Using Marketing Source Codes
What’s a source code? A source code is a special code attached to a url that can be tracked from the point where a customer enters your storefront, through all the pages they visit, and all the way to the cart. A source code tells you how the customer landed on your site.
By adding the source code to the end of the links you put on a Web site where you advertise, you can determine what advertising efforts brought a customer to your storefront and how many customers actually made a purchase, which in turn allows you to gauge the effectiveness of all your advertising campaigns.
Creating Source Codes
The Reseller Control Center has been set up with a Marketing Source Code tool and report. To create your source codes, click on Marketing Source Codes under Marketing Tools. Next, there are three steps: adding Vendors, adding Campaigns and adding specific Source Codes.
Vendors are the companies you choose to advertise with, like search engines where you pay for search advertising, Web sites where you have banner advertising, newsletters where you advertise, Web sites you exchange links with, etc.
Campaigns are specific items you are advertising, such as domains, the $1.99 domain offer, SSL certificates, hosting, etc. You may have several campaigns with a single vendor. For example, I may buy banner advertising on one particular Web site, but display banners for both domains and SSL certificates. This would be two campaigns under one vendor.
Source Codes are the actual codes you create and associate with a campaign. The codes should be meaningful and include the offer and/or date and/or vendor. But, they can only be 10 characters long. An example source code might be "FTE1509GGL". This stands or Fax Thru Email, 15% off 24-month purchase, September, Google Search. Since the source code is limited in length and is somewhat cryptic, there is a description field in the Reseller Control Center to help you identify exactly what your specific source codes mean.
Source Code Reports
The Reseller Control Center has a reporting tool so you can see the exact activity on any particular source code. The report can be found under My Reports -> Marketing Source Code Report. This report lets you view all your source codes by date range, or sort by a specific Vendor, Campaign or Source Code.
The report displays the source code and the associated number of orders, total revenue earned, number of hits, number of new and repeat customers, and total number of customers. It also displays Hits Per Acquisition (HPA), which is the average number of hits per source code.
The information found in this report will help you determine the effectiveness of your offers and your most profitable links or advertising campaigns.
Adding Source Codes to Custom Pages
Now you know how to use source codes to track your advertising on your template storefront pages. But what about your custom pages? What if you create a super-cool custom page to link to from a banner ad and want to track that advertising? No problem!
For links going to custom pages, add this code to the end of your url:
?isc=YourSourceCode
For links going to your template pages, add this code to the end of your url:
&isc=YourSourceCode
Add this code to each of our custom pages, before the <html> tag:
<% Session("isc") = Request.QueryString("isc") %>
Add this code at the end of each link from your custom page to any other page in your Web site, both custom and template page:
&isc=<%=Session("isc")%>
Here are examples of links I use for my Web site (this web site is no longer available on the Internet):
Link from my blog to my custom home page:
http://www.domain-horse.com?isc=blogLink from my custom home page to one of my template pages: https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/hosting/landing.asp?prog_id=domainhorse&ci=1782&se=%2B&isc=<%=Session("isc")%>
Link from my custom home page to another custom page:
http://www.domain-horse.com/horse-clinics.asp?isc=<%=Session("isc")%>
These links let me pass source codes from other Web sites to my custom or template storefront pages, and back and forth between my custom and template pages.
(Note: This is for asp pages. Similar logic applies for php pages.)
Using Source Codes with Express Email Marketing®
You received a free Express Email Marketing account with the purchase of your reseller plan. Over the last couple months we’ve added templates to Express Email Marketing that correspond with specific products available from your storefront and promotions you may opt in to in the Reseller Control Center. These templates can be found in Express Email Marketing by clicking Email Designer -> Create Email Campaign and then selecting Reseller Announcement from the drop-down menu labeled Campaign Type.
These templates are ready to go as-is. Or, you can edit them to fit your niche market or customer base. If you are using the Marketing Source Code tool in the Reseller Control Center, you can also add those codes in your email. Here’s how:
Let’s use the $3.99 domain offer template as an example. There are few places where you need to delete or edit the default code in the template. First, select the template and click next so you are in Edit mode in Express Email Marketing. Next, click the HTML tab at the bottom of the editor. Then add your source code to two links: the Search Now button and the “act now” text link at the end of the message. (It may help to Preview the template so you can visually see the links you are going to edit.)
To add your source code to the Search Now button link, preview the template, right-click on the image and select Properties. This will tell you the image name. Now search for that image name in the HTML of the template. The link for that button will be just before the image and should look like this:
<A class="" title="" href="https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/registrar/search.asp?prog_id={{Reseller.ProgID.1}}" target=_blank>
Replace {{Reseller.ProgID.1}} with your Prog_ID. If you don’t remember your Prog_ID, you can find it in the Reseller Control Center under My Settings -> Account Access.
Next, add &isc=YourSourceCode to the end of that url, just in front of the last set of quotes. For my storefront, this is what the url would look like:
<A class="" title="" href="https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/registrar/search.asp?prog_id=domainhorse&isc=MySourceCode" target=_blank>
To add your source code to the “act now” text link, search for “Hurry” (the text just before the link) in the HTML. After the word “Hurry” you will see:
{{.COM Domain Name Registration - 1 Year.LandingPage}}
Delete this code and replace it with:
<A class="" title="" href="https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/registrar/search.asp?prog_id=YourProg_ID&isc=YourSourceCode" target=_blank>act now</a>
That’s it! Your source code will now follow through to your template pages from your email campaign and you’ll be able to track sales revenue from that campaign through the Marketing Source Codes Report in the Reseller Control Center. You can edit the other templates in a similar fashion.
Too complicated? Don’t worry. We’re in the process of integrating the source code feature into Express Email Marketing in a much simpler fashion. But for those of you who are comfortable using HTML and editing the code, this is a way you can get started using source codes within your email marketing efforts now.
Problem we found is that SYSTEM ENTRIES CANNOT BE DELETED from the system. Discontinued Campaigns, Vendors and Source Codes get cluttered with active entries. The INABILITY TO DELETE ENTRIES (once created) makes it difficult to manage the relevant data.
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Thanks for the tip. Express Email Marketing is great but the opt-in is a problem. Especially if you already manage an existing list.
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I hope to be able to apply Source Code in the future. It seems a little complex for me since I am just starting out.
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