Tracking categories

Do I need tracking categories?

In order to track conversions, you need at least one tracking category called default. And if you are working with basket tracking, you also need a tracking category called basket. However, you can do much more with tracking categories. Tracking categories allow you to adjust the tracking and the rating to the different sales funnels and margins of your advertiser's products. A computer, for example, will have a very different sales funnel than a network cable -- and your advertiser will also make less money with it. Therefore, you might want to make sure the computers and the network cable are in separate tracking categories. This allows you to make sure computer sales are attributed for a longer period than network cable sales. It also gives you the opportunity to adjust the commission you give to the different margins. On top of that, you can differentiate between the different categories in your reporting.

Tracking category 'default' will be used implicitely when none or unknown tracking category is specified on conversion requests (it will not be used when the specified tracking category is inactive).

Getting started

In the user interface, go to Trail -> Settings -> Tracking categories in the main menu.

Creating tracking categories

On the page appearing now, you can see a list of all the existing tracking categories for the advertiser you selected. To create a new one, click on the button create new tracking category in the right top of the page. On the page appearing now, you can fill in all the properties of your new tracking category.

Following steps are due:

• Give your tracking category an English and a native name. Translating the name may be recommendable for local partners.

• Create an alias. The alias is the value by which the tracking category is identified in the tracking tags. For the alias, you can use all alphanumeric characters, the dot, the minus and underscore. Please make sure you do not accidentally add any space characters.

• Please make sure you enter a landing page. You can use the main page of the advertiser’s website, but also the a more specific page related to the kind of products for which you are creating a tracking category.

• You can use the WYSIWYG tools to create a description of the tracking category. Please note adding a description is not obligatory.

• The appointed start date automatically adopts the time and date on which you are creating your category. If you want your category to become active later, you can set a later time and date.

• If you want your tracking category to be visible in the reporting section, including the reporting section of the partners, make sure you select not hidden under visibility’ If you do not want the tracking category to be visible for your partners, you have three options:

  • The ‘testing’ option is recommended when you have just created the tracking category and you don’t want to show it to partners yet. The category will not be mentioned in the advertiser description. However, in case you generate conversions with the tracking category, it will show up in the reporting section of both the admin and the partner UI, allowing you to test it.

  • The ‘phase out’ option is recommended when you want to deactivate the tracking category. When you select it, the tracking category will neither be mentioned in the advertiser description nor in the partner’s reporting anymore. You will see conversions with this category in the reporting of the admin UI, allowing you to keep track.

  • The ‘phase out (only conversions)’ option is recommended when you want to deactivate the tracking category but allow partners with an existing relationship to see conversions with this category for the moment.

• Make sure the status of the tracking category is set to active. Use the 'paused' status only when you do not longer offer products related to the category anymore, or products are seasonal.

Please note that all settings regarding the tracking modalities are now located in the attribution manager. For setting the attribution window (cookie expiration), post view tracking as well as more sophisticated settings regarding prioritisation please read the article on the attribution manager.

After completing the tracking category properties, don’t forget to click on save in the lower right corner of the page. Please note that if you add a tracking category to an existing set of tracking categories, you will have to edit the tracking tag on the confirmation page of the advertiser as well.