I run a few sites with external advertising where I want to track the conversion rate for each search term using the built-in conversion tracking functions in the search engines. The problem is that some advertisers don’t allow me to add my tracking pixel to their “thank-you” page, and so the search engines never see the conversion.
It seems I can get an approximation of the relative conversion propensity for each search term simply by having each advertisement link to an interim “show-the-tracking-pixels-then-redirect” page. This interim page appears to be blank since it just contains tracking pixels. It uses an http redirect to take the user’s browser to the final URL for the advertisement. Before the redirect, I have had to insert a one-second delay for the tracking pixels to actually load.
In the search engines I now get a conversion rate for each search term. This is the rate of visitors that clicked through on one of the advertisements for the corresponding search term.
Is there a smarter way to do this? I really hate the one-second delay. Can I use PHP to load the tracking pixel synchronously, making sure that the search engine has recorded the conversion/advertisement click before I redirect the browser? So far, I get the impression that the browser simply redirects too quickly for precise tracking, and even that browsers seem to ignore or cancel any http requests for images on the interim page when they understand that they are about to redirect to another page. I need to be really sure that the tracking pixels are fully downloaded from the search engines before I initiate the redirect.
Any suggestions?