Forum Moderators: DixonJones
I'm looking for something ready-made that will...
- track clicks on custom links (per day)
- count sales (using code on the thanks page)
- correlate sales with campaigns, listings etc and calculate ROI and conversion rate for me
- have the option of split-run testing via its custom links
- represent results as straightforwardly as possible!
- install on my own server so I don't have fat monthly fees to pay
There is one technical complication: I use Worldpay for sales, and the thanks page is on their secure server. So I need to add tracking code to this that references the script on my site via https:// (to avoid browser alerts about insecure content). (My site's accessible via http:// or https:// - same files on the server, two addresses.) The script would have to be able to log this as well as ordinary calls from within my site. I've already found one counter that can't do this!
Thank you for reading through this seriously long wishlist! So far lightningtrack seems to be my best (and cheapest) option. Any comments or other suggestions?
Thank you very much for any help!
Why do you say, that cgi is not accessible from https? It should be. I have a rather large experience with running a ROI tracker on different servers, including running it from a secure connection and there were no problems with cgi and https.
The potential problem, though - actual problem with a simple counter script I tried - was that the secure connection is a shared certificate, so it's accessed from the web server address rather than my domain name. Still the same files on the server, but the address differs in its domain name as well. Hence the script is called (from the secure thanks page) via a different domain from its usual, and it seems likely that this is what stopped it registering the call. At a guess.
Since you have experience with these things, I'm really hoping you can help here!
Does the two-different-domains-for-same-script situation sound to you like the cause of problems?
Would you expect the same problem with php, if so?
And if things don't work with the shared certificate, would getting my own certificate, so I could call the script at [mydomain...] etc make a difference? I'd still need to call it for other pages from [mydomain,...] of course. (Since this is all I really need the certificate for, I don't want to fork out if it wouldn't help.)
Which trackers do you have experience with - any comments on them?
"Does the two-different-domains-for-same-script situation sound to you like the cause of problems?".
You are right, this is the cause of your problem. This is just like cookies work (and i assume that your tracker uses cookies to track clicks and sales). You can only read a cookie from the same domain that originally assigned a cookie. This is a security measure.
But, usually this is not a problem at all. Just call your tracker from the ssl-protected site both when tracking a click and tracking a sale. This way, the tracker will be called from the same domain and it should successfully track clicks/sales.
https:// and http:// doesn't make a difference for the cookies, as long as the domain name is the same. So, if you will get your own certificate, you will be able to call the tracker from http:// to track a click and then from https:// to track a sale and everything should work.
Sergey
[edited by: sugarkane at 12:07 pm (utc) on Feb. 5, 2003]
