Redirectless tracking for Facebook? (19)

Hi,

What's the best way(s) to track conversion events on offer owner's site when they don't add affiliates' pixels to their site?

I'm thinking about promoting an affiliate ecom offer using Facebook and heard that using a tracker like Voluum can get an account banned.

Based on https://doc.Voluum.com/en/lander_scanning_tool.html it looks like they offer

It´s true that a simple redirect can be seen as cloaking already, that´s why many trackers have a redirectless option.

There you send the users directly to your landing page without redirect through a tracking link and the tracking is done with scripts.

Let's see if we could hear directly from the horse's mouth.

I'll alert our friends at Voluum to this thread.



Amy

Sounds like copy designed to tarnish the competitor and sell software subscriptions.

Here are my thoughts, make of them what you will.

I think we overestimate Facebook in some areas and grossly underestimate them in others. The last time I had a funnel where I could watch, the bots NEVER go past the lander. They do not follow any links at all, they merely scrap the lander and its copy. So unless Facebook has decided that https://.../click is bad, they have no idea the click URL will redirect. And while it is entirely possible that human reviewers have told the AI that click URLs are bad, I doubt they have or ever will. Because they don't need to nor do they want to.

Remember, Facebook sees your ad copy and your lander copy. Plus, they see how you behave while on the platform. Combined, that is more than enough to tell them how to spot advertisers they don't like. If you're running weight loss, you're to give enough away in the ad copy and on the lander for them to realize you're running a scammy, in their view, Clickbank style offer without ever having to go to the VSL and offer page. Further, when using your bought or farmed account, you're giving away plenty of signs that you aren't legit and are try to circumvent their systems.

To support my position, I point you to this thread. https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...rd-from-sweeps

Emil is running what Facebook hates and everyone wants to run on Facebook, sweeps. But he is doing it by being completely different than everyone else out there. Now, I can find no reference to tracker in the thread, so he may or may not be using one. But Facebook is perfectly capable of banning you even if you don't use a tracker. So I strongly suspect why most people get banned is because of what they are running and how they are running it, not because of how their tracker implemented redirectless tracking. Further, Facebook wants you to track, otherwise why implement URL parameters and support for Google Analytics? Why allow Voluum, RedTrack and others to integrate with Conversion API? Without tracking it is difficult to see where you are profitable. At the end of the day, Facebook wants advertisers to spend and to spend big, so they know some level of tracking is necessary. So I see no reason for Facebook to innately hate tracking, or even redirects. Their goal is to avoid redirects that serve to circumvent their systems, cloaking.

Ad copy and your behavior on platform exist ON PLATFORM. Lander copy and any redirects to get there are just one step away, and it wasn't all that long ago that plenty of people were still using bit.ly links. It is far, far easier for them to merely observe how people behave on the social media and advertising platforms and see what kind of copy and creatives they are using in their ads and landers.

Originally Posted by twinaxe

And that´s the point, it´s not about what happens after the LP.

There shouldn´t be redirects from FB to the LP because that´s where the cloaking mostly happens.

Thank you Amy @vortex for tagging us here 😉
You’re right @leadmarketing to ask that question, it’s definitely an important one.

We know what anytrack is saying, they actually have been for quite some time.
However we have hundreds of clients using redirectless tracking with facebook successfully!

What's more, you can even fully integrate Facebook with our Automizer, making things even easier for you!

Christina

@laurentjm We are always open for professional dialogue and I can only invite people to ask questions as they arise. I mean, that’s what I am here for. 😉💪
And I have to give you credit for being so knowledgeable about our documentation guide, I wish everyone could spend as much time checking our documentation!
Unfortunately you still missed the relevant document, but don't worry you can access it here!

What is true is that our direct tracking script does replace urls! However, I can only repeat myself by saying that this doesn't seem to create any issues for our customers.
After all, I constantly see both newbies and experienced affiliates on this forum using voluum (also for facebook) successfully.
However, I think it would be easiest if everyone tried it for themselves. We always have a STM discount - so nothing to lose 😛 Check it out here!

I also agree with @iwanttofly who mentioned that Facebook does want you to track! It is in their best interest if you track, as they want you to continue spending money with them.

Finally I would like to conclude that I am sure using Anytrack also has some perks but it also has a lot of hefty disadvantages! Like that you miss out on a lot of cool features to optimize your campaigns like a/b testing, rotation and conditional rules!
I hope I could clarify one or two things and that @leadsmarketing choses the tracker that works best for his needs! If you have any more questions please let me know

Christina

@Voluum - I am always happy to help. Tracking is our tradecraft, and accuracy whether in or out of our docs, is key to delivering a valuable service.

Since the "redirecless tracking method article" was removed from documentation (here is the voluum redirectless tracking public archive in case you are curious), I took your invitation for professional dialogue to make sure I was accurate in my analysis.
After all, we are all here for good and professional conversations, and it's only healthy to bring up issues that are disrupting our industry.

Regarding your documentation, I must confess that it is a great resource that we often refer people to in order to compare some features.

For example, when someone using Voluum "Direct Method" (formerly known as "redirectless") asks us how he would set up a campaign with anytrack, we walk them through your setup flow to outline each feature, its benefits and flaws.

Note: From day one, AnyTrack has adopted a "less is more" approach, which is illustrated in the comparison below.

If you are currently running on FB ads and tracking with Voluum, PM me - and i'll tell you a secret.

👉Feel free to check the comparison below and add some comments, questions.👇

Originally Posted by laurentjm

Regarding your documentation, I must confess that it is a great resource that we often refer people to in order to compare some features.

Originally Posted by Voluum

Thank you for that, you’re not the first tracker to praise our documentation 

Looks like you carefully checked how many steps we have in each doc, clever!
You adopted more of a 'less is more' approach in your documentation, right?

I invite every Voluum user to check how accurate your 'comparison' is 

Christina

@laurentjm I can't access Attachment 25370 in your "setup conversion tracking" part.

Originally Posted by Voluum

I invite every Voluum user to check how accurate your 'comparison' is

Originally Posted by laurentjm

With Voluum: At an average 15 seconds for each step, it takes you more than 16.5 minutes to create a campaign with a single affiliate network, single offer, single landing page, single ad network, single conversion goal.

Thanks @jeremie for the review and your comments.

{
  "adv_sub": "{adv_sub}",
  "advertiser_id": "{advertiser_id}",
  "advertiser_ref": "{advertiser_ref}",
  "aff_click_id": "{aff_click_id}",
  "aff_sub": "{aff_sub}",
  "aff_sub2": "{aff_sub2}",
  "aff_sub3": "{aff_sub3}",
  "aff_sub4": "{aff_sub4}",
  "aff_sub5": "{aff_sub5}",
  "aff_unique1": "{aff_unique1}",
  "aff_unique2": "{aff_unique2}",
  "aff_unique3": "{aff_unique3}",
  "aff_unique4": "{aff_unique4}",
  "aff_unique5": "{aff_unique5}",
  "affiliate_id": "{affiliate_id}",
  "affiliate_name": "{affiliate_name}",
  "affiliate_ref": "{affiliate_ref}",
  "currency": "{currency}",
  "datetime": "{datetime}",
  "device_id": "{device_id}",
  "file_name": "{file_name}",
  "goal_id": "{goal_id}",
  "ip": "{ip}",
  "offer_file_id": "{offer_file_id}",
  "offer_id": "{offer_id}",
  "offer_name": "{offer_name}",
  "offer_ref": "{offer_ref}",
  "offer_url_id": "{offer_url_id}",
  "payout": "{payout}",
  "sale_amount": "{sale_amount}",
  "session_ip": "{session_ip}",
  "source": "{source}",
  "transaction_id": "{transaction_id}"
}

1. In voluum you have to configure each offer and when you get a conversion from an outclick to this offer, you will "know" that this offer converted.
2. In AnyTrack you don't need to configure the offer, since you'll get the offer name at the time of the conversion.

1. In Voluum, you get the Conversion event, the payout, and the transaction ID. Yet, when promoting offers from Walmart, aliexpress or any other program that sells more than one offer, you might get people leaving your site to buy a "laptop", but end up buying a "vacuum cleaner".
   
   1. 👉 You can then refer to "voluum AI" which will automate your ads based on "laptops" while in fact you'd get better ad performances if you were optimizing based on the actual purchased items.
   2. 👉 And i am not even drilling down to the "cart" level which might include 10 items, including the laptop, vacuum cleaner, and some real books about Artificial Intelligence 😂
   
   
2. In AnyTrack you get the offer name, goal type, references, custom ids, and everything in between.
   
   1. This data is then forwarded to your traffic sources / APIs which supports item / category / products
   2. you get better reporting insights - within AnyTrack
   3. And you get Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce, which gives you extensive reporting cohorted with audiences, demographics, products etc...
   4. And you get granular audience segmentation in Facebook, which can be used for TOF, MOF, BOF optimization, lookalikes etc...

1. In Voluum - You pay More and get
   
   • Less AI automation
   • Less Data insights
   • Less optimization data points
   
   
2. In AnyTrack - You pay Less and get
   
   • More data
   • More automation
   • More audience data.

Originally Posted by iwanttofly

I will admit, sometimes I find the documentation a bit hard to follow. But I do love how detailed and step by step it is.

"Figure it out" isn't exactly what I want from a vendor.

Originally Posted by jeremie

There might be some benefits that Voluum offers which are not mentioned. And Voluum is probably more optimized to their core market, which is affiliate direct funnels.

Hi @laurentjm! Thank you for all your insights - it's always great to see an informative and amicable discussion between representatives from different trackers!

Something you said caught my eye: You mentioned Anytrack can track audience segmentation - does this include gender and age range? If so, will the affiliate be required to target one age+gender per adset for example, in order to track correctly? I don't suppose it would work if I targeted multiple age ranges and both genders and want to see a breakdown?

TIA!


Amy


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@vortex -

1. Facebook holds the first party data (user information / demographics etc...).
2. Your site generates its own first party data through your pixels / anytrack and more...
3. When we send the conversion data to the FB conversion API, we send the signals that FB needs to attribute the conversion to users.
4. Then, you have your conversion associated with users / their demographics etc... and you can segment audiences accordingly.

@laurentjm. Thanks for the detailed explanation!

So just to clarify: Due to IOS14, FB has stopped displaying gender+age data for a good portion of the audience. Therefore, there's probably no way for any tool to magically get and display this data to us.

Thus, the only way I could think of to observe campaign performance by gender+age, would be to create separate adsets for each gender+age combination.

This assumption is correct?


Amy


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Also @laurentjm - if you wouldn't mind another question please: Since we're on the topic of comparing trackers and FB attribution, could you provide some insight on how Anytrack compares with RedTrack? TIA!


Amy


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums