Architecture- Tracking lead origin when data is submitted by a server
- by Kevin
I'm looking for some assistance in determining the least complex strategy for tracking leads on an affiliate's website. The idea is to make the affiliate's integration with my application as easy as possible. I've run into theoretical barriers, so i'm here to explore other options.
Application Overview:
This is a lead aggregation / distribution platform. We will be focusing on the affiliate portion of this website. Essentially affiliates sign up, enter in marketing campaigns and sell us their conversions.
Problem to be solved:
We want to track a lead's origin and other events on the affiliate site. We want to know what pages, ads, and forms they viewed before they converted. This can easily be solved with pixel tracking. Very straightforward.
Theoretical Issues:
I thought I would ask affiliates to place the pixel where I could log impressions and set a third party cookie when the pixel is first called. Then I could associate future impressions with this cookie. The problem is that when the visitor converts on the affiliate's site and I receive their information via HTTP POST from the Affiliate's server I wouldn't be able to access the cookie and associate it with the lead record unless the lead lands on my processor via a redirect and is then redirected back to the affiliate's landing page.
I don't want to force the affiliates to submit their forms directly to my tracking site, so allowing them to make an HTTP POST from their server side form processor would be ideal.
I've considered writing JavaScript to set a First Party cookie but this seems to make things more complicated for the affiliate.
I also considered having the affiliate submit the lead's data via a conversion pixel. This seems to be the most ideal scenario so far as almost all pixels are as easy as copy/paste. The only complication comes from the conversion pixel- which would submit all of the lead information and the request would come from the visitor's machine so I could access my third party cookie.
