Set up Direct Traffic Tracking

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Direct traffic tracking allows your team to track Partner-level traffic without the use of a tracking link.

Most click traffic tracking uses tracking links, embedded links in ads, logos, or text on Partner sites. Direct Traffic Tracking, however, identifies the source of consumer traffic arriving on your website without using a tracking link. Instead, information from the landing page URL or the referring URL identifies the source of the traffic.

Required: If you want to track events by using direct traffic, you’ll need the UTT and Identify Function tags or you’ll need to implement PageLoad API requests on every page of your website. If you are not currently using the UTT or PageLoad API and are interested in switching over, contact support to guide you through the migration process.

Set up direct traffic tracking

This feature is only accessible to specific impact.com editions or add-ons. Contact us to upgrade your account and get access!

1. From the left navigation menu, select [Engage] → Partners.

2. Hover your cursor over the partner whose traffic you want to view. Then select [More] Tracking → Direct Traffic Tracking.

3. Set up your Rules to identify the traffic. See the Identification rules reference for more information.

4. Select Save.

Identification rules explained

There are three ways to identify traffic—by Landing Page, by Referring URL, or by both. Each tracking method has a sub-section, and, depending on how your Partner’s traffic is recognized, you will need to set up rules to instruct impact.com on how to categorize the inbound traffic.

Each identification rule additionally requires a matching rule, so stricter or more lenient combinations can be set (e.g., contains, starts with, does not contain, etc.).

Landing Page reference

As a referring URL is not always available, setting up landing page rules instead is recommended. Many factors can hinder Using Referral URL Parameters.

Landing Page	Description
Landing Page URL	Identify traffic based on landing page URL or porting of it.
Landing Page Domain	If your program has multiple domains and a domain for each Partner, then make sure to set rules. • View the Rules reference table below for more information.
Landing Page Query String	Match by the parameter name only, regardless of the parameter value. For example, adding a link with a dynamic value, AID= , so you could match (exactly matches, contains, starts with, etc.) AID parameter name.
Landing Page Parameter	Use when the landing page parameter is a fixed name=value pair. For example, if you want to track when Partners send traffic to brand.com?partner=123, then input partner in the first box, select contains or exactly matches from the drop-down menu, then insert 123 the last box. impact.com also supports multiple values by separating the values with a comma (and regex queries).

Referring URL reference

Referring URL	Description
Referring URL	Configure the Partner traffic to be matched by the referring URL. Specify a list of comma-separated domains, or match part of the domain, using wildcard matching. For example, matching on the directory part of the URL - *.\/advertiser\.* or www.petercoupons.com/mysite/.
Referring Domain	For example, all traffic from petercoupons.com impact.com attributes to the Partner: Peter Coupons.
Referring Query String	Use when a specific parameter name is present in the referring URL. For example, adding a link with a dynamic value, AID=, so you could match (exactly matches, contains, starts with, etc.) AID parameter name.
Referring Parameter	Use when the Referring URL contains a specific name=value query string pair. For example, if you want to track when the Partners sends traffic to brandadvertiser.com?partner=123; then input partner in the first box, select contains or exactly matches from the [Drop-down menu], then and insert 123 the final box. impact.com also supports multiple values by separating the values with a comma (and regex queries).

Rules reference

If both landing page and referring URL domains are enabled, using the following for guidance on how to create a rule:

Rule	Description
AND	Requires a match of both the landing page and referring domain.
OR	This option is more flexible and allows for a match of either the landing page or referring domain. If "OR" is selected, the landing page method takes precedence in the case of any conflicts.

Test your direct tracking

To test your direct tracking setup, learn more about partner test accounts for brands.