What is a Tracking Pixel
Tracking pixels also referred to as marketing pixels, are hidden images that allow web analytics tracking, such as user behavior, conversion, and web traffic. These pixel-sized graphic files (not actual images) are embedded into your email’s or website’s HTML code and serve as a holding place for an external URL (HTML image tag) that leads to the tracking pixel server. Upon visiting a site or clicking on a banner, your browser tries to load this external URL and open the hidden image. This action is recorded in the server´s log files, which allows for various information about the visitors to be transmitted and used to improve the customer experience.
Tracking pixels and cookies are both used to track users’ activity and collect personal data for marketing purposes, so they are often used simultaneously. The main differences between them are how and where the users’ data is stored.
Pixel Tracking in Post Affiliate Pro
Pixel tracking is usually used when JavaScript tracking is not possible or preferable. From the cookie point of view, pixel tracking is less efficient. It can’t use the 1st and 3rd-party cookies and HTML 5 local storage at the same time. Pixel tracking can only use either 3rd-party cookies (if the Post Affiliate Pro domain name is NOT the same as your eCommerce domain) or 1st-party cookies (if the Post Affiliate Pro domain name is identical to your eCommerce domain).
For accurate affiliate tracking, you will need to create 3rd-party cookies on your Post Affiliate Pro domain. But be careful, some browsers block their creation.
For example, if you open yourwebsitehere.com the browser will block the creation of yourwebsitehere.postaffiliatepro.com cookies. Because of this, it is better to use redirect or mod_rewrite links with the pixel tracking method. These links send the visitor directly to yourwebsitehere.com, which creates a 1st-party cookie that will not be blocked by the browser.
Benefits of Pixel Tracking
- You do not need access to the website’s source code. All you need is the option to insert an HTML code. Some CMS/eCommerce systems don´t allow adding JavaScript or PHP, this is where you turn to the pixel tracking method.
- It does NOT need JavaScript.
- Easy to set up, you just add it as an HTML image to your website.
- If implemented properly, pixel tracking can help optimize your digital ad campaign, increase online conversions, and build your audience base.
- This method of tracking is beneficial for brands, SEO specialists, email senders, and website operators because the generated information can help improve their online offers and make their sites more user-friendly.
- Pixel tracking brings benefits to the parts of your affiliate marketing such as website personalization, improved newsletters, and ad targeting.
- With the information collected from pixel tracking, you can make data-driven decisions to focus your budget and efforts on places that drive the most traffic and sales.
Affiliate marketing and Pixel Tracking
A tracking pixel provides information about affiliate links, ad impressions, sales conversions, website visits, and any other type of web activity. Based on the collected data in your Post Affiliate Pro account, you can see where you are going wrong, how to improve your affiliate campaigns, and how to optimize your expenses.
