ShareASale continuously iterates on its tracking solutions in order to keep up with the constant evolution of consumer behavior alongside changes in the browser’s privacy policies. ShareASale merchants are required to upgrade to the latest tracking solution to ensure all valid referrals get tracked for publishers to earn commissions.
ShareASale's tracking consists of five core elements which are described below:
- The Journey Tag, or better known as the MasterTag, is a JavaScript library containing all functions required for our tracking solution and should unconditionally be appended to every page of the (merchant’s) site. This is used to identify and create First-Party Cookie. This means that the MasterTag allows our merchants to drop the cookie on the user’s device themselves, which helps to ensure cookies aren’t blocked by internet security software. Third-party cookies are much more likely to be blocked. This is particularly important now browsers are moving towards blocking third-party cookies as a standard. The MasterTag is also required to implement some of our more advanced tacking solutions, such as Cookieless coupon tracking and Cross-Device Tracking.
- Conversion Tag, often referred to as Javascript tracking, captures the information about the customer's sale. It allows the correct commission group to populated and the correct commission to be paid. A merchant is able to add additional parameters to track further information should they wish. For example, a travel brand may want to track the length of the customers stay.
- Fallback Conversion Tag, better known as the Image Pixel, is in place as a backup to the Javascript Tracking. In the event that the Javascript tracking fails, the Image Pixel will still record all of the sale information to ensure tracking is not lost. The image pixel contains information such as Order Ref, Commission Group, ShareASale click ID and Sale Amount.
- Server-to-Server (S2S) tracking is a method of tracking conversions whereby the merchant's servers directly communicate with ShareASale’s servers to forward conversion data. In the case of S2S, tracking is fully independent of browsers – therefore the ability of adblocking software stopping ShareASale tracking conversions is avoided. This contrasts with the traditional tracking methods that are triggered in a user’s browser and can be subject to being blocked by ITP and other adblocking means.
- Product Level Tracking is an optional addition to the four elements above. It allows a merchant to capture basket information and report on different products.
In addition to ensuring sales track correctly following browsers’ privacy restrictions, ShareASale’s full tracking suite grants access to all existing ShareASale tools such as cross-device tracking, cross-channel assists and coupon attribution as well as access to third-party technology solutions from publishers such as the conversion rate optimization technology. Overall we see more sales more accurately tracked through our complete tracking suite.