Tracking clicks

[TheShortStack]

I was reading through Jess' post about traffic swings, and the question of tracking clicks came up.

This is something I've been thinking I really should improve for a while now. When I first started, I had a PHP script which simply sent me an email whenever a click was generated (just to give me some idea what was going on), but it doesn't really help analyse the traffic or how popular each room is.

I'm just curious as to whether other affiliates track clicks and if so, how do you do it? Do you just store a number in a database or do you record other information such as time/date of click as well?

Thanks for the help

[TheDonk]

After I wrote that I realized I did having click tracking. It's in the redirection plugin for wp. Don't know if you're using WP and redirection or not, but thought I'd mention it in case anyone does and doesn't realize the plugin tracks clicks.

[cprpoker]

I track clicks with Google Analytics. The Ultimate GA wordpress plugin will do click tracking for links you have in WP posts and pages. It will not do it for coded links (banners, text links, etc) that are hard coded into the themes header, sidebar, etc.

Here is how to code the link for Google Analytics to track:

<a href="http://somepokerroom.com" onclick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/go/somepokerroom');">

Then in Google Analytics you setup a goal:

/go/(.*)$

....as regular expression match goal and be sure to activate it.

[Marcelo]

Google Analytics only accept four goals, right? How do you guys track all clicks?

[cprpoker]

Google Analytics only accept four goals, right? How do you guys track all clicks?

For me, I have two goals setup (currently)

/go/(.*)$
/download/(.*)$

Since they are setup as regular expression goals they will track anything that starts with /go or /download.

/go/pokerstars
/go/fulltilt
/go/cake
/go/carbonpoker
/go/titanpoker
/go/absolute

etc, etc,

They will all track against the the 1 goal but if you look at the "Goal Verification" report it will break it down for you into the individual clicks. More manual then I would like but it's a way to get past the 4 goal limit.

[corpfan1]

add free stats is ok too - you can use the INVISIBLE BUTTON feature...

then you can bookmark your login page and check all your traffic info - they have some ties to google analytics in their results as well

[Giorgio]

For me, I have two goals setup (currently)

/go/(.*)$
/download/(.*)$

Since they are setup as regular expression goals they will track anything that starts with /go or /download.

/go/pokerstars
/go/fulltilt
/go/cake
/go/carbonpoker
/go/titanpoker
/go/absolute

etc, etc,

They will all track against the the 1 goal but if you look at the "Goal Verification" report it will break it down for you into the individual clicks. More manual then I would like but it's a way to get past the 4 goal limit.

This is VERY valuable information for me. Thanks a lot guys!

[casinoyaya]

You mean to tell me that will work? I will try this....

[Randy Ray]

Tracking clickthrough ratio is a critical task. If Banner A has a clickthrough ratio of 1%, and Banner B has a clickthrough ratio of 2%, you'll make twice as much money using Banner B.

But you won't know that if you don't split test and measure the clickthrough rates.