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Germinal,
I just purchased Affiliate Tracker with Content Statistics, and really looking forward to getting it up and running. Thanks for a good looking product.
Now that I have it installed and started to configure it and test a few scenarios, I came up with a list of questions.
1. When creating a new conversion, do you have to include every single account, or can you simply allow the conversion to apply to all accounts, even future accounts that are created after the conversion is created (without going back to the conversion and adding new accounts as they are created)? An affiliate account is required when creating a conversion, so I guess I don't understand why an account is related to a conversion this way.
2. "Last X days (default)" setting doesn't seem to be getting applied in admin. I set this to 'All time' but when viewing the affiliate results, all 4 tabs report on the last 30 days.
3. In the conversion details, what is expected for the 'item' and 'conversion type' values?
4. I initially had the default commission value for new accounts set to $.25. I created an account and made a conversion on this account. Then I changed the default commission for this conversion to $.50. On the front end, the account is reporting $.25 commission, but $.50 total commission, even though there is only 1 conversion and 1 account. Shouldn't it report a total of $.25 in commissions as that was the commission amount when the conversion happened?
5. As an affiliate, I clicked through my generated link 3 times from 3 different IP addresses. I see 3 referrals in my account, but only 1 conversion. Shouldn't I see 3 conversions?
6. From the above example, I have 3 referrals & 1 conversion that was created on March 25. The next day, March 26, I filter the results for 'today', and see the 3 referrals & 1 conversion from the 25th displayed and calculated in the total conversion count & commission amount on both the 'conversions', 'traffic logs' & 'my account' tabs. I had no referrals or conversions on March 26 (today).
By the way, clicking the account button on the demo page generates an error:
http://www.joomlathat.com/demo/affiliate-tracker/accounts
Fatal error: Call to a member function get() on a non-object in /home/joomlathat/www/components/com_affiliatetracker/views/account/tmpl/default.php on line 16
I appreciate your response.
Jereme
I just purchased Affiliate Tracker with Content Statistics, and really looking forward to getting it up and running. Thanks for a good looking product.
Now that I have it installed and started to configure it and test a few scenarios, I came up with a list of questions.
1. When creating a new conversion, do you have to include every single account, or can you simply allow the conversion to apply to all accounts, even future accounts that are created after the conversion is created (without going back to the conversion and adding new accounts as they are created)? An affiliate account is required when creating a conversion, so I guess I don't understand why an account is related to a conversion this way.
2. "Last X days (default)" setting doesn't seem to be getting applied in admin. I set this to 'All time' but when viewing the affiliate results, all 4 tabs report on the last 30 days.
3. In the conversion details, what is expected for the 'item' and 'conversion type' values?
4. I initially had the default commission value for new accounts set to $.25. I created an account and made a conversion on this account. Then I changed the default commission for this conversion to $.50. On the front end, the account is reporting $.25 commission, but $.50 total commission, even though there is only 1 conversion and 1 account. Shouldn't it report a total of $.25 in commissions as that was the commission amount when the conversion happened?
5. As an affiliate, I clicked through my generated link 3 times from 3 different IP addresses. I see 3 referrals in my account, but only 1 conversion. Shouldn't I see 3 conversions?
6. From the above example, I have 3 referrals & 1 conversion that was created on March 25. The next day, March 26, I filter the results for 'today', and see the 3 referrals & 1 conversion from the 25th displayed and calculated in the total conversion count & commission amount on both the 'conversions', 'traffic logs' & 'my account' tabs. I had no referrals or conversions on March 26 (today).
By the way, clicking the account button on the demo page generates an error:
http://www.joomlathat.com/demo/affiliate-tracker/accounts
Fatal error: Call to a member function get() on a non-object in /home/joomlathat/www/components/com_affiliatetracker/views/account/tmpl/default.php on line 16
I appreciate your response.
Jereme
Responses (9)
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Accepted Answer
0Hello Jereme,
1. you don't have to include any account! the account is detected automatically by the system. do you know what I mean? this is made automatically by the API, you don't have to do anything about it... let me ask you this, when you say "when createing a new conversion", you mean manually?
I'm not sure if maybe the origin of your question is understanding exaclty what a CONVERSION is. do you know what I mean?
2. this setting is for front-end only. in the backend there's no such filter...
3. I'm going to make an article to explain this. usually, conversions are created automatically, so you don't have to fill them out. "Item" would be, for example, a product. Example: imagine that a type of conversion you're tracking is "product purchase" on the store. the conversion name could be "Product purchase", while the "Item" would tell you which item was purchased, lik.. "Product A". The "Conversion type" is just an internal number used to group these conversions.
4. absolutely. what you describe to me looks really strange. I'm wondering if it's a small bug. maybe you can give me access to your site (you can send it to support@ joomlathat.com ) and I can take a look.
5. first question: what you mean "1 conversion" ? you actually made a conversion in one of these visits?
at this point, let me ask you this: what is for you a conversion? what conversions are you recording exactly? are you creating them manually?
6. that could be related simply to different time setting from the server and the actual Joomla installation. that is easy to solve by changing the timezone settings, but in any case I can do this if you give me access
7. really? I don't get that error at all... can you check again? and if you see the error, can you make a screenshot? -
Accepted Answer
01. you don't have to include any account! the account is detected automatically by the system. do you know what I mean? this is made automatically by the API, you don't have to do anything about it... let me ask you this, when you say "when createing a new conversion", you mean manually?
I'm not sure if maybe the origin of your question is understanding exaclty what a CONVERSION is. do you know what I mean?
I'm simply wanting my conversion to be when one of the links are clicked. I'm not trying to integrate with a third party app or use the custom API. I went to the admin, clicked 'Conversions', then 'New'. This form requires me to enter an affiliate account. Am I not doing this right?
2. this setting is for front-end only. in the backend there's no such filter...
Right, I'm changing this value in the General admin options, but it is not being reflected on the front end.
4. absolutely. what you describe to me looks really strange. I'm wondering if it's a small bug. maybe you can give me access to your site (you can send it to support@ joomlathat.com ) and I can take a look.
I want to be sure I have conversions configured correctly (see #1), that may be my problem.
5. first question: what you mean "1 conversion" ? you actually made a conversion in one of these visits?
at this point, let me ask you this: what is for you a conversion? what conversions are you recording exactly? are you creating them manually?
Yes. As an affiliate, when viewing the 'My Accounts' tab, it was reporting 3 referrals and 1 conversion. My understanding is that a conversion happens when the account's link is clicked. Am I mistaken? That is what I am wanting to happen.
6. that could be related simply to different time setting from the server and the actual Joomla installation. that is easy to solve by changing the timezone settings, but in any case I can do this if you give me access
Thanks, I changed the server's time zone on my site under Global Configuration > Server
7. really? I don't get that error at all... can you check again? and if you see the error, can you make a screenshot?
I get the error while I was already logged in to your site. I tried while I was not logged in and was able to get into the demo, however when I click on the button at the bottom to request a new account, I got that error again.
Thanks
Jereme -
Accepted Answer
0Ok, let's go one step at the time. I understand the origin of the questions.. you're confused about the "conversion"
let me explain:
in the backend, when you click "new conversion", this is to manually create a conversion, it's like, for manually saying that "this affiliate provided a visit/purchase on the date X". you don't want to do that (manually).
basically you're thinking "conversion" when you actually mean "conversion type"
what you want is to define a conversion TYPE, which means, telling the system "when a user click on the link, I want to generate a conversion".
this is NOT achieved with the system out of the box: when a user clicks on the link, a REFERRAL LOG is generated, but that's not exactly the same as a conversion. What you're saying is that you actually want to generate a conversion for this, in other words, you want to "reward" your affiliate for every user that clicks on his link (NOT for a future possible action, like purchasing something)
is that correct? -
Accepted Answer
0Yes, exactly. My goal with Affiliate Tracker is to generate traffic to my site. I assumed this type of conversion was the most basic and was available with Affilaite Tracker. When I was looking at the product info, I found this page:
http://www.joomlathat.com/affiliate-tracker/conversions-and-comissions
and the first line says "A conversion is an action of interest that takes place on your site, performed by a user that comes from an Affiliate link". That lead me to believe that this was possible. Also, my initial pre-purchase post (http://www.joomlathat.com/support/affiliate-tracker/defining-conversion-types) asked if it would generate commission with a click-thru, but you didn't answer it specifically so I guess that was my fault for not getting clarification.
Is this something that can be implemented?
Thanks for clarifying what a new conversion does in the admin.
Jereme -
Accepted Answer
0Hello
yes, of course. I just wanted to make sure that I understood your request. this definition is very accurate "A conversion is an action of interest that takes place on your site, performed by a user that comes from an Affiliate link".
in your case, the type of conversion you want to be registering is actually simply "user cliking the link". in other words, a click is a conversion (for you). that can be very easily implemented with our API. I can help you with that, no problem. If you want to send me FTP access, I'll add the code right into the Affiliate Tracker plugin, and I will set "clicks" as "conversions"
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Accepted Answer
0That sounds great. Would you mind emailing the modified plugin so I can see what you did, and I will upload it myself.
Will this prevent me from being able to upgrade this plugin if/when one is released? Are we modifying the file itself?-
Germinal Campsmore than a month agoI'm not modifying the "official" plugin, I can do it in yours directly, and point to you how I did it. you will see, it's really easy, all I will do is to use our API call (see here: http://www.joomlathat.com/affiliate-tracker/custom-tracking-api )
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Accepted Answer
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Accepted Answer
0of course. this is what I would do:
1. open file /plugins/system/affiliate_tracker/affiliate_tracker.php
2. locate the function saveLog($data), around line 108.
3. you will see this function:
function saveLog($data){
$mainframe =& JFactory::getApplication();
$db =& JFactory::getDBO();
$row = new TableAffiliateTrackerLog($db);
if($data['atid']){
// Bind the form fields to the statistics table
if (!$row->bind($data)) {
$mainframe->enqueueMessage($db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
if (!$row->check()) {
$mainframe->enqueueMessage($db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
if (!$row->store()) {
$mainframe->enqueueMessage($db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
}
}
here is where we will place the code of the API
you have to place it after theif (!$row->store()) {
$mainframe->enqueueMessage($db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
so, the result will be something like this:
function saveLog($data){
$mainframe =& JFactory::getApplication();
$db =& JFactory::getDBO();
$row = new TableAffiliateTrackerLog($db);
if($data['atid']){
// Bind the form fields to the statistics table
if (!$row->bind($data)) {
$mainframe->enqueueMessage($db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
if (!$row->check()) {
$mainframe->enqueueMessage($db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
if (!$row->store()) {
$mainframe->enqueueMessage($db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
$conversion_data = array(
"name" => "Clik on link",
"component" => "com_affiliatetracker",
"extended_name" => "Account ID: " . $data['atid'],
"type" => 1,
"value" => 1 ,
"reference_id" => $data['atid'],
"approved" => 1,
);
require_once(JPATH_SITE.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'components'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'com_affiliatetracker'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'helpers'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'helpers.php');
AffiliateHelper::create_conversion($conversion_data, false);
}
}
Notice that I said the "value" => 1 , (this means every "click" is worth $1. you can change it to whatever you want.
Do you understand how it works?
if you have questions, please just ask. -
Accepted Answer
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