Custom Parameters For Affiliates:
How to use custom parameters for tracking:
You can add custom parameters to the checkout link to track your traffic and sales. This additional information allows you to have better visibility in your reporting. You can track the traffic sources, websites, and campaigns where your sales originated. This information can be very useful in monitoring the performance of different campaigns and/or traffic sources.
There are two ways to add these parameters:
1. Manually added to the URL.
If you decide to add your tracking manually, simply add your parameters and values in the URL (link) as per the table below:
Parameter | Description | How to use it? |
Custom Key1 | Affiliate custom value 1. You can define any value as key1. This value will appear in the reporting. |
Add to your url: &key1=value e.g: &key1=google |
Custom Key2 | Affiliate custom value 2. You can define any value as key2. This value will appear in the reporting. |
Add to your url: &key2=value
e.g: &key2=premium_package |
Keyword | Keyword is another custom value. This value will appear in reporting. You also have the ability to dynamically pass a search term from the search engines. |
Add to your url: &keyb=value
e.g: &keyb=support |
Campaign | Campaign name. You can define any value. This value will appear in the reporting. |
Add to your url: &cmp=value
e.g: &cmp=bing |
e.g: https://cm1.upclick.com?uid=1011111&crid=9099&wid=6111&key1=google&key2=product1&cmp=adwords
2. Added from the Upclick affiliate platform
If you set up tracking from the affiliate platform before generating a link, follow the steps below:
- Select the affiliate offer you want to promote from the Affiliate Network
- Click on the “Get link” button
- Add your tracking parameters (optional)
- Generate your link
Once you are logged in your affiliate account, click on the “Marketplace” tab on the top right corner.
Then, select an affiliate offer you are interested in from the list.
On every single affiliate offer you will see a “Get Link” or “Request Approval” button. If it’s a “Get Link” button that means that offer is public and you can promote it right away. In this scenario you will reach a new page with all the affiliate offer specifications. If it’s a “Request Approval” button, you will have to wait for the merchant approval to get the permissions to promote the affiliate offer.
In Step 2, you can define your tracking parameters.
Then in step 3, when you generate your checkout link, your parameters will be added to the link and it will be listed on the Upclick reporting.
Note: this section is optional, it’s a way to give you more reporting details- it doesn’t change your sales tracking.
Once you have selected your link type (Step 1) and added your additional parameters (optional), you can generate your affiliate checkout link. This link contains all your parameters to ensure that the sale is credited to you. The affiliate checkout link contains a unique “UID” number. This “UID” is your affiliate account identifier. The “WID” that you can see on the link is the merchant affiliate offer ID. With these parameters the merchant can see who has made a sale and your payout will automatically be credited in your affiliate account. You can also see the optional tracking parameters you have defined. These parameters will be listed in your reporting.
In this example above, we have defined the campaign, keyword, custom key1 and key2 values. You will notice that the link has all the parameters:
- cmp=google
- keyb=tech_support
- key1=ppc
- key2=canada