Hello All

I'm getting to the place where I'm getting more customers coming in, but I worry about losing track of some of them. I was just wondering what techniques people are using to track their customers? Right now we receive an email from our e-commerce provider every time we make a sale. Our current process of copying that information into a big text file will work for a little while, but it's not a great solution in the long run. Are people using a custom database, or are you using software that is already available? Something that interfaces with email would be nice. There are some professional packages such as ACT, but they are expensive and not particularly suited to indie developers. Thanks for the feedback!

Graeme

We use a custom MySQL database. Whenever someone places an order on our site, the info is automatically added to the database via PHP. Mail/fax orders are manually input through a form.

We also have many PHP pages that generate reports and and perform various functions related to the database: sales reports, CD orders to ship, developer royalties, email all customers, email all customers who own a particular game, etc.

It is a lot of work to set something like this up, but I can't imagine running such a site w/o it now. Our database has around 100 tables (not counting these forums).

I've got the first stab of my tracking system mostly complete. I'll be rolling it out this week. I spent quite some time pulling my hair out trying to discover the best way to do it, and I've finally found out that I don't know how. I made my best guess decisions and ran with it.

All pages on my site are PHP, and any hit on one of these pages (except the forums, which is 3rd party software) gets a new row in the request table in a MySQL database. All visitors get a cookie to ID them, which every row is tagged with. I'm tracking downloads in a separate table, which just makes the queries easier. When you first come to the website, you might have a "src" parameter attached -- this is stored in the request row as well, so I can use that in addition to referrer to discover where the hit came from. Src is used by most of the links in the PAD file. I have an Apache rewrite on the download link so /BigHeadZedSetup_somewhere.exe will internally run this as /download.html?game=bhz&src=somewhere. I'll be modifying the installer build so that it detects the filename and passes the "src" back in the buy links. This helps for when the game is downloaded on one computer but run on another. When an order takes place I send the tracking ID to my order handler (BMT Micro) who sends it back to me in the purchase email. When I finally put together a customer table I'll be able to run conversion reports.

I'm also planning on dynamic PAD files that add the correct src to my linkbacks based on the PAD filename used (same Apache rewrite voodoo as with the download). I've thought about using a random or sequenced src when no src is used. So pad pollers can still get tagged, I'll just have to do some extra work on reporting to associate the referer with the src. I'm still trying to figure most of this out, and it's both fun and frustrating. :)

Here are some previous threads that addressed conversion tracking:

http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1437
http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1401
http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1377
http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=512
http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=718

Thanks Steve and Eric for your responses :). I'd love to have a custom PHP system such as you guys have, but I'm not willing to put the time into it until I feel it's worthwhile (i.e. have a lot more customers coming through). Right now I'm more concerned with keeping track of customers that have already purchased. If someone lost their registration code, I want to be sure I have all of their information on file, and preferably have a nice GUI for accessing it. And if someone starts emailing questions about the program but hasn't paid for it, I want to know about it. I think I will develop a custom database sometime in the future, but I'm debating whether to make it server side (with php) or on my home computer (interfacing with email and I nice gui). Cheers!

Graeme

That's how I thought about it in the beginning too: I'll do it when I have more customers. But looking back, I wish I had implemented it much earlier. When you have sufficient customers that it becomes necessary, it's even harder to find the time to implement it. Also, automating the customer tracking early on removes a psychological roadblock to growing your sales. If you do everything manually, you won't want to pass say... 10 sales a day... because at that point the manual tracking will get really tedious.

But a rule of thumb I would suggest is this: It's time to implement some database-oriented customer tracking when you begin to dislike doing the manual tracking and reach the point where you feel good when sales are low, since it's less work for you.

there are already made programs for that ( lobstersoft SAK )

probably worth 149$. ( i wrote my own since i didn't know this one existed :/ )

pat

I looked into the SAK before implementing my own database. I opted not to use it because I wanted something fully integrated with the web site (i.e. an online database, not an offline one).