Conversions tracking on another website

[Katarina-Borovska]

Hi guys,

Situation: A website selling a mix of products from various vendors. When a product's Buy Now get clicked, it redirects to the vendor's website so the order can be placed there.

Question: How do I track all these conversions reliably? Is there any shortcut? Also, what do they need to do technically to make it work, and will it send to my GA or is it any tool that will record these conversions?

Does anyone do this actively?

Thanks for ALL the ANSWERS!

[SharonEKG]

Hi! there is no way to track the activity once it leaves your website unless the vendor places a tracker for you on their page OR redirect to a sort of "thank you page" that is placed on your website.

[WebMarkets]

You need to setup Tag manager and track external links and setup GTM codes. But to measure conversion on another site, you will need to have your hands on that site as well.

[Katarina-Borovska]

Thanks for your answer, Kris. So how does the whole 'affiliate' ecommerce work? Where you don't deal with a platform, but individual vendors? How do you make it transparent?

I can imagine I could see Campaigns tracked in their analytics - this could quite work. But the vendors need to be into digital marketing which not all of them will be.

The next thing - can I add a tag that will be carried over to their Thank You page and this will trigger in MY analytics as a goal conversion (cross-domain)? In an ideal world, I don't want the vendors to do anything, I would set it up by myself; and I don't want to rely on campaign links they have to present me with. Imagine 200 vendors!!

Would GTM do the job??

Thanks. Katarina

[WebMarkets]

I am not the greatest resource in the affiliate marketing world, but have handles a few projects on the subject. In my experience, affiliate links do track conversions, and work similar to a UTM code. From my experience with setting up an affiliate store on Shopify, we utilized lead dyno and it worked well. From managing multiple vendors to keeping track of their behaviors and affiliate earnings. This is transparency.

The cross domain conversion tracking would work as well. This would involve your vendors placing a specific js code on their site...so, margin for error is higher. Unless you do it all. Either way, its A or B from my perspective.

Hope this helps!

[Katarina-Borovska]

Many thanks. I'll start from here. Katarina