Affiliate tracking and Yahoo hosting

[jeffgreen999]

I recently built a small website using Yahoo's Site Builder program and have it hosted with Yahoo web hosting. Everything has run smoothly until now. I signed up about 10 affiliates who are split into three affiliate tracking companies (Linkshare.com, Performics.com and Commission Junction. I currently have two banners on one of the pages of my website (http://www.onestoppup.com/links.html). One banner is with Linkshare.com and the other with Performics.com. Both banners link perfectly fine but when I run a report with linkshare or performics they show no click-throughs or impressions even though I've clicked and tested multiple times within 2 days.

I am awaiting response from each company for assistance but I wanted to see if anyone has had the same problem when using Yahoo Site Builder, having their website hosted by Yahoo or using any of the above affiliate programs.

Also, if anyone has experience with using affiliate banners... when you create an account do you have to specify each page that will have a banner? Or do they normally just track the links by the domain the link was clicked on?

Thank you very much for any assistance/insight you can provide!


Jeff Green

[David Wallace]

Haven't used these affiliate programs in a few years but I would assume that they would be able to track your own IP address as a way to detect if site owners are clicking on their own banners and possibly not give credit to those.

It could also be that reporting is not current meaning that you are seeing the most current data they might have. I would think at one point you should start seeing some impression counts but if you are getting paid for click thrus and you are the one doing them, they may have technology nowadays that can detect that.

[jeffgreen999]

I was thinking the same about not tracking click throughs/impressions from my IP but I tried at work today and still no update... they also have a report that pulls "todays activity" so I would hope I could see click-throughs I did at work today from another IP... I'm so confused. Shouldn't be this difficult. I think I may have figured out the problem though... or an answer. Each affiliate within the affiliate tracking site has banners that can be hosted on their own servers or Linkshare's servers... I noticed for my Petco and 800-Petmeds links they say "hosted by merchant" for the image link... gonna try and get ahold of Petco and petmeds directly to see if they know if this causes Linkshare not to be able to track images/click-throughs.

If this is true it sure would be nice to have that info in their help section... I've read through it extensively and it does not mention anything about why reports would not be showing click-throughs/impressions...

Thanks for the reply!

Any other ideas?

[Marcia]

The tracking isn't real-time, there's a delay. You don't have to specify each page, that would be impossible.

Sure, your own clicks have to be recorded, else how could you make test purchases to make sure the orders track and you're getting paid commission on sales? How is your browser set up for accepting cookies?

[jeffgreen999]

My browser (on my home and work computers) in Internet Explorer is set to IE's default security and cookie settings. I've also tried with FireFox's web browser with their default security cookie settings as well.

I called Yahoo small business web hosting support today. I wanted to find out if there was any known issues with the 3 affiliate programs I listed in my first posting. They said the links look good, the HTML code looks good because it has all the tag information to pass to the affiliate's tracker software, it links correctly, etc... They said there is nothing blocking the tracking/reports on their end and nothing I need to change/upgrade to either. I belive them, I want to belive them, I'm just confused why all 3 companies have a specific report for "today's activity" including click-throughs and impressions if they do not track it real-time...

I think it's just something I need to get one of the affiliate companies on the phone for resolution. Any further help is more than appreciated but I understand it may be difficult to troubleshoot because there are a lot of different variables (affiliate companies, merchant hosted images, yahoo web hosting, yahoo site builder for HTML code, etc...) but a reward of my sincere thanks is up for grabs!

I will have to wait to call one of the affiliate companies on Friday during business hours for troubleshooting... but I will make sure to post the resolution for others to view when I find it.


Jeff Green

[Marcia]

No, the links are done through the aff network tracking and the images are served from their server. It's got nothing to do with the hosting as long as the links are properly done, so there really isn't a problem with variables. If you put the code on the pages exactly how the network generated them, then there's no problem.

Just because it "says" it's today's figures - it isn't so. For example, for the first few days of any month, you'll see nothing in the stats for the current month - zero, zip, nothing. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong, that's just how it works.

Check your cookies - see what's on your machine.

[5starAffiliatePrograms]

Hi all,

I just got back from WebMasterWorld. Thanks to David and Marcia for jumping into this thread while I was gone.

Jeff,

Marcia is right many times there are tracking delays and it varies by network. I'm most familiar with CJ and tracking typically can be 2 to 12 hours delayed depending on how busy the network is and how well the servers are keeping up. Linkshare I don't work with, but I think they used to do batch reporting once a day so reports would always be delayed by a day. (I don't know if this is still correct.) Also some networks will only count the 1st click from the same user within a certain period of time so if you click 10 times all at once, they may only count the 1st click.

If you are not seeing any clicks from any networks registering after 24 hours then I would strongly suspect you have some type of ad blocking, anti-spyware or firewall software that is blocking or auto-deleting network affiliate cookies. It sucks, but there are lots of programs out there that do. Plus all the networks are serving 3rd party cookies, so if your default setting blocks 3rd party cookies then that could be it as well.

It's been a couple days since you posted. Hopefully by now everything is working out OK? Come back and let us know.

Linda

[jeffgreen999]

Linda,

Thank you for the reply and information. Yes, things seem to be working now... at least with Linkshare... I'll check Commission Junction later today. I guess I just blew things out of proportion but I wanted to hurry and get the site together for customers and a report saying "today's activity" not showing any activty worried me. It took 2 days for click-throughs and impressions to start showing but they finally are. I'm sure CJ is working now too... it looked so simple, just apply for the affiliate program, copy the HTML code and paste into your site... I just thought it was so simple it should have been working. They just didn't have any mention of having to wait a few days for reports to be updated... I could see a few hours, or a day... but it's working now and that's all that matters. Thank you all for your help! This is a great site/forum with very knowledgeable admins.



Thanks,

Jeff Green

[5starAffiliatePrograms]

Thanks for reporting back that everything is OK Jeff.

Happy Selling!

Linda