Hi, I want to know how the tracking works with a CPA Network. From what I know there are 4 ways : 1. Pixels 2. Postbacks 3. Manually 4. Directtrack API I know about postbacks but not at all having DT support it. I want to know how pixels work and how DT API's work Thanks Gautam
It's not too complicated. The server that's doing the tracking is enabled to do so using something like a php script. If it's an image, then the publisher posts an image tag (optionally styled 1 pixel in size, or possibly totally invisible) pointing (with the src attribute) to an address at the server doing the tracking. When an end user's image-enabled browser lands on the page, it makes an HTTP request to get the image from that server. When the server receives the request, it executes the php script which stores tracking info into a database entry associated with the publisher. The pixel image method is used by my preferred CPA network. They may also track requests to the hosted banner images. The other popular method I know of is external javascript <script src="http://www.thetrackingserver.com/publisher100/some.js"> (used by Google Analytics), which for all I know uses the same method, but isn't as sloppy as linking to an image for non-display purposes. Alternatively, if you're doing the tracking locally, you can just include() a php script directly into your pages or template.