How to Display t202kw or c1-c7 Values on the Lander? (21)

Hi fellow stackers!


I've spent way too much time on this over the past 2 days - so here I am asking for help from more experienced stackers.

I'm using the STM tracker, and wish to display the value of t202kw on my lander. This is what I did to implement it:

1)Inserted this code into my lander's header:

<?php
$keyword = $_GET['t202kw'];
?>

2)Inserted this into the lander where I want the value to appear:

<? echo $keyword; ?>

3)Appended a value to "&t202kw=" in my tracking link


The Result: The t202kw value is NOT showing up on the lander! However, it IS showing up in tracking stats properly. It looks like the tracker just "ate" the data and failed to pass it onto the lander.

I tried replacing t202kw with a "c" variable (e.g. c7) and that didn't work either. I'm guessing the same would be true for all tracker-reserved variables (t202kw, c1-c7, s1-s2).

Based on that observation, I then tried naming my variable to something completely new - say "kw" - and appended "&kw=value" to my tracking link - and the value DID show up on my lander properly!

But I need to display the value of t202kw on my lander! Is there a way to do this? I hope so! Thanks in advance guys!


Amy

Does the t202kw= parameter show in the address bar in your browser?

@ bbrock: No it doesn't. For example, if I put this tracking link in the browser:

http://tracker.mydomain.com/tracking...4&t202kw=value

This url will turn into:

http://landerdomain.com/index.php?&s...=0&t202id=1234

It looks like the tracker just "ate" the value instead of passing it to the lander. Is this normal or did I not install the tracker correctly? Thanks again!

Amy

I don't use 202, so I'm not sure if it's setup correct... but if it's hidden then I don't think $_GET will work (programmers correct me if I'm wrong here)... but in either scenario I just use extract($_REQUEST); on my pages.

this extracts all the request header parameters and assigns them to variables, so if your link is

http://domain.com/?c1=value1&c2=value2


then it'll assign variables $c1 = value1, and $c2 = value2.

So your new code (assuming t202kw) would be:

<?php

extract($_REQUEST);

?>

<? echo $t202kw; ?>

Thanks buttonedup for your help!

The problem I'm having though is that the tracker is not passing the variable's value to the lander.

But this is only limited to the variables that are reserved for exclusive use by the tracker. If I append any other variable to the tracking link like you've described, the lander IS able to display it.

But because I'm wanting to show values of dynamic tokens from exoclick on my lander, I NEED to pass values of tracker-reserved variables...therefore I can't use that work-around described above.

Thanks a lot for your post!

Amy

Any time!! Are you trying to display a dynamic token from exo, like {src_hostname} or so you just want to display a static value that you can manually add?

Also I'm assuming you want this value to be stored in 202?

If it's not passing when you add it to 202 then my guess would be 202 is installed wrong.

Feel free to pm me also and we can take a look!

Thanks buttonedup! I too am starting to suspect I may have installed the STM tracker incorrectly, because according to prosper documentation, what I'm doing SHOULD work - I've followed all the instructions on this page to the tee:

http://prosper.tracking202.com/scrip...landing-pages/

Just PM'ed you thanks!


Amy

Are you sure that you installed the STM-modded p202? It doesn't use cookies, it passes query string data through the URL... so if t202kw isn't in the URL it simply won't be passed through to the lander tracking link.

Easy check: go to the setup tab in tracking202 and see if the get rotating lander option is there. If not... not using the modded tracker that is available here: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...-Major-Upgrade
I see rotateid in your lander link so it looks like it is the modded p202, but just to be sure!

Workaround: why not double up on querystrings? E.g. t202kw={token}&something={token}

P.S. Use <?php not <? as if short_open_tags is off then the code simply won't work.

Hi Zeno!

I'm absolutely sure I have the modded version - good to check and make sure. In fact, because I (like buttonedup) was suspecting that the tracker may have been installed incorrectly, I downloaded all the tracker files and patch files again, and overwrote all my current tracker files. I read over the installation instructions post again to make sure it was installed correctly. Then I tried to pass the keyword variables again and it still didn't work...

And I've replaced all instances of <? with <?php on my lander - still no luck.

And what does doubling up on querystrings do? I tried adding multiple variables to the tracking link:

http://landerdomain.com/index.php?&s...=keyword&c1=c1

Reading the variables from my lander:

<?php
$keyword2 = $_GET['t202kw'];
$keyword3 = $_GET['c1'];
?>

And displaying them on my lander:
<?php echo $keyword2; ?> <?php echo $keyword3; ?>

The values are not appearing, still.

Thanks for all the suggestions Zeno! If you have any other ideas I would love to hear them. I must have read all the google results on "Prosper Dynamic Keyword Insertion" and similar. Still stuck...


Amy

P.S. And many thanks to buttonedup for spending 45 minutes with me over Skype to help me troubleshoot the problem! Really grateful for your time and patience!

I thought I read somewhere that values other than t202kw and c1-c7 were passing through, may have been mistaken - if that were the case then something like blerg={token} might get through.

Looking at your posts again it's pretty clear that these values are being tracked but not put in the lander URL, which is probably just normal behaviour.

Tracking202 logs all incoming values, then redirects to the landing page URL + with subid, rotateid, and lpid/t202id. It then appends these to the click URL so that, on outgoing redirect, tracking202 knows where the user came from. Tracking202 will then append any stored values to your affiliate URL as defined in the campaign setup.

The solution may be as simple as appending &something=[[keyword]] or [[c1]] to your landing page URL in the setup section.

Ah, I remember this problem - it's a bit of a nightmare if you haven't spent quality time inside the guts of the STM tracker.

The STM tracker doesn't pass the t202kw to the lander.

To fix this, in tracker.php in your /tracking202zredirect on line 446, remove

&& $key!="t202kw"

Originally Posted by zeno

Workaround: why not double up on querystrings? E.g. t202kw={token}&something={token}

Now I remember, you can either use Zeno's solution or for a permanent fix just follow what Caurmen said.

Originally Posted by caurmen

To fix this, in tracker.php in your /tracking202zredirect on line 446, remove

Code:

&& $key!="t202kw"

That'll ensure that t202kw gets passed through to your lander.

Originally Posted by bbrock32

Now I remember, you can either use Zeno's solution or for a permanent fix just follow what Caurmen said.

Guys - One last question:

if($key!="t202id" && $key!="t202kw" && $key!="c1" && $key!="c2" && $key!="c3" && $key!="c4" && $key!="c5" && $key!="c6" && $key!="c7" && $key!="c8" ){
$redirect_site_url .= "&$key=$value";
}

In addition to removing && $key!="t202kw" like caurmen and bbrock suggested, can I also remove the code for the other variables - for example c1? If so then I'd be able to pass some exoclick dynamic tokens and display them on my lander!

Thanks again!

Amy

You can either comment out the entire if block or remove all the c-variables and t202kw.

It will not hurt anything. All it is doing is changing some stuff that is appended to your outgoing URL.

This should work fine:

if($key!="t202id"){
$redirect_site_url .= "&$key=$value";
}

Alternatively you could remove the entire if block by commenting and just have:

//if($key!="t202id" && $key!="t202kw" && $key!="c1" && $key!="c2" && $key!="c3" && $key!="c4" && $key!="c5" && $key!="c6" && $key!="c7" && $key!="c8" ){
$redirect_site_url .= "&$key=$value";
//}

That did it! I'm changing the code.

You guys are awesome.

Amy

Originally Posted by zeno

You can either comment out the entire if block or remove all the c-variables and t202kw.

It will not hurt anything. All it is doing is changing some stuff that is appended to your outgoing URL.

This should work fine:

if($key!="t202id"){
$redirect_site_url .= "&$key=$value";
}

Alternatively you could remove the entire if block by commenting and just have:

//if($key!="t202id" && $key!="t202kw" && $key!="c1" && $key!="c2" && $key!="c3" && $key!="c4" && $key!="c5" && $key!="c6" && $key!="c7" && $key!="c8" ){
$redirect_site_url .= "&$key=$value";
//}

By outgoing URL I mean the lander URL that tracking202 is about to bounce the user to.

You send someone to t202 ---> interprets and logs data / does stuff ---> sends to lander URL.

All this is doing is changing what it adds to the end of the LP URL - it already does subid, t202id, etc., you are just adding more.

I'm not sure if it affects the outgoing offer URL, just check and see if it does in practice.

I think that all the GET parameters will be passed on to the offer URL too, but that's not really a problem - won't slow anything down. You could always reintroduce the block of code into the outgoing link php (lp.php if I recall correctly).