Re: Tracking Users -- From Point of Entry to Ordering
JAKE KLAMKA <majon_at_majon.com> WROTE
> Most website traffic tracking software allows
> me to keep track of the number of visitors coming
> in from a specific marketing source. However,
> when I receive orders I have no way of knowing
> from which marketing source the particular order
> originated. What I need is a way to add a special
> code to the URL that represents a certain form of
> marketing and then having that code passed through
> all the movements of the client on my website, all
> the way to the order form and then have that code
> included in the order information that is submitted
> to me (I use "formmail" to submit the form contents
> to my email address -- I assume this would have to
> be passed through as a hidden field). This way I
> will not only know how many visitors came into my
> site as a result of marketing effort A, but also how
> many orders I received from the visitors coming in
> specifically from marketing effort A.
Jake, you can accomplish that pretty easily using SSI
(free and no additional scripts / software needed).
Tell your marketing source to link to your site in the
following format: http://www.sitename.com/?marketingsource
Then, edit all the anchor tags in your HTML code and
attach the following after .shtml (or whatever extension
is applicable to your site): ?<!--#echo
var="QUERY_STRING" -->
It should look similar to this <a href="/filename.shtml?<!--#echo
var="QUERY_STRING" -->">link</a>
If you don't attach the query string to all the anchor
tags you won't be able to follow their trail and capture
the referrer, so it's important that you do that.
Finally, on your order form just add this hidden field:
<input type="hidden" value="<!--#echo var="QUERY_STRING" -->"
name="referrer">
<!--#echo var="QUERY_STRING" --> will be replaced with
whatever you had after the question mark (?).
Regards,
Clayon
Received on Fri Mar 30 2001 - 13:25:42 CST
