Home > Technical & Creative Skills > Tracking Campaigns

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Anatomy of a tracking link (7)

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Here are two of my affiliate links from two of my networks...

http://www.affiliatedomain1.com/click.track?CID=185075&AFID=205927&ADID=638291&SID=

http://www.affiliatedomain2.com/rd/r.php?sid=230&pub=401159&c1=&c2=&c3=

In prosper, under the Setup Tab->#3 Campaigns, these two links are placed in the affiliate URL box.

Under that text box, I have the option to add [[subid]], [[c1]], [[c2]], etc.

Where do I place these placeholders and what exact purpose do they serve? Are they replaced with respective data from the traffic source?...but I thought your ad is supposed to link to your lander which would be a tracking link from prosper??

If I am using Lead Impact, and I check the box that says enable keyword passthrough, how does that fit in to this?

Also, one of my ad networks says this..."The c1 variable in our link MUST contain a subid value. This value cannot be dynamic. No exceptions. Please contact your account executive with any questions regarding this."

WTF does this mean???

Getting a little frustrated. Despite what people may offer, I can't find definitive instructions on how tracking works. The 40day guide is great for general understanding of the flow, but it doesn't walk through the practicality of setting up a campaign in prosper using an affiliate link. THIS is interesting too, but there are still some holes.

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First of all, clear up your mind. not that hard to understand, different cpa platform has different tracking link

For each affliate offer url, at least 3 parameters needed to track, the offer id, the sub id and your publisher id

http://www.affiliatedomain1.com/clic...ID=638291&SID=
If not mistaken : CID will be your offer id, AFID : your affiliate id, SID : sub id
your affiliate id is the same value in every affiliate offer links you can find on your panel

[[subid]] is the place holder or token for p202 to append its unique generated value (subid) to the offer url before redirect the traffic to cpa network, therefore your offer url which specified in p202 need to be ended with somevar=[[subid]], the c1 message you get mean the cpa network accept c1 as subid, not sid parameter, not sub_id parameter or whatever

keyword passthrough mean LI will append its subid to the p202 tracking link you have just setup, I have seen lots of newbie seem to be confuse over tracking, i guess they're too eager to make money, take baby step, understand how the values pass through, you will be good.

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Different networks' tracking links vary a little bit, but all have the same principle. c1= / subid= / sid= / s1=, all that is just the placeholder for the SUB ID. some networks offer the c2 c3 c4 variables to help you with tracking, but that's only really useful if you want to pass all that info to your network, otherwise you can just use the c1 c2 c3 c4 variables in prosper to capture that data, and to do that depends on whether the source you're using allow dynamic or static variables.

what I mean by that is Dynamic variables are like keywords (lead impact keyword token) (POF's age/gender/state), something that will change and vary, static ones are ones you enter, say like traffic source, or age range on FB. Make sense?

202 hands all of that for you in terms of ad linking to lander linking to offer, and passes everything accordingly. Just follow the setup process and at the end where it says get links, that's where you add all of your Dynamic or Static Variables.


You have to take whatever code it is they give you... I forget, it is like %%KEYWORD%% .. and then put that at the end of your tracking link, t202kw=%%KEYWORD%% and it'll dynamically change.

It means you can't use the c1= variable to have anything else other than the subid. To explain a little further... if your link is:

pub=401159&c1=&c2=&c3=

and you're on plenty of fish, and want to pass through their dynamic variables like age, gender, state, you can't put those in the c1= variable, but CAN put them in the c2= variable. so your link would look like:

pub=401159&c1=&c2=AGE_VARIABLE_CODE&c3=GENDER_VARI ABLE_CODE

but you have to leave the c1= blank because that's where your SUBID goes. Some networks I've had to put the [[subid]] option in prosper campaign set up in the place of the subid variable (at the end of the link or in the c1= spot), but you don't always have to.

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I have a campaign running right now but I don't think it is tracking anything. I don't show any stats in prosper but when I go to the aff network, I am seeing clicks...something is not setup right.

I'm gonna take it from the top and see if I have this right. To setup a campaign in prosper;

1) I go to the aff network and get my tracking link ie: http://www.affiliatedomain1.com/clic...ID=638291&SID= OR
http://www.affiliatedomain2.com/rd/r...59&c1=&c2=&c3=

2) In prosper, after I setup #1 Traffic Sources and #2 Categories under the SETUP tab, in #3 Campaigns, I put in the above affiliate link under the affiliate URL.

3) I immediately append [[subid]] in the above links so they look like this: http://www.affiliatedomain1.com/clic...ID=638291&SID=[[subid]] OR http://www.affiliatedomain2.com/rd/r...pub=401159&c1=[[subid]]&c2=&c3=


Is this right so far?

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So the only reason I may want to put %%KEYWORD%% at the end of http://www.affiliatedomain1.com/clic...ID=638291&SID= is if I want the keywords to be pulled by Lead Impact so I can view THEIR reports as opposed to Prospers?

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Yes, the converting keyword will be shown in the cpa network report, this way LI --> CPA network, you should actually LI --> tracker --> CPA network for direct linking, tracker helps you to identify your converting keyword and encrypt your subid, it is good to protect your shit, don't run naked

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if your url is not passing value for any parameter after the first parameter, you can just drop the &c2=&c3=, so it become http://www.affiliatedomain2.com/rd/r...pub=401159&c1=[[subid]]

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