Why has my referred sale not tracked?

Whilst Webgains has a very low number of untracked sale enquiries among the major networks due to our 1st party cookie resilient tracking, occasionally there can be cases where a sale may not track.

Reasons could include:

• Last-Click Attribution

  • As per industry standard, Webgains operate on a last-click attribution model. This means that the publisher who had the last-click referral for the customer prior to them making a purchase will be awarded the commission. This means if a user clicked through your tracking link, but then clicked through another publisher’s tracking link afterwards, then the sale is attributed to the second publisher as they had the last-click referral.

• Removal/Altering of the Webgains Tracking Code

  • If the Webgains tracking has been removed from the advertiser website, or caused to break in some way, we are then unable to successfully track a conversion. Webgains advise advertisers to inform us as soon as possible if they are making any website changes that could impact their tracking code.

• De-Duplication

  • If the advertiser has De-Duplication in place; if the sale was made through another marketing channel then the transaction may not be attributed/tracked to Webgains.

• Tracking Link Break

  • Should the tracking link or link redirect journey be altered with in a way that breaks the redirect to the advertiser’s site, this could result in the redirect breaking or our link parameters not loading as they should, which are imperative for the Webgains cookie to set. For this reason, it’s important to use our tracking link according to guidelines / using our Deep Link Creator in the platform.

• Cookie Consent

  • If the customer Declines the cookie consent banner on an advertiser’s site, this prevents cookie tracking from taking place and can mean Webgains is unable to track the conversion.

• Cookie Window Expired

  • The default cookie window for Webgains programs is 30 days. This means that if a customer clicks through a tracking link (and our cookie drops), we will track a valid purchase if it is made in a 30 day period.

• Cookies Deleted

  • Similar to above; if the customer deletes their cookies, it can prevent Webgains being able to successfully track the conversion.

• Adblockers

  • This is generally quite uncommon as Webgains resilient tracking is equipped to manage the effects of adblocking software, however in a small % of cases adblockers could block certain data in the conversion script necessary for us to successfully track a conversion.

If you find a sale has not tracked in Webgains, where you believe that a valid purchase was made through your tracking link referral, you can raise a Transaction Enquiry to the program. For more information on this, view here: How can I upload untracked/missed transactions?