Can I track keywords using my own landing page?
If you’re running pay-per-click ads you obviously want to track your stats for each keyword. This is really easy to do whether you’re promoting your own products on your own site or you’re direct linking to an affiliate offer.
This guide covers the case where you have your own landing page which ultimately drives traffic to an affiliate network offer.
When you’re working with an affiliate network, you generally have two options you can use to track sales conversions: tracking pixels and Postback URLs. Tracking pixels are easier to set up than Postback URLs, but Postback URLs can be more accurate at times.
So, first choose which tracking option you need to use, then review the following the steps for tracking your keywords.
Option 1: Use a Conversion Tracking Pixel
If the affiliate network you’re working with allows you to add “tracking pixels” to record conversions, then the set up process is straightforward.
All you need to do is pass your keyword data to your incoming tracking link as explained in our guide on Tracking PPC Keywords, and then add ClickMagick’s Sales Tracking Pixel into your affiliate network.
Setting up tracking pixels is much easier than setting up Postback URLs (below), so use this approach if you can. You can read all about tracking pixels here:

|  | How do I track conversions using tracking pixels?

Option 2: Use a Postback URL or ClickBank’s Instant Notification URL
If your affiliate network doesn’t allow you to add tracking pixels, you’ll have to use a Postback URL to record your conversions. Postback URLs work great, but setting them up is a lot more technical. You can learn everything you need to know about Postback URLs here:

|  | How do I track conversions using Postback URLs?

Similarly, if you’re promoting ClickBank offers, they support a type of Postback URL that they call the “Instant Notification URL.” For ClickBank, follow these instructions to set up your URL:

|  | How do I set up a Postback URL with ClickBank?

How to Track Your Keywords
Step 1: Set up your keyword tracking
There are a few different parts to what you want to do.
The first part is to set up your keyword tracking, following the steps outlined in our keyword tracking guide here:

|  | How To Track Pay-Per-Click Keywords

Step 2: Pass `[clickid]` to your landing page
Every click that hits one of your tracking links has a unique click ID, and this unique ID is critical to tracking affiliate sales using Postback URLs.
If you’re using your own landing pages rather than direct linking, the key concept to understand is this:
In order for any of this to work, you need to pass the click ID from your incoming tracking link to your landing page, so that you can eventually pass this same click ID on to your affiliate link via your “call to action” link.
If you just set up a second tracking link for your call to action and try to use ClickMagick’s `[clickid]` token in THAT link, nothing will work properly because all of your keyword data is associated with the original click ID.
So the next step is to pass the click ID to your Primary URL using ClickMagick’s `[clickid]` token. Just modify your Primary URL so it looks exactly like this:
`http://www.yoursite.com/?s1=[clickid]`
If your URL already has a “?” in it, add the click ID using an “&” instead:
`http://www.yoursite.com/?some=value&s1=[clickid]`
Step 3: Add the necessary code to your page
The next step is to complete Step 1 in the FAQ below and add the necessary code to your landing page that will allow your page to “receive” the click ID and pass it on to your affiliate link in your “call to action”:

|  | Click here and follow ONLY Step 1

Again, just follow Step 1 in the link above and disregard the rest of the FAQ.
Important: If you have multiple pages or some type of “funnel” set up—as opposed to just one simple landing page—you will need to add the necessary code to ALL of your pages so the click ID will be available no matter how the user ends up at your final “call to action” link.
Step 4 (OPTIONAL): Update all the links in your funnel
If you have one simple landing page that links to your affiliate offer, you can skip this step.
Otherwise, you will need to update every link on all of your pages to ensure that the click ID is passed from page to page as the user navigates your site or funnel.
To do this, just add the following to all your links:
`http://www.somelink.com/?s1=[s1]`
If your URL already has a “`?`” character in it, use the “`&`” instead:
`http://www.somelink.com/?some=value&s1=[s1]`
Step 5: Pass ClickMagick’s Click ID to your affiliate link
The final step is to pass the click ID to your affiliate link.
We’ll assume you’re using a ClickMagick tracking link for this so you can track the number of people that click through to your offer, so just modify the tracking link in your “call to action” so it looks like this:
`http``://www.clkmg.com/$username/somelink/[s1]`
This will append the original click ID to your CTA tracking link as a Sub-ID, which you then pass on to your affiliate link (the Primary URL) like this:
`http://trkur.com/trk?o=1&p=1&s1=[s1]`
The key here is to make absolutely sure that you pass the Sub-ID to your affiliate link using the `[s1]` token in this case, and NOT the `[clickid]` token.
Finally, if you’re not sure how to pass Sub-IDs to your affiliate link, please see Step 1 of the guide below:

|  | How To Track Affiliate Sales With Postback URLs

At the bottom of this page you’ll also find information about the exact format you need to use depending on the specific affiliate network you’re working with.
And that’s all there is to it!
If you’re new to this stuff it might sound a bit technical, but it’s actually quite simple and straightforward if you just follow the steps. And it’s like anything else – once you do it, it’ll be easy the next time.