Clear Pixel Tracking

[Chad]

I'm trying to implement Clear Pixel Tracking so that we can track which
customers get to the confirmation page of an affiliate site. I'm
supposed to deliver to them a URL with our domain that looks like this:

<img src="https://www.mydomain.com.com/url?campaign=25&env=PRD" width=1
height=1 border=0>

That's fine, but my question is: what are the different methods I can
use on our side to track the pixel hit? What do the marketing
companies like doubleclick do to track a pixel hit almost instantly?

Thanks!

Chad

 

[Toby Inkster]

<img src="https://www.mydomain.com.com/url?campaign=25&env=PRD" width=1
height=1 border=0>

That's fine

No it's not. Try:
http://www.mydomain.com.com/url?campaign=25&amp;env=PRD
^^^^(1) ^^^^^(2)

1. Many browsers will bring up a warning dialogue if a page contains a
mixture of HTTP and HTTPS objects.

2. Ampersands in HTML must be escaped.

but my question is: what are the different methods I can use on our
side to track the pixel hit?

Easiest would be to make "url" some script in a language of your choice
that increments a counter stored in a database somewhere, and then prints
out a transaparent GIF (with the correct MIME type of course).

You might be able to speed it up a little by storing your count in a flat
file instead of a database, but then you'll need to worry about file
locking: to make sure that simultaneous writes to the file don't break
things. (With an SQL database, the SQL engine takes care of these little
intricacies itself.)

 

[Wÿrm]

"Chad" <[email protected]> kirjoitti
viestissä:[email protected]...

That's fine, but my question is: what are the different methods I can
use on our side to track the pixel hit?

Tracking hits to 1x1 pixel is not really that reliable at all. Some software
firewalls have option to "remove web bugs" (for example ZoneAlarm pro) so it
would strip your 1x1 pixel images happily off and you would not see any hit
from those at all.

 

[Chad]

Yes I can easily write a small script to handle the hit. That's what I
was looking for. No need for flat file, mysql will work fine.

The URL issues are minor that was just a quick example I typed up.

Thanks for your help,
Chad