There are times when tracking a conversion or even getting a revenue figure into your analytics or optimization platform is simply not possible.  In these cases, you may consider using a “conversion proxy” to approximate actual conversions.  A conversion proxy usually represents the last trackable action the user makes before conversion.  Let’s consider some example scenarios, as well as a proxy to use for each:

1.  Your conversion action happens on another  site, which you have no control over: This is a surprisingly common occurrence in larger companies as well as for affiliate marketers.  The best thing to track in this case is any outbound clicks to the remote site which represent a purchase or lead straight to the checkout process.

2. Your IT department refuses to put conversion tracking code on the thank you page: Just as above, the trick here is to track the final event, whether it is a click on the “checkout” button, or a click on the last step of the checkout process.  The later in the process, the better.  You can also grab revenue for the order at this point, and if you want to be even more accurate, reduce the purchase amount to match the “throughput” of the un-measured steps.

In other words- if you can only track up to the “checkout” point, and you know that 50% of people clicking “checkout” will actually complete the process, reduce the revenue figure for each transaction by 50% to better approximate average order value and revenue per visitor.

3. You are optimizing yield from banner ads or some other outbound link (such as affiliates): In this case, mark clicks on the outbound links.  If you have information about the value of each click, you may pass this to the reporting tool along with the click.

4. You are pushing leads to a remote aggregator: In this case, you may be hosting a lead form on your site, which posts to a remote URL of a lead aggregator or marketplace.  There are two possibilities here- either attach the conversion event to a click on the “submit” button, or bind to the form submission.  Either way will truthfully record the conversion occurrence without requiring a code snippet on the thank you page.

The solution to these scenarios

The only way for this to work is if your conversion tracking system provides for click event tracking.  Another way to do it is by adding a “taking you to your destination” page which can then display the normal conversion pixel, but this is not very desirable.