Single Pixel Tracking w. outside service

How difficult to implement?

[suzanne]

Hi,

I am new -- I hope this is the right forum to post this question in. I am working on with a SEO firm that has recommended we implement a single pixel tracking functionality on our site to assist in determining the ROI of our campaigns.

On it's face -- this idea sounds worthwhile, and the costs are pretty reasonable. However, we have been told it takes just 10 minutes to implement. Can it really be this easy? (I'm afraid my technical ignorance must be showing here..) How do they determine the # of sales and the dollar amount on each sale? My assumption is that there would be *some* amount of programming involved on our end to create the hooks to provide this info, but I don't know. Is there anyone that can shed some light?

Also -- would single pixel create any browser security issues? (It's not anything like a third party cookie, right????)

Any additional info/recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

[toadhall]

Don't have any info on implementing it but here's another perspective [privacyfoundation.org].

[seth_wilde]

Sounds like they're using a system similar to an affiliate tracking program. They are pretty simply to install... Generally they just have to add the pixel and a line of code to your "response" and "confirmation" pages.

[cyril kearney]

A one-pixel gif (image) file is called and it generally return a transparent pixel. So it is as easy as loading any picture on your site.

Many vendors have a script that you run to include the paraments that you need for tracking. The output of this script is cut and pasted into your page.

It is really very, very simple and then ten minutes a page might even be a less.

The beauty of the one-pixel approach is that it does not rely on Javascript or cookie, each of which might be turned off on some pages.

This technique has been around for almost 10 years.

[Filipe]

This is probably more a scripting-forum issue, but since it pertains to this thread:

When you make the script that's called by the image, how do you return an image?

[cyril kearney]

In HTML there is not need to call a real image you can call a filename with any extention. Here's an example:

<img src="http://www.somedomain.org/mycounter.asp?u=100002&p=home" height=1 width=1 border=0>

In ASP the script mycounter.asp will record the data and return a 1x1 gif by using a response redirect command.

Response.Redirect "1x1.gif"

will cause a gif file call 1x1.gif to be returned

(edited by: DaveAtIFG at 12:18 am (utc) on May 7, 2002)