Introduction to the Basic Setup

Step 1
This is a very basic guide to setting up your tracking202 or prosper202 account. The objective is to walk you through the initial setup and help clarify any questions you might have in terms of how to set up your account starting with Step 1.

In Step 1, you're simply entering your promotion method. While it says pay-per-click networks, realistically this could be anything that you're promoting your affiliate links for. In the first half, if it's PPC network, you can enter Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter, Look Smart, Ask, Miva, etc... If it's social media, you can put Facebook, MySpace, Social Media, etc... If it's PPV or whatever else, enter your advertising network here. You can actually name it whatever you want even. Lets say you're promoting through Google Adwords, you can actually name it GA or whatever. This is merely for YOUR reference. As long as you can understand where the traffic is coming from, you can name it whatever you want.

In the second half, you would enter your username or account for the above. So for example, if I'm promoting through Google Adwords and my Adwords account is example@gmail.com, I would enter either example or example@gmail.com here. Again, this is merely for your reference so you can name it whatever you want. For simplicity sake, it's easiest to name it as is in both sections so that you don't end up confusing yourself.

Step 2

In this step, you simply enter your affiliate network. If you're working with any affiliate network such as CPA Valley, Commission Junction, Linkshare, etc... simply enter it here so you know where your commissions are coming from. Again, like in Step 1, this is also for your own reference and therefore, you can actually name it anything you want as long as you can reference it for your own purposes.

Step 3

If you've never used Tracking202 or Prosper202 before, this is the step most people have issues with when starting out. In this step, select the affiliate network from the drop down. This should be from the list of affiliate networks you've added from Step 2. Next, enter the campaign name you are promoting from this network. Again, name it whatever you want because this is for your reference. As always, it is much easier to name it like it is for simplicity sakes and for easy reference. On the third field, this is where you must be extremely careful. You must enter your affiliate link from your affiliate network here. Make sure that if your network requires a SubID syntax, it must be added at the end in addition to your affiliate link. If you don't do this, it could error your affiliate link or mess up the tracking. For reference to SubIDs and SubID syntax, please check the appropriate pages or both.

Step 4

This step is actually optional. If you're using direct linking, this step is not required. However if you're using a Simple Landing Page or an Advance Landing Page, this step is required. Please check the simple landing page or advance landing page for a more in-depth tutorial on proper set up.

Step 5

This step is actually optional as well. It allows you to track your text ads. A lot of people finding that replicating your text ads in Tracking202/Prosper202 to be too tedious so they choose to skip this step although I would recommend if you want to know which text ad converts, that this step is definitely worthwhile to do. What people don't realize is that you don't need to copy word for word what your actual text ad consists of in this step. Again this is for your reference and if you want to copy the exact text ad, you can, but you can also do whatever is easiest for you to reference back to the text ad that is converting for you.

Step 6

If you are using a landing page in Step 4, then this step is also required. If you're doing direct link, you can skip this step as well. Again, reference Simple Landing Page or an Advance Landing Page for more details.

Step 7

This is the step where you grab your destination URL to enter into the PPC network you are promoting through, the one from Step 1. Select the appropriate fields and proceed to grab your link. If you're using Google or MSN, be aware that you need to add an extra {keyword} syntax at the end for it to track keywords correctly. If you're using Yahoo, just make sure TrackingURLs is turned on in your Yahoo admin. If you're using some other method, make sure you check to see if they require any keyword syntax.

Step 8

This step is also purely optional. If you don't wish to update SubIDs to figure out what data works and what doesn't, simply give your pixel to your affiliate network to have leads auto-updated. Otherwise you will need to manually update SubIDs before leads show up in Tracking202/Prosper202. If your network does not support pixel tracking, SubIDs tracking is your only other alternative. If they do, this step is perfect for automated updates.

If you have any further questions, please refer to our Affiliate Marketing Forum.