experiment - can I track this?

I have two web sites. Since my conversion is not to my liking I have decided on a little experiment.
I converted one (lesser visited site into a sales letter) with a back-page full site. (To support some legacy links and cached links) In other words the index page is only a sales page and the reader can go back to the "original site" by clicking on a link at the end of the sales page.

The reason for this is my doubts regarding the sales page versus informational site argument. Many sites pretend (must say rather poorly) to be informational and their whole message is bogus. Sometimes a pure sales site is more honest than a bogus "infomercial" type-site.
The question is besides the obvious argument I may be getting IS - how can I track this? My sales is done by 1shoppingcart (as well as my affiliate program)
I ask the shopper where he found me... but he/she is under obvious no obligation to answer. How can I tell what site a sales is made if I use an ASP?




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Andras -

> I may be getting IS - how can I track this?
> My sales is done by 1shoppingcart (as well
> as my affiliate program)

If I understand correctly, 1shoppingcart has some *excellent* tracking tools. Unfortunately, since I don't use them, I don't know how to tell you to go about using them. I do know that Alex Mandossian speaks *very* highly of them. The point is this. You *should* be able to track it with them. If not, you might have to put some tracking links in place to handle it. I can recommend a free one if you're interested.

> I ask the shopper where he found me... but
> he/she is under obvious no obligation to
> answer. How can I tell what site a sales is
> made if I use an ASP?

I need some clarification here. I know what an ASP is but I want to see what your definition is. To me, an ASP is an application service provider. An ASP simply hosts an application (or many applications) on a server and the users each have an account that allows them to have their own data separate from all other users. I suppose 1shoppingcart could be considered an ASP in the strictest sense of the word and I don't suppose it matters all that much. I just want to be clear on terms. Again, the tracking would get back to what I stated before.

Rick Smith, "The Net Guerrilla"

Thanks for the response. According to their own(1shoppingcart.com) description they are an Application Service Provider.
I will just use a different product for each site and code it accordingly. I was just rambling on. Mainly still trying to figure out if my approach was worth the trouble....
> Andras -

> If I understand correctly, 1shoppingcart has
> some *excellent* tracking tools.
> Unfortunately, since I don't use them, I
> don't know how to tell you to go about using
> them. I do know that Alex Mandossian speaks
> *very* highly of them. The point is this.
> You *should* be able to track it with them.
> If not, you might have to put some tracking
> links in place to handle it. I can recommend
> a free one if you're interested.

> I need some clarification here. I know what
> an ASP is but I want to see what your
> definition is. To me, an ASP is an
> application service provider. An ASP simply
> hosts an application (or many applications)
> on a server and the users each have an
> account that allows them to have their own
> data separate from all other users. I
> suppose 1shoppingcart could be considered an
> ASP in the strictest sense of the word and I
> don't suppose it matters all that much. I
> just want to be clear on terms. Again, the
> tracking would get back to what I stated
> before.

> Rick Smith, "The Net Guerrilla"

Andras -

> Thanks for the response. According to their
> own(1shoppingcart.com) description they are
> an Application Service Provider.

Interesting. I suspect this is not the definition most people think of when they think of an ASP. I suspect they would think of 1shoppingcart as a shopping cart provider. I know I would.

> I will just use a different product for each
> site and code it accordingly. I was just
> rambling on. Mainly still trying to figure
> out if my approach was worth the trouble....

Using a different code for each product is one way to do it. And John Reese says it's worth it. He says you should track *everything*. Just don't lose site of the goal (like I did). I got so busy putting tracking links in place that I forgot that tracking is worthless if your message is in front of the wrong market.

Rick Smith, "The Net Guerrilla"

Hi Rick,

> Using a different code for each product is
> one way to do it. And John Reese says it's
> worth it. He says you should track
> *everything*.

I've become a believer in this too. Once I started looking more closely at the tracking data, I became surprised by what I saw. Knowing as much as possible definitely helps you to market online more effectively.

> Just don't lose site of the
> goal (like I did). I got so busy putting
> tracking links in place that I forgot that
> tracking is worthless if your message is in
> front of the wrong market.

Well, at least once you have a "system" of tracking in place, you can tweak and experiment with things, and see what kind of effect it has on your sales.

By the way, there's also a wealth of information in your log files.

My web site provider used to delete the last week's log file, whenever a new weekly log file was started.

After talking to my web site provider's help personnel, they now rename last week's log file, so last week's log file persists for a week before it's overwritten (so I have time to analyze it).

If you're not analyzing your web site log files, I recommend you start to analyze them. The information of how people are using your web site will help you to make your web site better for your customers (and more effective too).

- Dien Rice