www.sculptex.co.uk

[sculptex]

Stats3 v1.0a Cubecart Mod
-------------------------

TITLE - Stats3 Enhanced Visitor Stats
DESCRIPTION - Advanced Visitor Statistics including robot analysis and advertising campaign tracking
COMPATIBILTY - Cubecart v 2.0.x
DATE - 22 April 2005
AUTHOR - Sculptex
WEBSITE - www.sculptex.co.uk
CONTACT - cubecart@sculptex.co.uk

DETAIL

Using URL parameters to link to your site
By adding variables to url links to your site you can identify incoming link sources and even advertising campaigns for any specified period. You can analyse or omit search engine hits and your own IP to get a truer picture of visitors.

URL examples
link to your site with
www.yoursite.com/index.php?referrer=XXX&campaign=YYY&advert=ZZZ

a realistic link might be
www.yoursite.com/index.php?referrer=adwords&campaign=widgets&advert=bogof

you can also add the parameters to view_product.php, so the above might be
a realistic link might be
www.yoursite.com/view_product.php?product=WIDGET1&referrer=adwords&campaign=widgets&advert=bogof




INSTALLATION

Install all files, perform the SQL updates. when this is completed successfully, perform the cahnges as described. You should then be able to access your new stats page from your admin menu


FILES
-----

COPY/UPLOAD to admin folder

modinstall.php
stats3.php

COPY/UPLOAD to store folder

visits.php

COPY/UPLOAD folder and contents to store folder, so folder then exists in same folder as your store

robots\


SQL UPDATE
----------

After files installed/changed, login to admin. Change url to modinstall.php still within the admin folder, so if you are in www.yoursite.com/admin/index.php, change the url to www.yoursite.com/admin/modinstall.php

You should see

MOD Installer

To Install SQL for Mod(s), click HERE

click the word HERE to perform the sql update. You should get confirmation that the sql update has been performed successfully.


CHANGES
-------
to make accessible from admin side menu, you will need to :-

IN
admin/nav.php

AFTER
['<?echo$la_stats_title;?>', '<?echo"$site_url/admin/statistics.php";?>'],


INSERT
['<?echo"Stats3";?>', '<?echo"$site_url/admin/stats3.php";?>'],



IN
header.inc.php

AFTER
// update site hits for stats
include("hits.php");

INSERT
if (!isset($_SESSION['myreferrer']))
{
if (strlen($referrer) > 0)
{
$_SESSION['myreferrer'] = $referrer;
}
else
{
$_SESSION['myreferrer'] = NULL;
}
}

if (!isset($_SESSION['mycampaign']))
{
if (strlen($campaign) > 0)
{
$_SESSION['mycampaign'] = $campaign;
}
else
{
$_SESSION['mycampaign'] = NULL;
}
}

if (!isset($_SESSION['myadvert']))
{
if (strlen($advert) > 0)
{
$_SESSION['myadvert'] = $advert;
}
else
{
$_SESSION['myadvert'] = NULL;
}
}

// update site hits for visits
include("visits.php");

[sculptex]

Q & A Started 24th April
Some possible questions & answers/techniques that will help get the best out of this MOD

Q) Why was this MOD written?
A) Because the stats provided by cubecart are inadequate for analysing customer activity and the source of incoming links to assess the effectiveness of various different advertising campaigns. I have had this in my stores for ages as part of a large 'master modded cart' but have taken the time to split this MOD out for fellow cubecart users and put something back into the cubecart community. By releasing it frely now, perhaps brooky will implement it as standard in cc3.

Q) Why is no information showing in the stats3 admin screen?
A) the stats will only run from when you complete the installation process. from this point on, every page visit in the store should be counted.

Q) What are robots and how do you determine them?
A) Robots are the machines used by search engines to 'crawl' your site in order to update their databases, so that when people search from a search engine, specific words and phrases from your site may appear in the result pages of a search. My mod identifies the search engines using search engine IP lists that can e found around the internet. You can add your own or update these lists as you wish.

Q) Why are so many of the fields blank?
A) The IP address shuld always show, as should the date, entered, exited and #pages fields. The other fields are coditional as follows :-
email - this field should appear when the customer logs in or registers an account
cart id - should appear as soon as the customer places an item in their shoping cart
referrer - should appear if you have linked to your site specifying a URL parameter referrer=XXX
campaign - as referrer but linked with campaign=XXX
advert - as referrer but linked with advert=XXX
URL parameters are passed as part of the URL with a ? before the first parameter and & before each subsequent parameter.

Q) Why does an order appear in the cart_id field but when I click on it, it doesn't exist?
A) A customer has put something in their shopping basket, but have not completed the checkout process. the cart number has been generated but has then been discarded

Q) What are the fields at the top for?
A) These allow you to filter your results. So, if you put adwords in the referrer field, you will only see visitors referred by adwords. The cart if field matches the left hand characters of whatever you input, so if you up 050424, only cart order ids generated starting with those characters (generated on 24th April 2005) will show. putting a 0 in this field is handy only to list links that have generated orders (bearing in mind some may not have completed as described in previous point). You can also choose to hide/restrict/highlight robots and your own IP with the radio buttons?

Q) I have restricted/omitted robots/my IP and I only have a few results even though I have limited to 50. I know there are more than that?
A) the robot analysis is done after the results are filtered, so only the robots within the first 50 (or whatever) results are shown