Tracking referrals and campaigns

Measure the effectiveness of your marketing by adding tracking IDs to your booking page, integrated websites, or custom fields, so you can attribute bookings to specific campaigns, affiliate referrals, or advertising efforts and understand what's actually driving revenue.

Learn how to use tracking IDs for marketing initiatives or affiliate referrals, including adding tracking to your booking page URL or to an integrated website, using custom fields to track referrals, and finding answers to frequently asked questions.
 

Accessing the features mentioned in this article

Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

• Use with your Booking Page, integrated websites, or custom fields.
   

What more do I need to use this feature?

• Admin permissions to Manage your account and Integrations.
• You must own the custom domain you would like to use to send. Generic email addresses from sites such as Gmail.com and Live.com are not supported.
   

Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic items, classic products, or both?

• This feature is available in both our classic version using classic items (Inventory > Items) and our classic version using classic products (Inventory > Products).  → Learn more about products

Marketing strategy workbook Download our free marketing strategy workbook:  8-Step Marketing Strategy Workbook

Although Checkfront already tracks the referring host of a booking (for example, an external website such as Facebook that directs traffic to your website), it can be helpful to add a tracking ID for marketing initiatives (email, pay-per-click advertising, etc.)| or to track agency/affiliate referrals. Checkfront makes this easy by allowing you to pass a tracking ID on your booking page, an integrated website, or via custom fields.

You do not need to register a tracking ID. You can supply it in the URL of any booking page. This ID works with any of our booking page integrations on your website, in Dropbox, or on the hosted booking page.

To pass a tracking ID, add the TID (tracking ID) parameter to your booking page's URL. Here is an example of a tracking ID on our Hosted Booking Page:

https://demo.checkfront.com/reserve/?tid=summer-promo

The system tracks bookings and records the TID if someone creates a booking via this URL. You can view Tracking IDs within the booking (below the invoice) and in the general Booking Index report.

Adding multiple TIDs It is possible to add multiple TIDs to the same booking page URL, so the booking tracks more than one TID at once. You can separate each TID with a comma, like so: https://demo.checkfront.com/reserve/?tid=summer-promo,fall promo

Source IP and TID display The system does NOT display the Source IP and TID on the Customer invoice, or when printing from within the admin interface.

Modifying a TID after creating a booking A TID attached to a booking via a URL cannot be modified after the booking is created. A TID can only be adjusted using the custom Booking Form field alternative described above.

Similarly, you can add the TID to website integrations like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. The TID can be entered via the various configuration pages and is automatically added to the code when the system generates it.

In this case, the WordPress shortcode might look something like this:

[checkfront end_date="20160731" tid="summer-promo" lang_id="en"]

You can also track bookings using booking field IDs. 

1. Start by creating a new field in the field editor and call it TID, with an ID of tracking-id, for example. This field can be a select box populated with a list of IDs or a free-form text box.
2. Next, could you make the field available only to Staff.
   • Staff then manually enter the tracking ID or choose it from a pre-populated list when creating or editing a booking. 
   • Staff can adjust the contents of this field at any time while editing a booking.
3. You can then report on the field's contents with a report such as the Booking Index.