Affiliate/membership tracking not working

[GDLTD]

My site is finally done and I'm just doing final testing to make sure everything is working right. I've got s2Member (110606 - I see a new version today but nothing in the change log about affiliate tracking) setup and running on WP 3.1.3. Payment is made through PayPal. Everything seems to be working except the affiliate tracking.

To try and isolate the problem, I searched the code of every page I could after being sent back from the PayPal sandbox, but the tracking code is not to be found.

I'm using zeferral, but that shouldn't be the issue. Under API/Tracking I've got my tracking code pasted. When I searched the pages, I just looked for a snippet of the code and I couldn't find it. So I think for some reason my code just isn't showing up in the pages.

I'm running multisite and users are signing up for a site. My theme is a wootheme.

The places I checked for the tracking code were:
1. First page back from paypal - reg page
2. Step 2 of reg (site title and privacy)
3. Reg confirmation page
4. Activation page
5. Activation confirmation page
6. Login page
7. Various pages after logging in

Any ideas why the tracking code isn't showing up?

Thanks

[Cristián Lávaque]

Did you enter the tracking code in the same blog in which you're trying to find it or did you add the code to the parent blog and trying to see it in a child one?

[GDLTD]

The tracking code is on the parent site. Since the user is creating the child site, I can't add the tracking code to it.

Steps 1-3 that I listed are on the parent site, but 4-7 are on the newly created subdomain.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Well, you see, s2Member works on the child blogs, but they are in their own scope, they don't inherit settings from the parent blog's s2Member, they just use the same files, but settings are individual to each blog. If you set tracking in the parent blog, it won't show up in the child one.

[GDLTD]

So is this a bug in s2Member then? The documentation on the API/Tracking page says

s2Member will display your Tracking Codes in one of three possible locations... 1. If possible, on the Registration Form, after returning from your Payment Gateway. 2. Otherwise, if possible, on the Login Form after Registration is completed. 3. Otherwise, in the footer of your WordPress® theme, as soon as possible; or after the Customer's very first login.

So obviously in my case it's not putting it on the Registration Form. If it then puts it on the Login Form, that's on the child site so it's not going to fire. So it seems like it has to show up on the reg form for it to work properly... that being the case, is there something I can change on my end to make it work, or does s2Member need a fix?

Thanks.

[GDLTD]

Still curious if you guys consider this a "bug" or if there's something I'm missing that I can change to make it work. Thanks.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Let me see if I understood: you set up tracking for one blog and want it to apply to another blog? That won't work and it's not a bug, that's how s2Member works in multisite as far as I understand it.

[GDLTD]

I have tracking setup on one site and when a user registers on that site to create a new site within multisite, I want that tracked.

So it goes site1 > PayPal > site1 reg > sub.site1 created

So it would make sense for s2Member to show the tracking pixel on the site1 reg page when the user is sent back from PayPal. Then all the tracking is done on one site, but s2Member isn't working that way.

[GDLTD]

Still trying to get an answer to this.

[Cristián Lávaque]

I emailed Jason asking him about it, I hope he gets to it soon.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for your patience.
~ and thanks for the heads up Cristián.

Yes, I realize it's not working well for your usage; and I'm sorry. But, this IS the intended behavior. s2Member runs separate instances of itself on each Blog within your Network. If a Customer signs up on Sub.Site1, and tracking codes are configured on Sub.Site1, tracking codes will be displayed on Sub.Site1, not on the Main Site.

[GDLTD]

Thanks Jason. I think we're still not understanding each other.

- User goes to Site1
- User clicks button on Site1 to pay
- User pays at PayPal
- User gets sent back to Site1 - I would think the tracking pixel would need to fire here.
- At Site1 user creates sub.Site1

^^That's the flow I'm using. I'm not tracking affiliates on the sub sites, just affiliates who create a site using the main site. I don't care about tracking them after they create a site, just after they pay. I understand that it's separate on each site and doesn't track once the user goes off onto their new site (on a subdomain.) That's totally fine with me. I just want it to track it for the main site and that's not happening.

[Jason Caldwell]

I see now, thank you for explaining further.

So what you're describing is how s2Member IS intended to function, but this is NOT working for you as I understand your inquiry. It sounds like you're running the free version of s2Member. I would suggest upgrading to s2Member Pro Forms for this type of integration, where the tracking capabilities are improved, and will be displayed immediately upon checkout completion.

To answer your question though, the free version of s2Member WILL display your tracking codes in one of three possible locations. 1. If possible, on the Registration Form, after returning from your Payment Gateway. 2. Otherwise, if possible, on the Login Form after Registration is completed. 3. Otherwise, in the footer of your WordPress® theme, as soon as possible; or after the Customer's very first login.

If your tracking codes are not being displayed immediately after checkout, it's because PayPal Standard integration requires s2Member to process the transaction via IPN, where the tracking codes are initialized by s2Member, for display as soon as possible. If a Customer returns from PayPal before s2Member has fully processed the IPN data, s2Member might be unable to display the tracking codes immediately, and instead they will be displayed when the Customer logs into your Main Site for the first time ( i.e. after the actual registration is completed ).

Of course, s2Member Pro improves upon this. So you might consider it as an option in this case. Also, please make sure that your WordPress theme makes the proper call to wp_footer(), as all WordPress themes should. This is where s2Member attaches your tracking codes, in the footer of your theme. If your theme is not designed properly, it may never happen. Please see: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_footer

[GDLTD]

Jason, thanks for the info. I saw your message shortly after you posted it and was a little disheartened. I don't really understand why not firing the tracking code in a place where it is needed is how it's intended to function. Is there anyway to force it to fire in location #1?

If I upgrade to Pro, will this feature work for sure? I'm doing this project to try and generate some extra cash. Unfortunately, if Pro is really what's needed to make this feature work I'll either have to wait for a while or find another solution (which sucks because I've already configured everything in s2member.) I have affiliates ready to sell, but they can't because the affiliate tracking isn't working.

I did verify the them is calling wp_footer()

Thanks.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for the follow-up.
Yes, that's correct. With s2Member Pro, all data is processed in real-time, so s2Member is capable of displaying tracking codes immediately after checkout is completed, no exceptions.

[GDLTD]

I know a few weeks back you guys released an updated which sounded like it may have made this issue a bit better (or flat-out fixed it.) I finally got around to setting it up on my test site with my paypal dev account, sandbox users, sandbox affiliate account... and it works.

Thanks so much, I really appreciate the change you implemented! You guys are awesome

[Jason Caldwell]

You're very welcome. Thanks for reporting back on this for me.