Tracking

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Canman
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Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 2:18 pm

Tracking

Post by Canman »

Suppose I have a mailing list and a database of everyone subscribed to the mailing list. How would I keep track of who clicked on a link from the email?

I'm looking to have a database with all the information and who has been clicking,

The most important issue is to find a way to distinguish the refferals,

such as Dave Smith, with email dsmith@mail.com clicks on the link, i'm looking for a way to assign a variable with the unique information, or put it into a mysql table.

I was thinking script.php?name=id1


The script being what would proccess all the info. I was tring to figure out if I could store the refferals, and line each id up with the subscriber, I also tried using $PHP_SELF and assigning it to a variable. But the ?name=id1
doesn't carry over.

I am not an expert programmer by any means, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
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Dr Evil
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Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:56 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by Dr Evil »

My company often sends out massive newsletters for one of our clients.
We actually track each link on the mail.
As we send out 400'000+ mails we cannot track every user and we also find this too intrusive. But our method could be reused.

We "dress" each link as follows:

Code: Select all

tracking.php?linknumber=1&newsletter=3&page=index.html
you could add &user=dsmith@mail.com to this.

Your tracking.php page will then:
1- update a table with all links (do +1 on the line) this is useful for general statistics (this is what we do)
2- update the user table and add a 1 in the newsletter3 column on the dsmith@mail.com line.
3- redirect to the index.html page.

I can explain more if this is unclear! Unfortunately our code is in aspx and I don't have access to it.

Dr Evil
qads
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Location: Brisbane

Post by qads »

i am not likeing these types of posts on these forums, they seem to be showing up quite often now days(so is spam), any spammer can use this information to confirm that his/her dam email has been viewed and its a valid address, no longer he/she needs to wait for a 'leave me alone you lazy mother lover' email to confirm its a valid email address, we dont have to click on a link to send a confirmation to them, a simple image link with <img src="www.spamerdomain.com/image.jpg?id=X"> would confirm your email....

can we set up some guide lines for these type of posts? (asking mods/admins), a guide for people to see how such posts be replied?, maybe only give them information after seeing some proof of what they plan to do with it, normal people would use it on their website for example..

i am not pointing fingers or anything at all canman, hope you understand..
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Dr Evil
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Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:56 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by Dr Evil »

Good point there!

On the other hand we are not giving out top-secret info. It is available anywhere on the web.

As long as SPAMmers are not prosecuted it is up to ISPs and users to filter such mail and never click on any links. Even without tracking, this shows interest and interest is the first thing a spammer is looking for as it leads to conversion.

If all users were to stop buying from unsollicited mail, SPAM would stop down immediately.

This is an attempt to be objective not to protect or excuse any SPAMmers.

Dr Evil
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Dr Evil
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Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:56 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by Dr Evil »

Canman picked up the info and left !
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