How to track conversions with Clickbank, E-Junkie and Google Analytics

[srali2]

I am so confused right now!

I am selling an ebook on my website. Clickbank is handling the payment, and E-Junkie is delivering the ebook after payment.

In my Google Analytics account, I want to see what traffic sources are converting. However, I don't know how to set this up. It's so confusing because so many domains are involved — my domain, clickbank.net, e-junkie.com, and fatfreecartpro.com!

I think I have to set up Google Analytics cross-domain tracking. Apparently, I have to add this code to every page of my site:

<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;
m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
  })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-77657751-1', 'auto', {'allowLinker': true});
ga('require', 'linker');
ga('linker:autoLink', ['domain-2.com', 'domain-3.com'] );
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>

Where it says "domain-2" and "domain-3", what domains do I insert? Must I insert all four domains?

I know I add this code to my site and to my E-junkie thank-you page, but what about the Clickbank pages?

I found an "Integrated Sales Reporting" feature in my Clickbank account, which integrates with Google Analytics. I am guessing that this is how I integrate Clickbank. It asks me for my Google Analytics tracking ID and "Domains". What domains do I enter?

So confused! :-/

In short, can anyone please tell me how to integrate Google Analytics, my domain, Clickbank, and E-junkie so that I can see my conversions in my Analytics account? I'll be so grateful for any help.

Note that I asked Clickbank. They said I must ask Google and E-junkie!

[srali2]

The analytics code that I included as part of my question seems to have disappeared!

[E-junkie_Guru]

For raw code to show up in a post here, you need to select the code and click the </> button in the formatting toolbar, or just type three backticks (```) before and after the block of code. I have already done this for you.

Our ClickBank integration only works with Buy Now buttons, so unfortunately you can't use our shopping cart's built-in integration with Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking. Thus, you would only be using the standard GA tracking code and methods that Google provides, which you would be responsible for setting up on your own; we cannot offer help with that.

That said, I think in your site you would need to change 'domain-2.com' to 'fatfreecartpro.com' (the domain of our thank-you/download pages), and just omit this part: , 'domain-3.com'. In this case, you would also need to paste your GA tracking code in your E-junkie Seller Admin > Edit Preferences > Common Thank-you Page HTML, where I think you'd need to change domain-2.com' (i.e., 'fatfreecartpro.com') to match whatever your site domain is.

[srali2]

Thank you, E-Junkie_Guru! I understand exactly what you mean. However, what about the other domains (i.e. clickbank.net and e-junkie.com)? Do I not include them as well?

The URL of my E-Junkie Buy Now button has the domain e-junkie.com. It links to clickbank.net for the payment to be processed, after which clickbank.net calls fatfreecartpro.com. As such, there are four domains in action.

Do I just include all four domains in that code and remove my domain in the code that goes on my site and remove fatfreecartpro.com from the code that goes on the thank-you page?

I appreciate your help very much.

[E-junkie_Guru]

I think it only works for domains where you can paste your own GA tracking code into pages under that domain. In this case, the buyer would be tracked up to your sales page on your domain, then when the buyer clicks your Buy Now button on that page they would go untracked through completion of checkout with ClickBank, at which point they'd resume being tracked on the thank-you page we generate for you on our fatfreecartpro.com domain.

[srali2]

Hi, E-Junkie_Guru.

It isn't working for me, unfortunately. Maybe I have done something wrong. Are you sure that it's possible to track sales of an ebook in Google Analytics using the E-Junkie Buy Now button and Clickbank?

As you're aware, this is called cross-domain tracking. I have the Google Analytics code on my site, on Clickbank, and on my Fatfreecartpro thank-you page. I think the cookie is supposed to be transferred across all of those domains.

Are you sure that the cookie can be transferred from my site to Clickbank even though the Buy Now URL goes to E-Junkie first?

This seems to be the sequence:

My site > E-Junkie > Clickbank > E-Junkie > Fatfreecartpro

In other words, the link on my site goes to E-Junkie.com, but there is no code on E-Junkie. Then, E-Junkie redirects to Clickbank. After the sale, Clickbank redirects to E-Junkie, which redirects to Fatfreecartpro. The code is on every page except E-Junkie, which makes me worry that the cookie can't follow the complete sequence.

Of course, I'm new to this stuff. Maybe I have made a mistake elsewhere. :-/

Can you confirm, please, that other E-Junkie users are tracking in their Google Analytics accounts conversions that occur through the Buy Now button and Clickbank?

If so, then I may have set up the Goal in Google Analytics incorrectly.

[E-junkie_Guru]

I'm not aware if it's even possible to add GA tracking code to ClickBank's checkout pages, but at any rate that should be unnecessary; the buyer would simply go untracked on those pages and should resume being tracked on our thank-you page after checkout -- i.e., tracking doesn't have to be continuous and uninterrupted throughout an entire sequence of pages they may visit.

You may be interested in this FAQ page explaining generally how cookie-based tracking like GA works, and what factors can interfere with it:

How does analytics tracking work and what can I use it for?

If you are setting Goals in your GA account, you will need to specify your Goal URL as https://www.fatfreecartpro.com/ecom/rp.php (or if you are redirecting to a Common Thank-you Page URL on your site, you should use your page URL here), and set the Match Type as Begins With (aka Head Match).

[srali2]

Thanks for your attempt to help, E-Junkie_Guru, but it doesn't seem to work. It doesn't seem to be possible to use Google Analytics cross-domain tracking to track your Clickbank sales if the product is delivered using E-Junkie.

According to Google's cross-domain tracking instructions:

"When tracking sessions across multiple domains, the customer ID value has to be transferred from one domain to the other. To do this, the Analytics tracking code has linking features that allow the source domain to place the customer ID in the URL parameters of a link, where the destination domain can access it."

When using Clickbank and E-Junkie, the customer order sequence looks like this:

My website > E-Junkie (redirected) > Clickbank > E-Junkie (redirected) > Fatfreecartpro

I can place the Analytics code on my website, on Clickbank, and on Fatfreecartpro. Since I can't put it on E-Junkie, I can't use cross-domain tracking.

How, then, am I supposed to track my conversions? I must know the source of the sales so that I can optimize. This is extremely important!

[E-junkie_Guru]

I still don't think it's necessary to have an unbroken chain of tracking across every single page/domain the user might visit consecutively, as long as you have your tracking code on your sales page and our thank-you page -- after all, you can still use GA to track return visitors to your own pages, even if the user visits other sites between visits to your site.

Since you're just using standard GA tracking code, you'd do better to inquire on a forum specializing in that -- e.g., this appears to be Google's official GA forum:
https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Analytics-Solutions/ct-p/Google_Analytics

[srali2]

"... after all, you can still use GA to track return visitors to your own pages, even if the user visits other sites between visits to your site."

Yes, but these are counted as separate sessions. They are not counted as the same session, and rightly so. Cross-domain tracking is all about counting the whole movement sequence, across all domains, as a single session. This is not possible for me, it seems, unless I can pass the customer ID in URL parameters through E-Junkie to ClickBank and then through E-Junkie to Fatfreecartpro.

I am very surprised that this problem has never come up in these forums. Surely, I am not the first person to try to track my Clickbank sales?!

Anyway, I appreciate your attempt to help, E-Junkie_Guru. I wish it were possible.

[E-junkie_Guru]

Setting up GA tracking to work with our Buy Now buttons has come up plenty of times before in this forum and emails to support, but generally our advice to place standard GA tracking code on the sales page and our thank-you pages has sufficed; at least, nobody has reported back to us with any problems. One thing I just noticed in your tracking code above; you have two different UA- tracking ID strings for GA, which I've never seen done before; is there a reason for that?

Unfortunately, we are not experts in GA, so we're ill-informed to help you sort out any issues with GA; you'd do better to ask GA experts. When you use Buy Now buttons, GA tracking doesn't interact with our system at all; it happens entirely between GA's servers and the buyer's browser that runs the Javascript GA tracking code you place in your sales pages and E-junkie thank-you page. If you have not posted about this in the GA forum I linked above yet, we'd be glad to try inquiring there on your behalf.

Another approach you might try is redirecting buyers to a Common Thank-you Page URL on your site and embedding our generated thank-you page content (incl. download links) in that page; in this case, you would put your GA tracking code in your site's thank-you page and avoid the cross-domain issue entirely:

Inserting a download link into a thank-you page on your own Web site

[srali2]

"One thing I just noticed in your tracking code above; you have two different UA- tracking ID strings for GA ..."

Sorry, that was just a mistake I made when I pasted the code onto this website. I don't have the two different tracking IDs on my website.

"If you have not posted about this in the GA forum, we'd be glad to try inquiring there on your behalf."

That's very kind, but I don't think anyone on the GA forum can help. The customer ID has to be passed from domain to domain in the URL. This can't happen because I can't add the GA code to E-Junkie.com. Let me explain . . .

This is the customer order sequence/funnel:

My website > E-Junkie (redirected) > Clickbank > E-Junkie (redirected) > Fatfreecartpro

The URL of the Buy Now button that you guys gave to me to put on my website looks like this:

www. e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cb&cl=123732&i=8640249

This means that when customers click on the Buy Now button, they go to E-Junkie, which redirects them to Clickbank. After customers make their payment on Clickbank, they click this link:

www. e-junkie.com/ecom/cf.php

to go to the Fatfreecartpro.com download page.

This means that customers are redirected via E-Junkie again.

I can place the GA code on my site, on Clickbank, and on Fatfreecartpro, but not on E-Junkie. Therefore, the customer ID can't be passed from my site to Clickbank, and from Clickbank to Fatfreecartpro.

"Another approach you might try is redirecting buyers to a Common Thank-you Page URL on your site ..."

This won't work for the same reason. For as long as the E-Junkie domain is involved, I can't track Clickbank sales in GA.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I hope to find a way around this. Otherwise, I can't use your services. Tracking is extremely important. Without tracking, I am completely blind and can't optimize!