Tracking Advertising

[UCC]

Can anyone tell me how I might be able to capture where New users found out about the site? Specifically, let's say they click on a banner which takes them to my site. What kind of tool, code, would I use to capture their source and throw it into a table? My server tracks such data but I really want to track on a user-specific manner so I can track revenue and players who actually stick around. Thanks

[seanybob]

Re: Tracking Advertising

 

Can anyone tell me how I might be able to capture where New users found out about the site? Specifically, let's say they click on a banner which takes them to my site. What kind of tool, code, would I use to capture their source and throw it into a table? My server tracks such data but I really want to track on a user-specific manner so I can track revenue and players who actually stick around. Thanks

isnt there a get referring url function in php?

I can look it up later if someone hasn't posted it by then

[Cronus]

Re: Tracking Advertising

On sign=up, just create a new field where users choose where they heard about the game. Make it a drop down box so they have to choose something.

[seanybob]

Re: Tracking Advertising

<?

$ref = getenv("HTTP_REFERER");

?>

add that to your login.php page... or register.php... or whatever. It will show the page that directed the user to your page

[Decepti0n]

Re: Tracking Advertising

AWstats shows it, and using http_referer isn't always accurate since it can be faked :\, but its the only thing you have to go on other than asking people

[seanybob]

Re: Tracking Advertising

deception, anything can be faked nowadays...

:D

but honestly, I think most users aren't gonna try and fake an http_referer... why would they care? lollll

[mdshare]

Re: Tracking Advertising

IP spoofing.....

[UCC]

Re: Tracking Advertising

I didnt think Awstats showed user-specific data, just broad counts. It did verify my advertiser's claim though. Now I'm trying to track revenue from said clicks as time progresses.

I'll try $ref = getenv("HTTP_REFERER"); I'm not at all concerned with people trying to fake at this time.

Thanks everyone for your posts and thoughts

 

Edit: This is working perfectly. I can now track not only where my clicks come from, but which sites result in the most new accounts, and the most donator accounts.

[mdshare]

Re: Tracking Advertising

nice job

[UCC]

Re: Tracking Advertising

I wanted to post an update to this thread now that I'm done working on this. When I posted my last edit, I was just tracking the info, not using it well. Maybe this will give some of you a good idea, who knows.

So as I mentioned before, I started capturing the REFERER information. This is captured in a session variable at login.php and then register.php writes the data to a simple table containing userid and referer info. I then created a staff log that utilizes this information and crunches numbers for me.

My report creates a table with the following fields filled out.

Referer Link

Count of users arriving through link

Direct donations from these users

Total donations (Includes direct donations + any of their own referal donations i.e. friends)

How many of these people have a laston time > signup time + 30. i.e. At least tried the game

How many of these people have been Active within the past 24 hours.

This report will allow me to track in detail, the performance of my paid and unpaid advertising.

And yes, I realize that non-donating players are also important for the health and success of a game.

[vinyl]

Re: Tracking Advertising

sounds great, you have a useful game tool there.