Voluum Tracking & Unbounce

  • 30 March 2017
  • 8 replies
  • 51 views
P

Hi guys

Feeling somewhat novice in this regard and haven’t had much luck finding any information online on this topic. I currently use Voluum tracking software for all of my CPA activity. I have not had any luck linking the two platforms together in perfect sync to track clicks, conversions, leads generated, referral sources, etc. Does anyone use Voluum that can help point me in the right direction and/or help with campaign setup. We think we are partway there but do not feel we have it figured out 100% yet.

Thanks!
Gabriel
PVI Marketing

8 replies

A

Gabriel

I see that you posted a few months ago now, however as a fellow Media Buyer (Affiliate Marketer on steroids 😉 … As well as an online media buyer and marketer who uses Voluum for all of my campaign tracking needs, I’d be happy to help you out in any way if you’re still having trouble utilizing UB with Voluum.

Feel free to contact me or Direct Message me here (if that’s possible??? This is the first time I’m ever actually responding to a forum post here…) But if you’re not able to direct message me you can reach me at: cma@addeptmedia.com

Alex_Scovell

Hi Gabriel,

We use Cake which is similar to Voluum. They won’t ever match 100%! ever ever!

I think it’s an unwritten law somewhere that no two digital marketing tracking systems ever match exactly - but if they are not close (if they are widely apart) then something is definitely wrong in the set up.

But this is not just a Voluum to Unbounbe thing or a cake to Unbounce - it will be slightly out everywhere:

  • Facebook to Unbounce
  • Google to Unbounce
  • Facebook to Voluum
  • Cake to Voluum
  • Cake to Voluum to Unbounce

You get the idea!

You need to make sure they are close and there are no issues in setup.

Server to Server / postback pixels can help allot with accuracy - (as they don’t rely on cookies in a users browser (just thinking it may be possible to use as a webhook within Unbounce actually - it should / may work i think but i haven’t tested).

Although the set up is a bit mroe complicated that using a js, img, iframe pixel. Plus to my knowledge you can use them with FB or twitter (perhaps google, i’m not sure).

What is your set-up?

I assume you are using a Voluum link to send traffic to the Unbounce page.

How and where are you collecting leads - in Unbounce or sending to another platform?

Just trying to get an idea of what you are doing in order to advise on the best way to achieve it.

Alex

Alex_Scovell

That said it is possible on occasions to get ‘conversions to match’ 100% with the use of postback pixels - but not easy - you’ll find different systems de-dupe in different ways etc.

It’s important to have a master record so to speak. If you collect leads in unbounce, this is your master. if they are posted to Cake (we do this), cake is your master (but be carefull you don’t drop any on the way).

Clicks - won’t match ever.

(my experience is from 8 years or so running a CPA network setting up lots of pixels from lots of platforms and tracking systems).

A

Gabriel,

I can confirm what @Alex_Scovell is talking about here- having worked at a major Affiliate network (A4D) as both an AM and Media Buyer for multiple years, I can expand upon what Alex is talking about- I mainly run large scale campaigns on Taboola’s network for my CPA campaigns and if I can share 1 tip it’s DO NOT USE UNBOUNCE’S CONVERSION TRACKING AS YOUR “MASTER” OR “BENCHMARKING” METRIC.

When it comes to tracking, Cake will always show a variance between Voluum as well and UnBounce, and the actual Traffic Source just to add another variable to make it really fun to track. As a general rule, go by clicks where you’re getting charged, and conversions where you’re getting paid for benchmarks (e.g. Taboola for clicks and Cake for Conversions) but Voluum is very good at being close to both to ensure things are looking within “normal variance range”

It’s never going to be the same- due the numerous pixel / dropped clicks / tracking discrepancies you’ll find between Cake, UnBounce, and Voluum. We generally see up to a 17% variance in click traffic from Cake to Traffic Source, and Voluum tends to be in the middle of both- however your conversion variance should NOT be that high (17%). Use a postback when possible (which even though they’ll tell you Taboola doesn’t support it I’ve gotten it to work there) as a JS pixel in the iFrame of a 3rd party offer/conversion pg. is going to be dicey when going through a platform like Cake.

Happy to help on specifics if you need it- and Alex, I’d love to know more about how you’ve used UnBounce to post to Cake- as I’m in the proccess of trying to set that up right now-

Alex_Scovell

Hello @addeptmedia - nice to e-meet you 🙂

Our companies have done a little business together in past years - i think you ran Match through us to the UK market a couple of years back - bits and pieces both ways i think.

Have seen your native campaigns - very well run 🙂 - i think you have a funeral campaign which does allot of volume? (amongst others i’m sure)

posting to cake we have used a couple of methods. I think we started using an unbounce webhook to send to a server post method in cake. The trouble with this is that you need an iframe of similar on the thank you page to fire third party pixels - it would be a race to which fired first - lead post from webhook or iframe on thank you page. If thank you page is first cake disregards the conversion as it hasn’t received the lead yet.

I can’t remember the error, but essentially its saying this can’t be a conversion if we don’t have a lead. Because of this third party pixels were significantly under fired…

To get round this instead of using a webhook, we the unbounce form to “go to url” and tick “append form data to URL” - again using a browser http post in cake.

A couple of ammendments required for the server post. Swap out ckm_campaign_id=[CAMPAIGN ID]&ckm_key=[CKM KEY]

and use ckm_offer_id and ckm_request_id instead. We also add ckm_bp=1 which tells cake it is a browser post - this way if / when reqid is dropped it won’t send to scrub queue because of “no pay affiliate found” - it posts as usual (there might be another setting to fix this somewhere)

reqid is passed down the line - each page forwards to next and on LP use a hidden field called ckm_request_id - pass in browser as this also - ckm_request_id=#reqid# .

So your “send to URL” in unbounce looks like this:

https://cookiedomain.tld/d.ashx?ckm_offer_id=726&ckm_bp=1

Of course you need to name the unbounce fields the same as in the cake vertical.

Hope this helps. I would be interested in how you got a postback pixel working for taboola if you would be happy to share?

Alex_Scovell

Agree - what you’re getting paid on is key.

If the form is on an unbounce page it’s good to keep an eye on how these compare to “where you’re getting paid” - you don’t want to be dropping conversions along the way - each form submit in unbounce will show a lead in unbounce (bear in mind dupes and such like which could cause differences).

A

@Alex_Scovell

Thank you for the detailed response - I’m going to be implementing this soon- so this will be super helpful to get things moving, thank you. I’ve branched off from A4D and started my own agency, Media Buying, brokering, and developing new flows that monetize at every step of the funnel- because quite frankly the way media buyers currently do things is CRAZY. they’re bleeding money every step of the way, so I’ve started documenting my flows I’m running on, as I’ll be putting them in a product we’re rolling out- (alongside using them of course). I’m also working on a Taboola Hacks Guide right now- one of them the Postback - As I’ve got that traffic source dialed. I was previously in Revenue Management for the hospitality industry, mainly beach resorts and hotels, so I have a unique approach to buying media that’s much more mathematic and systemized than most- however it works amazingly well, so I’m excited about what we’re building here at my company. All that said… (for a reason…) was that I don’t intend to start dropping this all publicly yet, so feel free to email me and we’ll talk- cma@addeptmedia.com. Happy to help with the postback stuff. Also curious to get to know a bit more about your company and if I’ve come across you guys in my time with A4D or if that was anyone else there. And yes, we ran and I currently still run a UK funeral campaign actually. We built our own offer there, however I’m currently running to a few of them right now while I determine which will prove to be most profitable over the long term- I’ll look forward to a quick chat. forgive the typos and rushed nature of this reply- out of pocket and shooting this off before a flight- best,

C. M. A. | cma@addeptmedia.com

P

Excellent! Thanks to you both and sorry for the delayed response. I will send you DM’s in the very near future. I look forward to implementing these findings.

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings