Track Media Buys and Split Test a Landing Page with WP Affiliate Software

Aside from having an army of affiliates promoting my products, I also use the WP Affiliate Software plugin to track media buys and other advertising.

In this article I will explain exactly how things are setup for tracking, but I also want to explain how I split test a landing page using the same software.

How Does the Tracking Process Work?

First, let me explain how I use the software for tracking. There’s nothing really sophisticated here, as you will see.

The first thing I do is rent some advertising space on a site. I may go direct or use BuyAds (or in some case BuySellAds) to find places to advertise to save some time and headache.

When I decide on a web site to advertise on, say… Rense.com then I will create an “affiliate,” probably more appropriately called a “tracker” using the WP Affiliate plugin.

So, in this case I will create an affiliate called “__Rense” and I use the underscores to keep them distinct from the normal affiliate accounts. Plus I can do a search for just affiliates with underscores in their IDs when I want to see sales at a glance.

Now that’s it. That’s the basics. Now I know that anytime __Rense “makes a sale” so to speak, that my advertising on Rense.com converted.

But, that’s not really good enough for me. I like to split test to see which ads are working. And I like to split test dozens of ads in some cases. It’s not really feasible to create dozens of affiliate accounts for Rense advertising. I mean, it can be done, but I’d rather just pass in another value on the URL to track the ad used and stick to just one affiliate account (or two when split testing landing pages, as you will see later on).

How Does Sub ID Tracking Work when Using WP Affiliate Software for Tracking Media Buys?

A lot of times this is called Sub ID tracking, custom field tracking, or even campaign tracking. Regardless of what it is called, it’s simple enough to setup with this software.

We just need to “turn it on.”

When activated, we can add another value to the querystring of our tracking links.

So, where you might normally have ?ap_id=__Rense at the end of the tracking link, we can also add &c_id=XXXX

We just replace XXXX with the name of the ad and we can see which ad converted.

So, our new link would end in: ?ap_id=__Rense&c_id=banner1 for example.

Alright, let’s activate it.

1. Go to WP Affiliate >> Settings.
2. Look for Enable Custom Field Tracking: and turn it on.
3. Scroll to the bottom and click the Update Options button.

That’s really it. More info can be found here. Now your affiliates can use this feature and see it in their reports, and you can use it for tracking and see the value on the “WP Affiliate Platform – Sales Data” page (WP Affiliate >> Sales/Comm Data). Look for Custom Value now present in the table header.

Now, I still wasn’t satisfied with this level of split testing. In early campaigns I also need to split test landing pages. I do simple A/B tests to see which page converts the best. With WP Affiliate Software, an extra tracking affiliate account, and a simple randomizer script, I can make this happen very easily.

It’s simpler than it probably sounds.

How to Split Test Landing Pages Using WP Affiliate Software

Alright, I will be the first to admit that this approach has it’s flaws. For one, we have to look in different areas to see number of views vs. conversions etc. But I’m comfortable with that.

I’m just going to use blind faith that my randomizer script is doing things at about 50/50 and I’m rolling with it. I’m just happy to be able to split test landing pages, and I’m happy I can see which convert. If you’re good with that too, read on to see how I did it. However, if there is a better way, please share in the comments.

The first step is to create an affiliate/tracking account for both landing pages.

So, carrying on with the Rense.com advertising example, let’s create 2 affiliate accounts:

__RenseLP1 and __RenseLP2

And, as you might have guessed, if __RenseLP1 “makes a sale” we know that landing page one converted, and so on.

Now, we need to create a quick randomizing script. Use the code below and add it to a .php file and upload it to the root of your site (or wherever, some people like decisions made for them so it becomes habit). This script will be specific to the site that you are advertising on so name it appropriately, perhaps rense.php.

<?php
$cf = $_GET['c_id'];
$lp = mt_rand(1, 2);
//$lp = mt_rand(mt_rand(1, 2),1 ); //favors LP1
//$lp = 2; //forces LP2
if ($lp == 1) {
$redirecturl = 'http://domain.com/landing-page-one/?ap_id=__RenseLP1&c_id='.$cf;
} else {
$redirecturl = 'http://domain.com/landing-page-two/?ap_id=__RenseLP2&c_id='.$cf;
}
header('location: '.$redirecturl);
?>

All that you will need to change in the above code is the URLs for the landing pages, and the tracking IDs for each landing page.

I left some commented code in place in the event you want to weigh heavier for one landing page over the other, or force one to be used.

Now, when sending traffic from, in this case Rense, I would just need to direct traffic to:

http://domain.com/rense.php?&c_id=banner1

The redirect URLs in the script will have the proper query string values to set the cookies that WP eStore will look at to determine the “affiliate” who made the sale (i.e. what traffic source/landing page converted), and what advertisement was used.

There you have it, a simple way to use the very flexible WP Affiliate to track advertising and split test banners and landing pages simultaneously.