Step 0: Introduction

Step 1: Setting passwords

Step 2: Choosing pages
to be tracked and analyzed

Step 3: Giving names to pages
and setting content groups

Step 4: Tracking eCommerce
activity and revenues

Step 5: Excluding your visits
from statistics

Step 6: Custom tracking

Step 7: Finishing Wizard and
uploading Web pages

Step 8: Advanced Settings


Home > HitLens Activation > Step 6

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Step 6: Custom tracking

(1) Tracking Downloadable Files
(2) Tracking Ad Campaigns
(3) Tracking Dynamic Web pages

From time to time or even constantly you run advertising campaigns to get prospects to your site. To know which campaigns work and which don't, you will need Ad campaigns tracking. Surely there are some downloadable files on your website - PDF brochures, Word documents, ZIP archives that you would like to be tracked, so downloads tracking is also an inevitable necessity.

In addition, if your website uses some server-side technologies such as PHP, ASP or JSP to serve dynamic Web pages, you may need to make some changes to the tracking code of HitLens to implement tracking for dynamic Web pages.

(1) Tracking Downloadable Files.

Downloads tracking is very easy to implement. All you have to do is to encode the link to a downloadable file with the correct download tracking code. This code with instructions is given on the Downloads tab under Custom Tracking.

Example: You want to track downloads of brochure.pdf, a PDF brochure located at http://www.yoursite.com/brochure.pdf.

Change the link to brochure.pdf to look like this:

<a href="http://track.websiteceo.com/r/123/www.yoursite.com/brochure.pdf">
Download a detailed description of our services!</a>

As you see the original URL is preceded with http://track.websiteceo.com/r/123/. This is needed to make an instant redirect and track a download. 123 is the ID of your site in Web CEO's Projects. You can copy the code for tracking downloads over HTTP, FTP and HTTPS at the Downloads tab.

(2) Tracking Ad Campaigns.

IMPORTANT: For ad campaigns tracking to work, all landing pages must have the valid HitLens tracking code. Before launching a campaign, go to the Pages tab in the HitLens Activation Wizard and ensure tracking is enabled for all landing pages.

To track and analyze ad campaigns you must:

1. Append the campaign name with the source parameter to the advertising link that takes visitors to your website

2. Set the budget for that campaign on the Campaigns tab in HitLens (Optional).

Example. You buy an advertising campaign with a $500 budget from www.somewebsite.com.

1. Give the webmaster of that site a properly encoded link to your landing page, e.g.:

<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/?source=somewebsite">
Visit this great website</a>

2. After the first click on the above link the campaign named somewebsite will appear in HitLens reports under Campaigns.

Attention: the campaign appears under the Campaigns button only after it refers the first visitor to your website!

Select the campaign somewebsite, then press Budget and enter the cost of campaign.

3. View the reports related to ad campaigns: Activity by campaign, Cost of visit by campaign, Cost of transaction by campaign and ROI.

(3) Tracking Dynamic Web pages

Why do you need to change the internal tracking code to track dynamic content pages?
With HitLens it doesn’t matter whether you use PHP, ASP or complicated content management system, your visitors will be tracked and analyzed anyway. However, you will probably need to make changes to the HitLens tracking code. The wide-spread reason for using custom tracking is URLs carrying parameters of a query to a database, they make page names in HitLens report unreadable, e.g.:

http://www.imaginaryclothes.com/product.php?id=shirt&color=grey&size=xxl&category=men+clothes

How to track dynamic content pages?
With the tools and techniques of your technological solution, you can capture and pass data to HitLens by populating certain variables in the internal tracking code placed into your dynamic content pages through templates, server side includes or any other programming techniques. It will enable you to get comprehensible page names in statistical reports.

NOTE: You will only have to make changes to the internal tracking code placed directly onto your dynamic content pages. webceo.js, the external tracking code, must reside in the root directory of your site and doesn't require any changes (you can download it from http://www.webceo.com/webceo.js and upload it to your site).

On the Dynatracking tab under Custom Tracking you will find a PHP-based example of customized tracking as a reference. Here we expose this exapmle. All of the variables in the internal script have the form: var %VARIABLENAME% = " ";

Populating variables in the internal tracking code with PHP
There are five variables you may need to populate with values to get crystal-clear, actionable traffic reports: PAGENAME, CONTENTGROUP, TRANSACTION, TRANSACTION_ID, ORDER.

<?php $wceo_pagename = "Thank you for your order"; $wceo_contentgroup = "LCD Monitors"; $wceo_transaction = "Orders"; $wceo_transaction_id = "123456789"; $wceo_order_product = "Sony SDM-S91" $wceo_order_category = "Sony Products" $wceo_order_ quantity = "1" $wceo_order_ amount = "595.95" $wceo_order_details = "$wceo_order_product, $wceo_order_category, $wceo_order_ quantity, $wceo_order_ amount"; ?>	Create your own PHP variables and using PHP techniques populate them with page name, content group, transaction name, transaction id and order details (product, category, quantity, amount) for a page being viewed. This information is normally pulled out of your database. If you do not use content groups, transactions, etc., you can leave corresponding variables blank, that is you don't need to pass any values to them.
var PAGENAME = escape('<?php print $wceo_pagename;?>');	"Thank you for your order" being a page name is passed to the variable PAGENAME. Under this name you will see this page in HitLens reports.
var CONTENTGROUP = escape('<?php print $wceo_contentgroup;?>');	"LCD Monitors" being a content group name is written to the variable CONTENTGROUP. This variable will help you segment your content and understand what groups of content are most requested by visitors and customers.
var TRANSACTION = escape('<?php print $wceo_transaction;?>');	The transaction type is "Orders" and it is passed to the variable TRANSACTION. This variable defines the type of transaction for a page, e.g. Orders, Subscriptions, Quote Requests, Trials, Downloads and helps you organize your eCommerce analysis by actions your visitors take on your site.
var TRANSACTION_ID = <?php print $wceo_transaction_id;?>;	A numeric value serving as a transaction id is passed to the variable TRANSACTION_ID. Usually the transaction id is interchangeable with the order number, which is a number generated by a shopping cart software or database.
var ORDER = escape('<?php print $wceo_order_details;?>');	The variable ORDER has four parameters: product - name of merchandise, e.g. Sony SDM-S91; category - category of merchandise, e.g. LCD Monitors; quantity - order quantity, e.g. 1 piece; amount - order total, e.g. 595.95 If a certain parameter is not applicable or unavailable and you must leave it out, replace it with a hyphen or simply leave it blank, e.g. var ORDER = ('product,-,quantity,amount'). Note: Do not change the order of parameters. The amount may not exceed one billion (the max amount is 999999999.99) and should not be grouped with commas. Do not pass currency signs ($, ˆ, ?) in the parameter amount.

Raw internal tracking code to be placed onto your dynamic content pages
Don't forget that you will have to use PHP techniques to pass values to the tracking code. The PHP variables given below are blank because it is you who must decide which technique of extracting values to PHP variables is good for you. If you find it difficult to set up dynamic content pages tracking for your site, please contact our Support.

<

<?php
$wceo_pagename = "E.g. Thank you for your order";
$wceo_contentgroup = "E.g. LCD Monitors sales page";
$wceo_transaction = "E.g. Orders";
$wceo_transaction_id = "E.g. 123456789";
$wceo_order_product = "Sony SDM-S91";
$wceo_order_category = "Sony Products";
$wceo_order_quantity = "1";
$wceo_order_amount = "595.00";
$wceo_order_details = "$wceo_order_product, $wceo_order_category, $wceo_order_ quantity, $wceo_order_ amount"; ?>

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