Tracking sales to referrals

when visitor session is broken

[fom2001uk]

One of our clients has an e-commerce site which uses a third party service to take payments. The problem is that the visitor exits the site to go through this system, before re-entering the client site. The connection (visit/session) is therefore broken at that point, and so we can't tie the referrer to the sale.

Is there a way around this without having to invest in different software (we use webtrends log analyzer) or involving massive amounts of programming?

[moneymancn]

Disclaimer Not technical advice
We have a shopping cart and use P**systems as the third party processor.
I know that we have managed very succesfully to track the referer to the sale by using HyperTr***er (hosted tracking)
If you want more techie details ,sticky me and i will pass it to our CTO

MM

[roitracker]

Is there a way around this without having to invest in different software or
involving massive amounts of programming?

Yes - cookies are the answer.

[dataKris]

fom,

I am not too familiar with webtrends.. but, if they use a javascript based data collection mechanism (like most people) and if your third-party processor lets you put in HTML headers, you should be able to collect all the data in the same place and continue to use the same software. If this doesn't make sense, sticky me and I'd be happy to take a look at things for you.

roi,

I guess I am not up to date.. but, isn't thir-party cookie access a problem. I could be wrong. do let me know..

[pete_m]

fom2001uk: Are you sure that the session is abandoned when the visitor is redirected off-site?

As long as you are using a session cookie (i.e. not passing the session ID in the URL), the session info should persist for 30 mins (or whatever), or until all browser windows are closed.

It shouldn't matter if the browser leaves your site, as long as it returns before the session expires.

[roitracker]

dataKris, you just need to put a conversion tracking tag on the sale confirmation page (if access available), or on the re-entry page of the original site and cookies will work fine.