All traffic is not created equal and we offer different tracking parameters that allow partners to quantify traffic at a very granular level. In particular, two parameters can provide very meaningful insights:

 

Campaign ID

Campaign ID is a required parameter but some partners underutilize it as a segmentation tool. Similar to how advertisers structure their search campaigns, you should use the Campaign ID field to create the organizational structure you need to optimize your account. 

 

There are a number of different ways to organize campaigns, such as by category, site pages or placements, keyword groupings, or various websites.

 

Once you’ve established the campaigns and created links, you’re able to run a Performance by Campaign report, which will return all of the metrics you need to optimize, including earnings. This report will provide insights into what campaigns are performing well and what campaigns need further optimization.

 

 

Custom ID

The Custom ID field provides a more granular view at the transactional level. This open form field can hold up to 256 alphanumeric characters.

 

You can use Custom IDs to track your traffic within a campaign or across multiple campaigns. For example, you might have a Campaign ID to identify the traffic from a particular website, but use a Custom ID to track traffic that specifically comes from the homepage.

 

Unique Custom IDs can be associated with each individual click, providing an extremely rich data set to help understand behavioral patterns. In particular, partners can begin to track specific user purchase behavior, so you’re able to target and segment users based on previous purchase history. You can find this information in the Performance by Custom ID report.

 

 

Transaction Detail Report

The Transaction Detail report provides you with transactional level data and includes both Campaign and Custom IDs. The report will help you optimize the quality of the traffic being driven to eBay, and provide visibility into the different campaigns driving new customers. Tracking the Custom ID in the Transaction Detail report provides transparency into which transactions are driving the highest earnings and in turn, your best rate of return.

 

Here are two examples of how to integrate these tracking parameters:

 

A coupons and deals website actively promotes the best deals on the hottest products across different categories. In an effort to optimize at the category level, it creates campaigns based on different eBay categories, such as electronics, fashion, or toys. Each time they create a new link, they assign the link to the appropriate campaign. By structuring their campaigns in this manner, they can run reports to discover which categories perform best, based on key performance indicators like earnings and conversion. To take it one step further, Custom IDs can also be created to identify a specific promotion. The combined campaign and custom ID data will provide the full picture of the category that performs well with deals and how the specific deal performed for your user base.

 

A partner manages a number of different blogs that focus on how to buy and sell dolls. The blogs are managed in a single account so they could create a different campaign for each website they operate in order to segment them. This campaign structure allows them to understand performance on each site through a single partner account. Additionally, they can use the Custom ID field to classify unique segments, such as site placement, or unique item identifiers like brand or seller. Through the Transaction Detail report, they’ll be able to see how the various items perform across the different blogs.