Use StatPress To Track EPN Clicks
If you are using phpBay Pro and WordPress to build your sites, there is a neat little plugin that will track what items your visitors are clicking on when they are taken to eBay.
It's called StatPress and you can get it here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/statpress/
This plugin will track many things. Such as where your visitors came from, the path they took through your site, etc. Now you need to be aware that it may not always be 100% accurate as some data does not always coincide with Google Analytics, however it gives you a fair snapshot of the activity in general on your site.
This past week one of the phpBay forum members noticed that in addition to everything else, it was tracking what eBay item a visitor clicked on your site.
The information you can pull from this is invaluable. If you see that many of the same items are being clicked on, you could create a page or pages targeting only that product or variations therof. You may also want to create more content for the item to draw in more search engine traffic. There are numerous ways you can use this data.
Of course, this will only work for WordPress users. If you are creating sites on any other platform like BANS, StoreStacker, etc. this plugin will not work. It is only for WordPress users. I just wanted to make that clear.
I have not tested this, but I have a feeling that it will only track EPN clicks if you have chosen to use the "SEO urls" function in the phpBay plugin which cloaks/masks your urls to make them look like they are coming from your own site. I could be wrong though.
Once you have activated the plugin and it stars collecting stats, you will begin to see clicks that start with "title=". These are the eBay items your visitors have clicked on.
There are other ways to track this information, however this is the easiest one to implement.
Enjoy!
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Gavin (1 comments.) | Jul 27, 2008 | Reply
That is one nifty little plug-in
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MN Investment Property (1 comments.) | Sep 3, 2008 | Reply
I absolutely agree. I love Statpress. Concise and fast to use.
I also use the Google Analytics WP plug-in. I get wildly different stats with Statpress vs Analytics. Sometimes Statpress is 5 times higher than Analytics.
Have you ever figured out why the difference?
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Melissa | Sep 4, 2008 | Reply
I use the Analytics plugin as well. Some days the stats from both differ greatly and other days they run close to the same.
I’m not sure why, but I think sometimes Statpress records multiple visits to a page from the same visitor which could explain the difference in numbers. It is still good for a reference though.
I am not sure if you saw the warning post I made about this plugin, but I am now back to using it and will be posting soon about how to protect yourself from a site meltdown.
Steve (1 comments.) | Feb 20, 2009 | Reply
Statpress often counts bots as visitors, even if you have spider recording turned off – easy to spot, if you have a “visitor” accessing 15 pages in 2 seconds it is fair to assume that it is not human.
Then the trick is to block the IP. This is done through the cpanel for your site IPs can be blocked in batches, often a three number block is the way to go.
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Melissa | Feb 22, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for sharing the tips and you’re right. I’ve noticed the bot/visitor problem in the past.
Tony Lee (1 comments.) | Feb 23, 2009 | Reply
Hi Melissa,
After reading this post last night, (like the big kid I am) I had to go check this plugin out. The first thing I thought to myself was, “Hey, I like this thing!”.
I’ve been trying to find an alternate to “G” analytics and discovered some promising sites that offer similar stats but still come short of “G”.
As you mentioned, the fact that you can track the items users click on is a plus as well. (I would have never noticed that unless I read this post). We’ll see how well it matches up to my EPN clicks.
I’ll be checking this against “StatCounter” as well, to see how it does.
Thanks again for another great tip!
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Melissa | Feb 24, 2009 | Reply
You’re welcome. Hope it works out well for you. There may be days the stats will be a little different, but for the most part I’ve had pretty good luck with it.