I know a lot of people say you need tracking software and the 2 most common are prosper202 and cpvlabs.
But which ones better?
Thanks
Debatable and subject to user opinion.
The newest CPV Lab has lot of new features and can handle mobile decently. CPV Lab costs a one-off payment of ~$200.
The newest Tracking202 has a monthly subscription and advantages over the free self-hosted Tracking202.
The free modded version of Tracking202 made here at STM is free.
iMobiTrax is self-hosted, great for mobile but also has a substantial monthly recurring fee.
All self-hosted trackers are going to be influenced by your server locations, configurations and specs.
In the end it generally comes down to personal preference since the tracking system costs are minimal compared to what affiliates spend at traffic sources. If you are just starting out my advice would be to go for the STM-modded p202 tracker - because it's free and that gives you more money for your campaigns. You master tracking, not a tracking system. It's easy to move to other systems later on once you have a better handle on IM campaigns.
Ok thanks.
Also another really noob question - if I'm running ads on POF and POF gives me analytics data, why do I need tracking systems? What do tracking systems provide that POF analytics can't provide?
If the traffic source offers conversion tracking then you can see the ROI for ads and this is great - it helps a lot as most traffic sources don't pass cost data forward.
However, with a tracking system you can see how landing pages perform outright, and for different campaigns/banners/demographics as indicated by parameters you pass in your links, rotate different offers on the backend, look at temporal variation i.e. revenue fluctuation across the day, track extra parameters such as user browser, ISP, device model, etc.
Tracking systems basically accept users and redirect them through your marketing funnel while giving you precise control over the traffic and insight into how users translate into revenue.
For the most part, the traffic source shows you how banners perform based on the stats on their side and conversions passed back from the offer. That's all, there is little to insight into what happens in the middle.