Setup

Getting started with Click Forensics is easy. Our goal is to get you up and running quickly. The configuration is extremely flexible, so no matter how your systems are set up, you can be sure you'll get the accurate data you need to mitigate your click fraud risk. Please select a link to get started. If at any time you need additional help, please contact your Implementation Engineer.

Server Log Configuration

The preferred Click Forensics method of data collection is though the analysis of your web server logs. The interface is very flexible and allows for the analysis of various log formats and transfer methods. These logs are sent to Click Forensics nightly via a secure FTP or SCP connection. Logs can either be pushed to the Click Forensics servers or pulled from your servers. This flexibility ensure minimal implementation time so you can get started optimizing your ad campaigns right away. For any questions regarding your unique log setup and transfer configuration, please contact your Click Forensics Implementation Engineer.

The typical Click Forensics data collection method is as follows:

When a visitor lands on your site, his or her browser makes requests for the content on your website (pictures, files, videos, etc) which is stored on your server. Your server, in turn, sends the requested information back to the browser. A record of all these requests is created and stored on the server in a web server log. The web server log for that day is then sent to Click Forensics for analysis. Please see Click Forensics Data Collection Methods for more information.

Campaign Settings

The Campaign Advisor feature of Click Forensics allows you to pinpoint trouble spots which may be reducing your return on ad spend. For maximum functionality, you'll want to know the ad provider, keyword, and campaign name associated with each of your paid clicks. Click Forensics collects this information from parameters in the URL of your campaign landing pages. Work with your Implementation Engineer to set up your campaigns in the Click Forensics system.

In order to classify a paid click and attribute it to an ad provider, the paid click landing page URL must contain unique ad provider identifiers. Whenever the Click Forensics system spots one of these identifiers, it counts it as a paid click and attributes it to the appropriate ad provider.

For example, let's say Walt's Widgets is starting a keyword ad campaign on Google & Yahoo. This campaign highlights the summer sale Walt's Widgets is having. The landing page for the summer sale is www.waltswidget.com/summersale. Visitors arriving on that page via a Google paid click will land on a page with the following URL: www.waltswidgets.com/summersale?kw=widgets&gclid=23hafs8wn867s

In this case, the provider identifier is "gclid=" and the keyword identifier is "kw=". Since Google attaches the unique Click ID "gclid" to each paid click, and no other ad provider uses the parameter "gclid", Click Forensics will be able to map this landing page to a Google paid campaign. Similarly, the "kw" parameter identifies the word or phrase the visitor searched on which brought them to your paid search landing page.

For Walt's Widgets campaign on Yahoo, their landing page will look like www.waltswidgets.com/summersale?OVKEY=widgets&OVADID=948t7yq3esdgf

Yahoo automatically puts the OVKEY and OVADID parameters on their paid click landing page URLS, and since no other ad provider uses the parameters OVKEY or OVADID, any instances of these parameters can be attributed to a paid click from Yahoo.

Page Tag Setup

The preferred method of data collection for Click Forensics customers is through the analysis of web server log records. However, when this setup isn't available, Click Forensics has the ability to gather information through the use of javascript tags placed in the base HTML of your page code. This setup is similar to most web analytics data collection methods. The javascript stanza is as follows:

<!-- Start CFN Code Block -->

<script language="javascript">

var adId = 'na';

</script>

<script language="javascript" 

src="http://tagiq.clickforensics.com/tag1.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script language="vbscript"

src="http://tagiq.clickforensics.com/tag2.vbs" type="text/vbscript"></script>

<script language="javascript"

src="http://tagiq.clickforensics.com/tag3.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<noscript>

<img src="http://tagiq.clickforensics.com/tag.exe?action=noscript" alt="" />

</noscript>

<!-- End CFN Code Block -->

This code block should be added to your page source as close to the end of the body as possible. If you need any assistance in adding this tag to your pages, please contact your Click Forensics Implementation Engineer.