Conversion tracking

what software's are there that can help me

[bigfoot]

Hello. I want to track the conversion to sales on my website. Can anyone suggest a relatively cheap software or service that can help me with this? Software that is compatible with JSP. Thank you.

[Dante_Maure]

AdTrackZ
ClickAlyzer
ProAnalyzer
ProLinkZ
AdMinder
HyperTracker

[bigfoot]

Thank you! : )

Which one would you recommend?

[Dante_Maure]

It really depends on your site and functionality needs.

Keep in mind that AdTrackZ and ProAnalyzer are scripts, while the others are third party hosted solutions.

Personally I prefer a one time installation as opposed to monthly subscription services, but others prefer the point and click simplicity of not hosting their own solutions.

I'd suggest checking them out, narrowing it down to the few that look appropriate to your situation and then emailing any questions you have to each provider.

For me, customer support and responsiveness is a major factor when I'm weighing options.

[bcc1234]

If you are not afraid to do some patching, I can send you a few classes that you can use to track your stuff.
I use PostgreSQL to log the info, but you can use anything you want. The application logic is really just a simple servlet class.

[Agnew73]

bcc1234,
Is there a chance you could send me those classes? I'm having my part-time programmer working on a reporting solution for me with Analog and Report Magic, and I'd like it if he could incorporate as much conversion tracking as possible. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

[bcc1234]

Here are some of the related classes
[svc.idftech.com...]

[Agnew73]

Thanks very much! These should be helpful

[rogerd]

Bigfoot's original question was regarding conversion tracking, which some of the listed software may not do. To refine this a bit, let me throw out some additional conditions:

1) The tracking script or service must include a way to capture the event and amount of a sale for evaluating conversion and ROI.

2) Ideally, the script or service should be able to handle visitors arriving without a special URL, i.e., it would be interesting to compare the peformance of Google searchers to MSN searchers, or those arriving from links on other sites. These "free" searchers would arrive on the site at the home page or standard content page - no tracking page or tracking query string would be possible.

3) Working on either Windows or UNIX servers would be a plus.

[bcc1234]

That's pretty much what I do.
I don't calculate ROI per search engine, but rather just number of sales.

[spagmoid]

I don't see why you need a big package or class library. Whenever someone takes an action, log it in a database. Then just do some simple queries to see your percentages etc. It's probably quicker and easier to set up than that other stuff.

I have a page on my site that gathers all the stats I care about based on recent data. The only downside is it doesn't track trends, but that could be added with a little more work. Of course I'm not bothering with pretty graphs..

[bcc1234]

The way I have it is once a visitor places an order - he gets to the /order_ok.jsp page.
So I get all visitor numbers that had order_ok.jsp request in them. After that I get a list of referers for first pageviews of those visitors. That gives me a list of the "best" referrals (se keywords, linked sites, etc...).
After that, I check how many sessions each visitor had and how much time each session took.

Sometimes, I go through all pageviews of a visitor (if I'm really interested about a particular case).

Also, no graphs. Just a bunch of sql queries from a shell script with the output to a text file.

It proves to be most flexible, since I cat get stats with respect to any combination of parameters.

The most complicated one is visitor pattern stats.
The tracking and analysis itself is simple, but I could not find an easy way to display it.

[sun818]

I had a programmer write me a cookie that captured the referral URL and passed this as a hidden field into a shopping cart program. This way I know how the buyer found my site. This also helps me see which keyword searches are most effective and which pay-per-click services have the best ROI.

[rogerd]

It seems like capturing either the referrer or the coded entry point at the outset and storing that for the rest of the session is fairly essential. Of course, I suppose knowing the original referrer on a repeat visit would be useful, too. Could get kind of complex... but I imagine there are some tools to do most of the work.

[bcc1234]

Of course, I suppose knowing the original referrer on a repeat visit would be useful, too.

Oh yeah, especially if you are in a competitive field and want to see how a price change affects your sales on a case-per-case basis.

[CromeYellow]

Hey sun818

So that means that if a visitor buys from you at a future date, you still get to know their original referral string, or does it get overwritten when they return?

If the first case is true, sticky me if you fancy selling me the code :)

Cy

[sun818]

The programmer explained it to me that I can adjust the "number of seconds" that cookie is "alive" for. So long as the cookie is alive it will store the original referral URL. If they visit again within seven days the referral URL doesn't change. I set mine to stay alive for seven days because I thought some buyers might think about it before they decide to buy from you.