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How do you track source of Amazon Sales?

by sosoride
18 replies
Amazon does not have any custom sub-tag that the affiliate can put in order to identify the visitor who made the purchase (for example, by IP number).

Therefore, If I have several different traffic sources into my website, and visitors click and buy a product, I have no way to tell from which visitor (and from which traffic source) the sale came from, which totally hinders my ability to optimize my efforts (e.g, focus on a particular traffic source).

How do Pro affiliates handle this problem?
#amazon #sales #source #track
  • Profile picture of the author coolmanyou2
    Use a service that converts the link to a trackable link.
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    • Profile picture of the author sosoride
      Originally Posted by coolmanyou2 View Post

      Use a service that converts the link to a trackable link.
      Can you elaborate? what do you mean by service? any concrete example?
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Try this:

    http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/topic/t10

    It won't give you exact IP numbers, but if you assign an ID to each traffic source, you can figure out which ones are working for you.

    You could have saved yourself some time by (wait for it) a 10-second Google search for "Amazon tracking id" instead of coming to the Warrior Universal Support Forum.
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    • Profile picture of the author sosoride
      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      Try this:

      http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/topic/t10

      It won't give you exact IP numbers, but if you assign an ID to each traffic source, you can figure out which ones are working for you.

      You could have saved yourself some time by (wait for it) a 10-second Google search for "Amazon tracking id" instead of coming to the Warrior Universal Support Forum.
      I'm aware of Amazon tracking ID, but it is not really related.

      Amazon tracking ID are meant for a case where I have two website, or two different landing pages. In that case I would use a different tracking Id for each page.

      But in my case, I'm talking about one, identical , landing page that contains my affiliate link, and people from different sources all end up in that same page, and from there they click on the affiliate link.

      And while you can try suggesting that I should send my traffic to different identical pages that will contain different tracking IDs, it is still not a good solution, because even within each traffic source, there are multiple segments that I can and need to analyze in order to optimize them, and it won't be possible/realistic to create "in advance" a tracking id for each of those segments.
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      • Profile picture of the author coolmanyou2
        Originally Posted by sosoride View Post

        I'm aware of Amazon tracking ID, but it is not really related.

        Amazon tracking ID are meant for a case where I have two website, or two different landing pages. In that case I would use a different tracking Id for each page.

        But in my case, I'm talking about one, identical , landing page that contains my affiliate link, and people from different sources all end up in that same page, and from there they click on the affiliate link.

        And while you can try suggesting that I should send my traffic to different identical pages that will contain different tracking IDs, it is still not a good solution, because even within each traffic source, there are multiple segments that I can and need to analyze in order to optimize them, and it won't be possible/realistic to create "in advance" a tracking id for each of those segments.
        Try using Bit.ly with your affiliate links? Bit.ly will tell you some social media information.
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        • Profile picture of the author sosoride
          Originally Posted by coolmanyou2 View Post

          Try using Bit.ly with your affiliate links? Bit.ly will tell you some social media information.
          If the funnel is this:

          Traffic Source -> My Website -> Bit.Ly -> Amazon

          How is it technically possible for Bit.ly to know anything about the traffic source? that doesn't make much sense.

          Also, I'm not sure link shortening is according with Amazon's terms, and I don't think it's the best idea to be dependent on a third party, better solve in-house anything possible.

          And social media isn't necessarily my traffic source...
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        • Profile picture of the author agmccall
          Originally Posted by coolmanyou2 View Post

          Try using Bit.ly with your affiliate links? Bit.ly will tell you some social media information.
          Did you ever read the amazon TOS, if you did you would never give advice that could cause someone to lose their associates account

          al
          Signature

          "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Thomas Edison

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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    I wasn't about to suggest multiple identical landing pages. I've used tracking IDs exactly as I suggested - one per tracking source. There's nothing that says you have to restrict them to different sites, etc.

    Maybe that information isn't granular enough for you. If not, I'm not sure what to tell you. But if you simply want to track different sources aimed at the same page, tracking IDs will work.
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    • Profile picture of the author sosoride
      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      I wasn't about to suggest multiple identical landing pages. I've used tracking IDs exactly as I suggested - one per tracking source. There's nothing that says you have to restrict them to different sites, etc.

      Maybe that information isn't granular enough for you. If not, I'm not sure what to tell you. But if you simply want to track different sources aimed at the same page, tracking IDs will work.
      I can give you an example:

      Let's say my website is "mysite.com/landing.php" and I offer 10 different products in my landing page.

      I'm paying "source-a.com" to get traffic that will be sent to that page.
      and I'm using several different ads/call out text that are displayed on "source-a.com", let's say 5 different variants.

      I do the same with "source-b.com".

      Right now when someone buy something, I can't tell if he came from A or B, and within A or B, from which ad variant out of possible 5.

      So what do you suggest? to dynamically change the tracking-id in the code according to the source? It is still not a good enough solution, as technically the traffic source variants can be endless. Also, the biggest affiliates all use the same tracking ID within their own website, so I'm still wondering how they handle this matter.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Originally Posted by sosoride View Post

        I can give you an example:

        Let's say my website is "mysite.com/landing.php" and I offer 10 different products in my landing page.

        I'm paying "source-a.com" to get traffic that will be sent to that page.
        and I'm using several different ads/call out text that are displayed on "source-a.com", let's say 5 different variants.

        I do the same with "source-b.com".

        Right now when someone buy something, I can't tell if he came from A or B, and within A or B, from which ad variant out of possible 5.

        So what do you suggest? to dynamically change the tracking-id in the code according to the source? It is still not a good enough solution, as technically the traffic source variants can be endless. Also, the biggest affiliates all use the same tracking ID within their own website, so I'm still wondering how they handle this matter.
        Got it.

        Tracking IDs by themselves won't do the trick for what you want to track. They would likely solve the 'A or B' question, but not the ad variants. Have to think about this one...

        I'm guessing that the solution is going to be some combination of tracking IDs and coding the links from each ad variant.

        You might want to ask the folks at Amazon what they suggest. You can't be the first person to have this concern. They may have ideas that they can share. You could also try shooting those affiliates you mentioned an email asking for direction in where to look for a solution. I've found that both Amazon and other marketers will at least point you in the right direction (especially if you aren't a direct competitor).

        If I think of anything else, I'll come back and post it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brent Stangel
    I'm using several different ads/call out text that are displayed on "source-a.com",
    Does "source-a.com" offer conversion tracking?
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    Get Off The Warrior Forum Now & Don't Come Back If You Want To Succeed!
    All The Real Marketers Are Gone. There's Nothing Left But Weak, Sniveling Wanna-Bees!
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    • Profile picture of the author sosoride
      Originally Posted by Brent Stangel View Post

      Does "source-a.com" offer conversion tracking?
      It might offer, but the conversion happens on Amazon's end.
      And since I don't have access to the code of the Amazon shopping cart, obviously I can't really track a conversion.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christyjohnson Johnson
    Use some of the online cloaking websites or own a website and install the pretty link plugin and track your sale.
    Signature
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    • Profile picture of the author sosoride
      Originally Posted by Christyjohnson Johnson View Post

      Use some of the online cloaking websites or own a website and install the pretty link plugin and track your sale.
      Are you posting an answer just to increase your post count?
      Obviously cloaking / pretty link has nothing to do with my question.
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    • Profile picture of the author BradVert2013
      Originally Posted by Christyjohnson Johnson View Post

      Use some of the online cloaking websites or own a website and install the pretty link plugin and track your sale.
      That sounds like a good way to get kicked out of the Amazon affiliate program.

      https://affiliate-program.amazon.com.../participation
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  • Profile picture of the author agmccall
    This might work. But check with amazon first

    https://support.google.com/analytics.../1136920?hl=en

    al
    Signature

    "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Thomas Edison

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  • Profile picture of the author kilgore
    I think the short answer is you're probably not going to be able to do what you want to do. As John mentioned, you could create a bunch of tracking IDs -- but you've already identified the problems with that approach.

    What we do is two sets of tracking.
    • First we track clicks over to Amazon by creating events and campaigns in Google Analytics. These are easy to set up and pretty flexible. Not to mention Google is already tracking a lot of the data that you're looking for.
    • We also use different Amazon tracking codes to track our actual sales.

    The end result is we have a lot of data about our users who click to Amazon and a much smaller amount of data about the actual sales. But of course, while there's certainly correlation between clicks to Amazon and sales on Amazon, we all know that not all clicks are created equal. So it's definitely an imperfect system.

    That said, in your case this sort of imperfect system might be enough. Do you have reason to believe that one ad variant is likely to have a significant difference in the ratio between clicks to Amazon to actual sales on Amazon? Or is it a reasonable assumption that once someone clicks to Amazon the ad the brought them to your site in the first place isn't going to have a significant impact on whether or not there's an actual purchase?

    If the latter, you might be fine creating your own tracking system in Google Analytics or a similar system. If the former... well, given Amazon's limitations you might just be stuck doing that anyway, keeping in mind that your data is imperfect.

    Perhaps not the answer you were looking for, but I think that might be as good as it gets.

    That said, I think John's suggestion of calling Amazon is a good one. They're usually really hepful and they may have more capabilities available for those who ask. For instance, when we wanted to do something that was contrary to the standard operating agreement, we asked for an exception, gave them a business case and within a few days their legal team sent us an addendum to the operating agreement with the exception we wanted carved out. I'm not saying they will or won't be able to do something like that for you -- but it can't hurt to ask!
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Originally Posted by sosoride View Post

    Are you posting an answer just to increase your post count?
    Obviously cloaking / pretty link has nothing to do with my question.
    You catch on quick.

    In this case, I believe it's both post count and sig exposure. "Christy" has been posting 'is it real' threads all over.
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