A4U Expo was great for meeting our affiliates, merchants and the networks we work with.  We used most of the time telling people about Easy Content Units, and gathering feedback on the service.  One of the things mentioned by a number of affiliates was the subject of tracking IDs, and what they were for.

What is Tracking ID for?

Well each of the network allows affiliates to add a parameter to the deeplink which enables you to set an ID for that click.  They then feature this ID in their reporting area, so that you can determine where the sale was made, and use it with your analytics package to work out the effectiveness of your work/account for your spend etc.

We always felt this was an important feature, and so have had this available since the launch of ECU.  However a lot of affiliates seem to not know about what it is and for.  The feedback we received suggested that we should enter a default value for the tracking ID, which would save affiliates the time and for those not using it, give them something in their reports (at the networks) to show them the effectiveness of ECU.

So we have added a prefix solution for this.

Now the Tracking ID will be prefixed with EasyCU_

So if you do not use the feature, your reports in the networks will show up with this, and if you do, your chosen value will appended to the end of the ID – like this: EasyCU_whateveryouchoose.

Each of the networks call this variable something different, here’s a quick run down of what you’re looking for in the reports:

Affilinet – SubID

Affiliate Future – Affiliate Ref

Affiliate Window – Clickref

Buy.at – LID

Commission Junction – SID

dgmPro – Network ID

Linkshare – SubID

More Niche – Campaign

Paid on Results – Custom Tracking ID

Silvertap – SubID

Tradedoubler – EPI

TradeTracker – Reference

Webgains – Clickref

I hope this will to illustrate the overall effectiveness of your units to you, when looking through the network reports.  If you have any comments/suggestions please let us know below: