Tracking issue: Why is my lead tally on P202 different from the networks? (14)

I've been having an issue with tracking on P202. After searching STM and trying to troubleshoot on my own, I'm still stuck. Will really appreciate it if anyone has any idea what I'm doing wrong.

The problem: Very simply, P202 isn't tracking my leads properly. The number of leads shown on P202 is consistently lower than the networks' tally. The error probably has to do with how I'm setting up my tracking for the offers?

Here's what I currently do:
1. I input the campaign details on the Set Up> Campaign tab. &s2=[[subid]] is added to the end of the affiliate URL.
2. I fill in the details under the Landing Page tab. The LP URL is something like subdomain.website.com/index.php.
3. On the "Get LP Code" tab I generate the tracking link. The inbound javascript code is added to the LP, just before </body>. The outbound PHP redirect code is pasted into a page like subdomain.website.com/redir.php. So when users viewing the LP click on a link to the redir.php page, they're effectively taken to the offer page with the affiliate link. Both the LP and the redir.php are in the same directory on my site.
4. On the "Get Links" tab I generate the tracking link and this URL is the one I use for my ad that's submitted to the traffic source. After the ad is approved, users clicking through the ad would get redirected to the LP URL mentioned (subdomain.website.com/index.php) only if they're in the country that's relevant to the offer.
5. The global postback URL is saved into the network platform.

Is there anything wrong with my current set up?

So all clicks are tracked correctly while leads are not ?

Some questions:

1. Are you using the STM version of tracking202?
2. What percentage of leads are not tracking?
3. Do you see "blank subids" in your affiliate network stats?

The main reasons I'm asking is because the STM tracker solves the problem of cookie-based tracking.

Is there a timezone difference between the network and your Prosper202 configuration?

@dario
There's about a 10% variance in the clicks according to the traffic source and according to P202. Which... is on the higher end of normal but still within range of acceptable variance? So I'm assuming that the clicks are tracking correctly while the leads aren't.

@Jasper
1. ? There's an STM version of tracking202? I basically just followed caurmen's tutorials on setting up P202. Are you referring to the STM mobile tracker? I don't have that installed right now.
2. About 20% Although the number might be skewed because of the base number, it's still a pretty significant difference
3. In Cake's SubAffiliate Summary, there is one particular campaign that's registering clicks, 0 conversions and a blank subID. So... the problem here might be due to a campaign not set up right? I just checked each camp's setup under P202's Campaign tab. Every camp has a subID 1 though...

@lots of ads
There is a slight timezone difference between P202 and the network because my P202 timezone is set to match the traffic source's. (I figured since the network/Cake's reports following EST regardless of what time you're setting on it, it's better to at least have the traffic source and P202 timezone match.) Timezone difference would probably be a problem only for stats of the last 24 hours? Number from 2+ days ago should match? Currently they don't.

yeah I'm referring to the mobile tracker.

Also, I believe that cake uses the 's1' token for the subaffiliate tab. Whatever you use for s1 will show up in the Sub ID column. So if you're not using s1, it will show up blank, which is ok.

What I meant was, if you look in the "Click Report" or "Conversion Report" tab, are you seeing blank subids in the "Sub ID 2" column?

Cake? Go to reports > conversion report. Are there conversions for the culprit campaigns in there that don't have a p202 subid (e.g. 12345) listed for the subid2 that you use in the postback? That would explain things...

Edit: sniped.

@Jasper, zeno
Looks like there are 2 campaigns at issue. Call them Camp1 and Camp2. Camp 1 has some blank subid 2 for a few conversions in the Conversion Report, but all the conversions for Camp2 are showing subid 2s fine.

But in the Click Report, both Camp1 and Camp2 indeed have missing subid2s for some of their conversions. So to troubleshoot, should I go to P202's Setup>Campaigns tab and make sure that Camp2's affiliate URL is set up right? Right now it's got the affiliate URL plus the &s2=[[subid]] string. Looks ok?

If your link is set up fine and passing subids for most of the clicks but not others then there are a few possibilities:

1) People are hitting your lander NOT via your p202 link, so have no subid (do the clicks missing a subid2 have a corresponding subid1 or is it blank also?).
2) Visitors have cookies disabled = p202 can't read their subid data when they click out.

1) The clicks missing a subid2 mostly have a subid1, but they're clicking through from a location that is not the target country. So it looks those are spies who clicked thru via spy tools? I should use that code that checks referrers and redirects the ones not clicking through from the traffic source, I'm guessing. Will at least limit these occurrences somewhat. For those clicks where both subid1 and 2 are missing, I can see it's my own clicks testing the links. Probably best to prevent these clicks from registering in the future by testing the links through the offer's Testing & Tracking tab.

2) Disabled cookies can be quite a common issue - I think I'll get around it by using STM mobile tracker.

And for anyone wondering what the code is for checking referrers, I'm talking about the one posted by tijn here: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ts-Part-2-of-3

The code he gave is for CPVLab though. For P202, I assume it's a modification to this:
[PHP]<?php
$ref = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
$ref_ok = 'TRAFFICSOURCE';
if ( preg_match("($ref_ok)i", $ref, $matches) == false ) {
//no match - redirect
header('Location: http://domain.com/fakepage.html');
die();
}
?>[/PHP]

You replace TRAFFICSOURCE with your specific traffic source. eg. If it's facebook, you input 'facebook.com' (without quotes)

Paste this into your LP's header.

Lemme know if I got any of this wrong!

[combined posts]

@archer9

I just did a 2 quick tests on regular t202. My affiliate link looks like this:

http://AffNetwork.com/?a=1&c=12345&s1=[[c1]]&s2=[[subid]]

http://my202tracker.com/tracking202/redirect/lp.php?lpip=1234&pci='.$_COOKIE['tracking202pci']

Yep, the STM Mobile Tracker moved away from cookie-based tracking to use GET requests instead.

Great summary, btw, Jasper!

Thanks a lot, everyone. That was really helpful.