--- title: Verify tracking pixel installation slug: verify-tracking-pixel-installation description: Verifying that your tracking pixels are set up correctly ensures that ambassador link clicks and referred orders are accurately attributed within Roster. docTags: createdAt: 2024-12-16T13:44:31.060Z --- Verifying that your tracking pixels are set up correctly ensures that ambassador link clicks and referred orders are accurately attributed within Roster. There are two key tracking pixels: the link tracking pixel, which records incoming referral clicks, and the order tracking pixel, which attributes completed purchases to the correct ambassador. This guide walks you through verifying both types of tracking to confirm your program is properly configured. :::hint{type="info"} See [Verify installation with Roster's Chrome Extension](docId:-J9KDLPJTCpDKR6ebLFWz) to speed up the verification process using the Chrome browser extension. ::: ## Video walkthrough :::Iframe{iframeHeight="0" code="
"} ::: :::ExpandableHeading ### Video transcript This is a transcript from the Loom video walkthrough. 00:00 Hey there, this is Jeff at Roster. In this video, I'm gonna walk you through how you can verify that your tracking pixels have been set up correctly, and that you're ready to launch your ambassador program. 00:11 There's two different pixels in Roster, and you're gonna want to verify both of them. The first pixel is what we call our link tracking pixel, and that is set to track incoming link clicks when somebody clicks on one of your ambassador's referral links. 00:24 And that puts something in the browser storage so that when an order is made, the order can be attributed back to the ambassador. 00:31 Which is the other type of tracking pixel that gets installed with Roster, which is the order tracking pixel. When an order is completed and the confirmation page is displayed, that sends information from the user's browser up to Roster, and includes the information of which the ambassador ultimately 00:49 had led them to a referral. Let's go ahead and look at how we can verify both of those tracking, or both of those pixel types. 00:57 So the first thing we're going to do is come into our list of contacts, and we're going to get one of our ambassador's referral links. 01:04 And there's two different types of referral links in Roster. There's what we call our legacy referral links, and our newer smart links. 01:12 We're going to take a look first at the, at the legacy referral link. So this influencer program is set up with just our regular legacy referral link. 01:21 So I'm going to click into a contact who's in that program, and I'm going to scroll to the discounts and links section. 01:27 And here I can see the ambassador's referral link. And I know this is a legacy referral link because it's just the brand's domain and then a question mark. 01:36 And then this roster tracking code that gets put into what's called the query string. This RSTR is what roster looks for. 01:45 And then if it finds it, it sends up whatever it's set to, which is this, which is always going to be the ambassador's unique tracking code. 01:53 So what we're going to do is copy this and paste it into an incognito window. And you can go up to usually the file menu when you're in your browser and open up an incognito window or a private window. 02:07 And it will typically look something like this. And it's really important to note that when you're testing with an incognito window, if you happen to have more than one incognito window open like that, or multiple incognito tabs open like that, then what you need to do when you're restarting your testing 02:25 another ambassador's link or code, you want to make sure you close down all incognito windows for that browser. Otherwise, even though they're incognito, the different windows and tabs hold on to context and you don't want that context to go in between each of your tests. 02:42 So make sure you just close them all out. So in this case, I'm going to open up a new incognito window And I'm going to, paste in this ambassador's referral link. 02:52 And then roster, as I mentioned, is looking for this little value up in the query string. And if it finds it, it sends it up to the roster servers through our public API. 03:02 And then it would register a link click. So, when I come back into roster and look at this ambassador's profile, I can see that they have nine link clicks right now. 03:10 And then when I do a page refresh, it should- increment that. And sure enough, it's now incremented to ten link clicks. 03:17 So I have a high degree of confidence that link tracking is working. If you have- if you're- you're developers, or if you are the developer, you didn't install the roster tracking code across all pages on your website, maybe you just put it on the home page. 03:30 And I want to make sure that people are aware that if- for some reason, somebody was to link out to, say, One of the collection pages, and they had that roster tracking link in there. 03:40 If they link to a page that doesn't have the roster link tracking code installed on it, then it won't capture that as a roster link click. 03:50 And it won't capture that as a sale if somebody goes through the order. So it's really important you make sure that the tracking pixel is installed on all possible landing pages where somebody might come in. 04:00 And I'm, with an ambassador's link. Okay. So let's take a look now at what a smart link looks like for a contact. 04:07 So I'm gonna switch programs. This ambassador program I have set up has smart links enabled. And you can tell that smart links are enabled by looking at the referral link. 04:18 And you can see here, this is the, um, referral, the smart link start out with rstr.co is the domain. And then- the brand's handle comes next and then the ambassador's tracking code comes after that. 04:29 So this is a smart link right here. And when we open up a new incognito window and paste that in, you will see that the browser does a redirect to the brand's website. 04:43 And that roster tracking code is inside the URL. You'll also notice that there are a handful of UTM- parameters. So smart links allow you as the brand to use your Google Analytics or whatever analytics software you're using to further track link clicks and, uh, click through funnels and attribution all 05:03 the way through in your link tracking software as well. So, or analytics software. Okay, so now if I'm going to, I'm going to tab back over to the window here and I'm going to hit refresh that. 05:13 Should increment the link clicks for this ambassador from 12 to 13 and it did. So, again, I know that link tracking is working here. 05:21 Okay, perfect. The next thing I want to do is do order tracking. So we're going to actually make an order off that link click. 05:26 We just did. And because we came through an ambassador's link, then the order should be attributed to the ambassador as a referral and just one caveat to throw out a f\*\*\*ing. 05:37 When you are placing an order, this is really important, actually. When you're placing an order on your store, you need to make sure that you don't use an email address that also exists within sight of your, uhm, contacts in your, in your roster account. 05:53 If, if you were to use, let's say, uh, you already added yourself as an ambassador and then you go check out and you use your own email. 06:01 Well, that incoming order would actually be captured as a personal order, not as a referred order, just because that's how the roster attribution logic works. 06:11 We can try to match up people's personal orders as a personal order so we can show you how much your ambassadors are spending and then those personal orders aren't eligible for referral rewards. 06:23 Okay, so let's come back over to this tab where, We had clicked on Colleen's link and now we're just simply going to make a purchase and I can just add something to the cart and go right to check out and then I'm gonna be sure to use an email address that I know does not already exist inside of my account 06:43 , so my roster account, that is. It's okay if they exist inside your store. Okay, I'm gonna put in some fake information here and everybody's store is different in terms of how do you push through a test transaction. 06:58 I happen to have this in test mode. Most brands don't have the luxury of being able to go into test mode, so you're probably just gonna have to put in an order and then cancel it after you've verified it inside of roster. 07:08 Okay, so with all that information put in I'm gonna click pay now and that will read- redirect me. Most shopping carts will redirect to a thank you page or a confirmation page and this is where the order tracking pixel is installed and when this page loads that JavaScript or that tracking pixel executes 07:27 and it sends this order information along with the tracking code up to rosters public API and that's how rosters able to then track it and check to see if- there is an actually an order. 07:39 So with this order placed, I can now close this window here and what I'm gonna do is click over onto the reports tab and open up the all orders and see if the order is there. 07:58 Okay, so it looks like my order came through and what- you can do on the orders page and make sure your date range is set correctly. 08:05 If you're coming here, maybe you had a previous date range and you want to make sure that the order is within that date range. 08:11 But I can click on the order drawer and this happened pretty quickly. Sometimes it can take up to a few minutes for the attribution process to run. 08:19 But I can see here in the order details section of this drawer that the referral link ID passed in was calling. 08:25 7 8 Jones RSTR. And that the attribution was considered a referral and it is to Colleen because somebody used her referral link and it's for a new customer. 08:37 So everything is working great from order tracking or from a link perspective. Awesome. Okay, the last test we want to do is we want to test whether. 08:49 We're not, uh, uh, uh, a shareable discount code that's assigned to an ambassador is working. So let's come into see how our programs are configured and see if we have a shareable discount code for any of these programs. 09:08 Okay, so it looks like we have a shareable discount code set up. For the influencer program. So let's go ahead and come over to find, let's find one of these codes that we can test with. 09:22 And you can always just manually add one of these codes. In fact, let's do that. Let's come to our contacts. 09:27 And let's come into, uh, we'll go into Joseph Thomas who's in the influencer program and we'll expand their profile. And we're going to go to the discounts and links section. 09:41 And it looks like this, this person already has a code, a shareable code assigned to them. So I'm just simply going to copy that. 09:53 And then what we're going to do is we're going to open up a new incognito window. This is where it's really important. 10:01 Cause if you, Don't close out all the incognito windows and you do this test in a browser window that has, that hasn't been reset, it will still have reference to that last referral link you tested with. 10:14 And in roster, uhm, the way referral attribution works is the attribution first goes to a link. If there was a link click, it goes to the link and then it will go to a, discount code. 10:27 So, I'm gonna open up a new incognito window and I'm gonna go to the website. Alright, and now we're gonna do another purchase. 10:39 I'm gonna put the client now. And then I'm gonna paste in that discount code. Ah, this discount code. Okay, so I must have constrained this discount code to something specific. 10:55 So I'm gonna show you real quickly. Maybe you'll bump into the same problem yourself. Okay, so creator, friends, and family. 11:02 I see this. This is the discount rule that's defining the code that I'm trying to use. And I'm just gonna click on this view and Shopify right now. 11:10 And log in to my Shopify store. And it will bring up the disk, the top of the- whole discount code in here. 11:15 Uh, looks like I constrained this to a specific product. So maybe I was doing a test for something else. So I can either remove that constraint, um, or I can, um, just go find one of these specific products. 11:31 So let's just go find the 3P-fulfilled snowboard. So we're gonna come back to, Uhh, actually just go to the search. 11:40 3P. There we go. And we're gonna click the Add to Cart. View Cart. And check out. I'm gonna paste in that code. 11:51 Oops. Okay, and hit Apply. Okay, perfect. Now we got that code coming in and it looks like it knocked 50 bucks off that. So, let's go ahead and create our fake user. 12:16 Fake credit card info. 12:33 Gonna be great if all credit cards were that short. Okay, we're gonna hit Pay Now. And now, in theory, what happened with the order tracking pixel is, because we hadn't come through a link click, there's no link tracking code that was sent up for the ambassador. 12:50 But Roster does have you set set it up to have the discount codes. Excuse me, the discount codes sent through. 12:59 So let's come back into our Roster account. And what we want to look for is, we want to go into our reports and all orders. 13:13 And it looks like that order has come- through. And the good news is, it worked. Okay, so in the order details drawer, I can see in the order there was no referral link ID. 13:24 But there was a discount code. And Roster was able to identify that discount code as belonging to Joseph Thomas. And that is a shareable code. 13:34 So in, as a result, it counts as a referral. So that was the order tracking using a shareable code. So if you have the link tracking working, the link, the order tracking working from referral links and the order tracking working from discount codes, there's a really, really, really high likelihood that 13:56 everything is working correctly. Now if you bumped into any issues along the way, be sure to check out our troubleshooting article. 14:02 Pretty cool. Or if you want to just get some help straight away because you don't like looking at articles, just shoot us an email support at getroster.com and we'll be more than happy to just jump right on with you and walk you through what might be the problem. 14:16 In the meantime, have a great day and do good out ::: ## Step-by-step instructions :::::WorkflowBlock :::WorkflowBlockItem ### Test 1: Verify the link tracking pixel 1. Open Roster and navigate to the `Contacts` section. 2. Select an ambassador who is is in a program and scroll to the `Discounts and Links` section. 3. Identify the ambassador’s referral link: - **Legacy referral link:** Format is `https://brand.com/?rstr=tracking-code`. - **Smart link:** Format is `https://rstr.co/brand/tracking-code`. 4. Copy the referral link and open an incognito or private browser window. 5. Paste the link and visit the brand’s website. 6. Close all incognito windows before testing another referral link to reset tracking context. 7. Back in Roster, refresh the ambassador’s profile page to confirm the link click count increments. - If the count does not increase, see [Troubleshoot pixel installation](docId\:fIdPblI52Z4Lgdqqlw3vS) ::: :::WorkflowBlockItem ### Test 2: Verify the order tracking pixel via referral link For this test, we want to confirm that when an order is made after clicking on an ambassador's referral link, it is captured in Roster as a referred order with an attribution type of `referral link`. 1. Using the incognito window where you tested the referral link, add an item to the cart and proceed to checkout. 2. Ensure the email used at checkout **is not** associated with an existing ambassador account in Roster. 3. Complete the checkout process and wait for the confirmation page to load. 4. This page triggers Roster's order tracking pixel, which sends the order data to Roster. 5. Back in Roster, navigate to `Reports` > `All Orders`, and confirm the order appears. 6. Click on the order to open the `Order details` drawer. 7. Confirm that the order is attributed to the ambassador whose link you clicked. - If the order doesn't appear or isn't attributed to the ambassador, see [Troubleshoot pixel installation](docId\:fIdPblI52Z4Lgdqqlw3vS) ::: ::::WorkflowBlockItem ### Test 3: Verify the order tracking pixel via shareable code For this test, we want to confirm that when an order is made with an ambassador's shareable discount code, it is captured in Roster as a referred order with an attribution type of `discount code`. :::hint{type="warning"} Be sure to completely close all incognito / private browser windows and tabs before running this second test to ensure that this second order doesn't have the previous order's link tracking pixel. ::: 1. In Roster, navigate to `More` > `Discounts` in the left-hand navigation. 2. Find a shareable discount rule (see [Shareable discount rules](docId\:htkG19I6lD2vQK0Vkqonu) for additional context if needed.) 1. Use one of the assigned discount codes for this test. 2. Or, see [Manually assign discount codes](docId\:ngDtyH8MCAAqOhKzE3dek) for instructions on assigning a shareable discount code to an ambassador. 3. Copy an ambassador's shareable code to your clipboard. 4. Open a new incognito / private browser window. 5. Navigate directly to your store (don't use an ambassador's referral link as this will give attribution to the link and not the shareable code.) 6. Add an eligible item to the shopping cart and proceed to checkout. 7. Enter the copied shareable discount code and confirm that it was successfully applied to the checkout flow. 8. Complete the purchase using an email address that is **not** associated with an ambassador in your Roster account. 9. Back in Roster, navigate to `Reports` > `All Orders`, and confirm the order appears. 10. Click on the order to open the `Order details` drawer. 11. Confirm that the order is attributed to the ambassador whose link you clicked. - If the order doesn't appear or isn't attributed to the ambassador, see [Troubleshoot pixel installation](docId\:fIdPblI52Z4Lgdqqlw3vS) :::: ::::: *** ## Need help? If you experience any issues verifying tracking pixels, refer to our troubleshooting guide or contact our support team at [support@getroster.com](mailto\:support@getroster.com).