What Is Pixel Tracking, How Does It Work?

Hi,

Some affiliate programs that I use recommend using pixel tracking, but I'm not too sure what it is and how it works.

Do you simply put a pixel on a "confirmed sales" page and then look at your webhost-stats to see how many times this pixel was downloaded? And then say if the pixel was accessed 10 times you must have made 10 sales?

Is that how it works? Or do you need some kind of special software or something?



Thanks for any help

 

Surely someone knows how it works?

 

I'm not an expert, but as no one has posted, I thought I would. The same pixel can be requested many times if the page is refreshed, so it's not a 1:1 ratio. Per unique IP I assume is possible if you wanted to count sales. But also, you can use it to check/inject other things such as cookies. They are particulary useful for things like emails, so you can see how many users have read them, etc.

Hope that helps,

Jay

 

Pixel tracking, as in direct traffic measurement?

There are some sites out there that can help you keep track of your traffic. One example of this is Google analytics, another is Quantcast. These sites use a single pixel to measure your traffic.

Here is an example of directly measured traffic, this is also my forum - http://www.quantcast.com/survivalistboards.com

Unlike alexa, that relies on a spyware toolbar, direct measurement is a lot more reliable. Its also a lot better to use direct measurement when selling advertising. The numbers on those charts I linked to are real numbers, not estimates. My traffic is measured by a single pixel, with a tracking code around the pixel.

Unless you use direct traffic measurements, you are giving your advertisers estimated numbers. I can tell my advertisers that I get 1.8 million page views a month, and over 40,000 uniques visiting monthly - and that is directly measured, not estimated.

This way the affiliate programs know "exactly" how much traffic you get.

 

Thanks for the help guys, I just wondered why people/affiliate programs recommended that people used pixel tracking software to keep track of sales etc.

 

Hey Kev! Just wanted to say your forum rocks. I've spent many days in the financial section.

Bab_bob - If your site or has any "call to action", like a form signup or a sale, you can place an <img> tag on the "success" page and track a lot of variables about the sign up. The IMG tag is normally of height="1" and width="1", hence it being called a pixel. Nowadays pixels don't have to be <IMG> tag but can be java, iframe or even server side. I know this is late, but in case someone else runs across this thread, maybe it'll help.

 

Hi,

tracking pixels are not only used to track conversions (sales, subscriptions, etc...), but especially to track visits.
More info on this blog: http://blog.clickmeter.com/post/21430164241/email-opens-page-view