Digital River is in the unique position because we own both the tracking solution and the commerce engines. As such, there are two different means for us to track sales activities (API tracking and standard pixel tracking). I wanted to update you on the reporting as it stands today, but also give you some background as to why the reporting displays different data.

API tracking differs from the standard pixel tracking in how and where information is stored and retrieved on a shopper’s computer. While pixel tracking is reliant on a cookie (a small text file containing data) delivered from a third party (an affiliate program for instance) API tracking sets information in a commerce system delivered cookie (otherwise known as a first party cookie). This placement of information into a first party cookie ensures that web browsers and software programs don’t remove it or block it by accident or on purpose. As a result, our commerce engines read the contents of the cookie, identify the information for use by our affiliate program, and pass this information back to our affiliate program to ensure you, as the affiliate, receive credit for the sale.

API tracked orders also allow the two systems to acknowledge the details of the shopper’s order and confirms the appropriate commission rates based on the products purchased. In the case of a physical product, API integrations also ensure the product shipped and the order is complete before commissions are granted to the affiliate.

Let’s take a look at what that really means…

In the screenshot below, I ran the ‘download optional info’ report for our test affiliate account. Then I’ve highlighted the transaction IDs for two different API tracked orders. Notice that for API orders there are one or more line item IDs, each corresponding to a different product purchased. Each LineItemID has its own commission amount as well.

Contrast that to our standard cookie tracking, or pixel based tracking. The total order amount is listed in one line item ID, and the report does not break out commission amounts.

Coming soon:

Here’s a preview of what’s coming soon to these reports..

1. We’ll make the report a standard sales download report. Even if you don’t use the ‘optional info’ (and you all should) the data will still be generated for the date range you select.

2. We’ll be adding a new column for ‘Product Name’ so for the API tracked orders you will be able to correlate sales activity to actual products purchased.

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