to my tracking software which now finds the visitor via the unique code I attached to my affiliate code. The tracking software now marks that visitor as a conversion. Sometimes affiliate sites don’t have postback pixels, however they have a conversion report which lists all your conversions with your unique id code that you attached to your visitor. You can then use this report to mass update your tracking software, so once again marking a visitor as a conversion. So now let’s look at how this will look in the casino world, and why it’s so important.

Visitor 1 => Keyword-abc => tracking software => casino-affiliate-code+unique –id => casino => no conversion => no update to tracking software.

Visitor 2 => Keyword-def => tracking software => casino-affiliate-code+unique –id => casino => depositing player => update to tracking software.

Visitor 3 => Keyword-abc => tracking software => casino-affiliate-code+unique –id => casino => no conversion => no update to tracking software.

So the above example shows that keyword-def converts while keyword-abc doesn’t (You need at least 100 visitors per keyword before you can decide on its profitability). Here are the benefits:

1. You can now get rid of keyword-abc (save money)
2. You can use more of your budget on keyword-def (increase profit).
3. The affiliate site can’t steal or share your profitable keyword (safety).


I hope you found some use in this, so If you have questions post them here.

 

[Online18Casino]

Yes I can see how that would save me a lot of time and money... I do very little tracking, mostly due to laziness I guess which really means me doing much more work in the long run.. What is the name of the software you are using?

 

[nobluff]

Yes I can see how that would save me a lot of time and money... I do very little tracking, mostly due to laziness I guess which really means me doing much more work in the long run.. What is the name of the software you are using?

I use a cpvlabs. There is a free option called prosper202 however the paid version has benefits that outweigh the costs.

 

[Guard Dog]

It sounds pretty darn interesting. Not sure I have much time to look into it right now, but I like the idea. thanks for that post!

 

[Vladi]

This is an area (one of many) in which the online gambling industry is a decade behind other industries. The vast majority of gambling affiliate programs don't offer pixel tracking and most don't support appending dynamic campaign variables to your affiliate links. Off the top of my head I can name Star Games for pixel tracking and Affiliate Edge (Club World) for dynamic campaign variables and that's about it - there are probably more but they don't do a good job of advertising these features. If you only work with one or two programs then you can pick the ones that do, but if you diversify yourself and have lots of programs then you are pretty much SOL and your PPC tracking tools are almost useless.

In addition pixel tracking is not particularly useful for revenue share based affiliates as the concept of a "sale" like in the CPA based industries that pioneered this stuff is a bit different. You can track a "sale" as a first deposit but thats only a small part of the total picture. For example as I said above, Star Games does it but they only pay a CPA so it works there. It would be far more useful if the pixel was there every time a player deposited or withdrew for example. If you're taking the dynamic campaign variables approach then that makes things easier, but it depends on what data the program reports.

 

[nobluff]

This is an area (one of many) in which the online gambling industry is a decade behind other industries. The vast majority of gambling affiliate programs don't offer pixel tracking and most don't support appending dynamic campaign variables to your affiliate links. Off the top of my head I can name Star Games for pixel tracking and Affiliate Edge (Club World) for dynamic campaign variables and that's about it - there are probably more but they don't do a good job of advertising these features. If you only work with one or two programs then you can pick the ones that do, but if you diversify yourself and have lots of programs then you are pretty much SOL and your PPC tracking tools are almost useless.

In addition pixel tracking is not particularly useful for revenue share based affiliates as the concept of a "sale" like in the CPA based industries that pioneered this stuff is a bit different. You can track a "sale" as a first deposit but thats only a small part of the total picture. For example as I said above, Star Games does it but they only pay a CPA so it works there. It would be far more useful if the pixel was there every time a player deposited or withdrew for example. If you're taking the dynamic campaign variables approach then that makes things easier, but it depends on what data the program reports.

I agree, online gambling industry is way behind, and I sort of wonder if its intentional? I heard that Affiliate Edge offers the dynamic campaign variables, and waiting for a response on how to implement and where they report on the variables. Knowing what I know now, for paid traffic, I wouldn't touch any affiliate site that doesn't offer real tracking. I have been shocked on how much money I have wasted on unprofitable keywords, as well as shocked to see how well some keywords do.

How I would get around the revenue share would be to get an average of what your clients are worth, I have the same issue with clickbank offers where you get monthly rebills. The clickbank offers tend to indicate what the average customer is worth.

 

[CaseyM]

A lot more offer both pixel and dynamic links when you ask the AM but you are right, they really just don't advertise it well

 

[santoshjain87]

Most affiliate programmes running on Income Access software (like ourselves) have the functionality to add a dynamic tracker to the end of the URL. They call it ACID in their system (Affiliate Custom ID). You can insert parameters like keywords, source etc as the ACID and it would be reported in ACID report.
We also support pixel tracking for some of our merchants.

 

[LottoRevenues]

most casino will not allow to put tracking pixles on their side,
you will need a good relationship with your affiliate manager to get more states etc.

 

[nobluff]

Most affiliate programmes running on Income Access software (like ourselves) have the functionality to add a dynamic tracker to the end of the URL. They call it ACID in their system (Affiliate Custom ID). You can insert parameters like keywords, source etc as the ACID and it would be reported in ACID report.
We also support pixel tracking for some of our merchants.

Thanks, that would be what I am looking for. Ill signup and hopefully you take USA (Ill check myself obviously)

 

[santoshjain87]

Thanks, that would be what I am looking for. Ill signup and hopefully you take USA (Ill check myself obviously)

Hi nobluff, Thank you for signing up. Just replying to your PM now

 

[Roman Doroshenko]

Is there any the continuation of this story ?
Does anyone collected the list of programs that do provide dynamic tracking (or any alternatives) ?
Is there any guide how to implement this tracking ? I mean based on casino affiliate platform.

I'm doing it right now and it would be nice if anyone here got success in it.