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(38) Comments... Have Your Say! ~ February 8th, 2008
Tracking202.com is an advanced affiliate marketing tracking system that has a ton of features. Track converting keywords, PPC accounts, affiliate accounts, profit graphs, and much more. The best part about this? It’s free.
I’m friends with the founder, Wes Mahler, and can vouch that he’s a cool guy. If you create a free account and log in, you’ll see all that Tracking202 has to offer. If you click on the “Overview” tab, you’ll see what would be a nice overview of your affiliate stats plus a nice chart (I love charts).
I can’t even begin to describe all of the different options you have to choose from. Tons of different graphs showing you whatever you want, from EPCs to IP addresses. They have keyword analysis as well which we all know is key. They also have something called Spy View, which they describe :
Spy is a live view of visitors interacting with your affiliate campaigns.
It looks like it refreshes every 5 seconds or so and shows what live visitors on your sites are doing. Kind of a useless tool but pretty cool. They also have their own Feedreader built into the site which is a decent addition. If you’re confused as to how to navigate around and import all of your data, they have a nice selection of videos that walks you through the process step-by-step.
All these good things about the software but now onto the bad. The only bad point which Wes points out himself in a lengthy post, is that Tracking202 hosts all of the data. Which means as much as they tell you they’re not going to steal any of your data - they still have access to it.
It’s the main point that Wes talks about in his post (I actually didn’t have enough patience to read the whole thing haha), so he obviously knows it. I knew about T202 a long time ago, and wanted to test and post about it, but there’s no way I was uploading my account data into somebody else’s server.
What do I think Wes should do? I think he’s got a great product on his hands that a lot of people would have use for, but wouldn’t use now due to privacy issues. I would keep it in public beta for another month or so and get some more feedback. Then I’d make it private again then write a self hosted version and sell it for $500 a copy - it would be well worth it.
Of course when he does that I’m going to demand 5% of the revenue for such a great idea :p.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Well, if you use Google Analytics all your data is on somebody else’s server. :-)
And naturally they use these data items.
Thanks for the tip nevertheless.
Martin
February 9th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Unfortunately Google is a necessary evil. Hard to do big business without big G. Nothing necessary about this though.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I was also wondering what all different this is providing than Google analytics.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:57 am
Yeah, agreed there is no way I’m handing over my info. If he makes it a $500 load onto your own server product then I consider it.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:58 am
This thing looks pretty cool! But the privacy issues will definitely keeping it from becoming something that everyone is using, oh well. I will give it a shot I suppose tho.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:10 am
[...] Original post by SUP3RNOVA [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 1:23 am
I’ve been a friend of Wes for a while, and been through the whole development cycle of T202.
Wes certainly is a cool guy and his dedication to this service is beyond ridiculous. Every time I visit, there’s a new feature or a change.
I can understand the angle you guys are coming at with the whole privacy issue. Give it a shot, that self hosted version might be around the corner!
Cool to see T202 on UA
Peace,
D
February 8th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Wow, thanks Paul for the exposure. Totally unexpected, in a good way! Thanks alot, I owe you one, I’m going to get your blog in the top index of our resources section its not live yet but it will be on next updated. The least I can do to help you out, Appreciate it!
February 8th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Nothing is “free” and somehow I think this service will cost you something.
People either build applications to sell the service themselves and make an income or in the hopes of being bought out for some outragous fortune.
Wes may be a trustworthly guy, but what happens when the app gets bought out by someone with a ton of cash and no morals?
You guessed it…All those niche affiliate campaigns that you have been banking on suddenly have greater competition. Hmmm, wonder why?
February 8th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Are you familiar with the concept of “advertising”
Youtube offers a free service
Any form you go to is free
Brightcove, ooyala: free
lots of stuff is free to the user and the webmaster earns from advertising….
February 8th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
You are right, I was too general when I said nothing is free… I use Eclipse, PHP and MySQL. Those are all free and good tools.
My primary comments was “People either build applications to sell the service themselves and make an income or in the hopes of being bought out for some outragous fortune.”
Youtube is a perfect example of building an app to get bought out. And it did, Google bought it for a fortune.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I agree, to use this service it would have to take a private standalone install of if on my server.
Yes we use GA but its a little different, we know Google isn’t going to start affiliate marketing and use all of our stats against us nor is there any chance that they will get bought out down the road.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:37 am
If you make this a hosted version, I’ll buy it.
:)
February 8th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Hrm, I’ll check it out!
February 8th, 2008 at 8:55 am
For these kind of stats, I can only trust something hosted on my own server. Will buy a copy of self-hosted version.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:14 am
So basically if I create an account with this service I am giving all my data to them??
No thanks
February 8th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Yeah I made a post over there regarding the issue of security. While Wes does seems like a trusthworthy individual, it seems that while there are those who still charge forth with trying out the service, there’s still a sense of “use at your own risk” feeling when I’m on there. But still, its definitely something worth checking out. And I agree with Paul, it would be in Wes’s best interest to make this a standalone product and market it…
February 8th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Hey Paul… Cool Service, but I too share the others concerns.
What do you use for tracking and reporting? GA??
February 8th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
A related product is Affmeter for $99.
Rosalind Gardner talked about it recently on her blog.
http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/save-time-consolidate-your-affiliate-stats-with-affmeter/
I have NOT tried it, myself, so unsure of the similarities or features.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Privacy is certainly a concern, on the other hand this does look like a fantastic web app.
I love the idea of tracking conversions, in one place, right down to keywords without having to get pixels added to every offer.
Is there anything else out there that does this kind of stuff, but is available as a self hosted version?
February 8th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Yeah XConversions does something similar and its self hosted.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Friends with Wes as well and i use T202 as well (I even wrote some of the copy for parts of the site :) ). It’s a great software and i can assure you wes is not stealing your keywords.
To give a great example i just started testing a campaign and i put in lots of general keywords. T202 showed me that one of the was converting 30% of the time. Now i’m paying 15 cents a click to get a top 3 position for this keyword and i get $3.00 a lead. My EPC on the click is 84 cents and my ROI is 371%. T202 told me all this…
needless to say it also told my my crappy keywords so i cut those and after 3 days my net is going up every day.
So if you are too paranoid to use it you’re missing out….
February 9th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Look, it may produce pretty graphics and good analytics, but anyone who does this for a living knows its simply out of the question.
Sorry, but this is just a nonstarter. As mentioned above, it’s a privacy thing. That’s the deal breaker.
February 8th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
The privacy issue is really big with this since there is so much incentive to use the data for their own affiliate marketing.
It’s kind of like your broker taking the other side of your trades. This happens a lot and makes Wall Street a bunch of dough.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
*cough* yeah right *cough* data *cough* data *cough*
February 9th, 2008 at 6:04 am
way to copy scott, paul. waffles.
February 9th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Oh please! Give me an effin break. How naive do you have to be?
Of course he’s going to steal your data. He’s a struggling affiliate marketer. Just read his blog. I wouldn’t trust him with my data. Pretty nice scam for those gullible enough to join. He can collate stolen data and have instant access to scaled data across the board. Makes it easy to find profitable niches and keywords. I don’t trust Google with my data, why would I trust him?
Smart money will steer clear.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Just b/c all you guys are shady and would steal someone’s data in a second if you had the chance, doesn’t mean everyone else is like that.
If wes HAS been stealing my data over the past 1.5 months (which he hasn’t), it sure has not affected my campaigns in any was as ALL my ROI’s are going up weekly in T202…
Like i said, just b/c you guys are shady f***ers who would steal data to get rich if given a chance, doesn’t mean everyone else is…
February 9th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Marc I have to be honest with you, my campaigns have been doing quite poorly lately, I almost slipped off one thousand a week, weekly wires. But I wouldn’t say it is because I struggle at affiliate marketing in general, I’m not a super affiliate, but its more just because when your developing a website, it takes a tremendous amount of effort and focus on that, and a required loss of focusing on something else.
Ross brings up a good point, I believe in at the end of the day you would be able to tell if T202 was taking your data because if someone was to copy your exact keywords, text ads, and landing page you would almost “instantly” in the course of day or two notice a significant drop in volume. I think it would be pretty obvious, and it would be seen. Of course this could still occur naturally by other competitors coming into the marketplace, I think if someone was abusing the system it would just become plain obvious very quickly.
Marc I’m unsure how to reply to your comment that I appear to be a struggling affiliate marketer, and that is why I might do what is unethical and take advantage of everyone’s data. I mean wouldn’t it appear worse if I was just *killing it (for lack of better words)? And my affiliate income had skyrocketed from the last 6 month people have been using T202?
February 10th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Wes,
I’m sure you’re fine guy. The problem is temptations are great and you have no verifiable means of insuring customers that you don’t use their data. Essentially the burden of proof is on you. I’m not being personal here either. I wouldn’t trust any other company either. Affiliate networks have already done a good job proving to me they are untrustworthy, but like G they are necessary evil.
I think a hosted version is the only way to ensure user privacy.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Looks cool, but I will never give my data.
By the way..The lay-out looks a lot liked the Linkedin.com lay-out. A little to much if you ask me…
February 9th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I think the site is great; both functionality and design are superb. I would instantly sign up if it wasn’t for the fact that they store all my campaign info. That info is just far too sensitive. I’m sure they could find a way to fix it, no?
-Dave
February 9th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Hey Dave,
We are currently discussing self-hosted options, but there is a lot of PROs and CONs for everyone to consider. Although it may appear easy to make the decision to run a self-hosted one, it is lot of though before making that kind of decision. Everyone is aware of the bootlegging of products, and software, and T202 would ultimately be bootlegged, it isn’t really a question, all software is bootlegged so we really just have to understand what exactly might pan out if we choose such a route. If we do though, it won’t be anytime soon, it it does start going into development it would be about 6 months, to a year from now.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
typo:
if* it does start going into development it would be about 6 months, to a year from now.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:35 am
[...] long ago I read a great post on UberAffiliate blog. The post was about PPC affiliate tracking software offered by Tracking202.com. The site is [...]
April 29th, 2008 at 1:41 am
[...] wenn da nicht das problem mit der datensicherheit wäre: niemand möchte einem unbekannten unternehmen, das zudem diesen dienst kostenlos anbietet, seine erfolgreichsten kampagnen und keywords verraten. einen weiterführenden artikel findet sich bei uberaffiliate. [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
This software seems really nice. I know that Paul says he uses a custom in house program any bets it this program hosted on his server.?
May 29th, 2008 at 11:19 am
[...] Alright yeah yeah it’s a little play on words, but 202 is the place to be in you’re an affiliate marketer. If you remember a while ago I posted about the launch of Tracking202. [...]