ccbill programming question
 

thought id just throw this question out there if anyone knows off hand as I didnt signup to ccbill as my merchant just yet.

So an example ccbill link would be

http : // refer . ccbill . com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=SITEID&PA=AFFILID&HTML=http : // www . foo . com

so when a person visits the link a cookie is set, and on purchase a credit is issued to the webmaster.. blah blah

what i want to do is grab the AFFILID to use on services purchased not through ccbill, but are on the site as well so affiliate can be credited.

example: have a membership site, but also a public store where people can purchase.
so this is what im looking to do: send people to the ccbill link which will credit/track membership signups, but also have my custom store send me the affiliate id so I can manual credit.

anyone know of a way to do this, im decent with php.

thanks in advance.

The incoming link will have a get var of PA for your id so... if you'd like to track it in only a single session...

$_SESSION['affiliate_id'] = $_GET['PA'];

after you've done your:

session_start();

Once you have it in your session you can access it any time... If a user creates a store account, assign that to their user table. If it's a one time buy just add it to your order table. If you want it to persist beyond the first visit without them creating an account, just store the value in a cookie :P

Hope that helps!

isn't the $_GET['PA'] accessible only on refer . ccbill . com , I thought they just set a cookie then redirect to the site, so when it hits me, all i would have access to is.. maybe a referral url, which isn't too reliable. Is this not true? I haven't tested but in my head thats how i thought it would be.

Oh sorry I see what you're saying ... Does CCBill offer any sort of pass through parameters at all?

I'm sure they at least set some kind of cookie... however to read it (and assuming it's unencrypted) you'd have to do some spoofing... surely not a very viable option but definitely a possibility...

wait hmm DOH! lol

i should be able to just make all my links:

http : // refer . ccbill . com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=SITEID&PA=AFFILID&HTML=http : // www . foo . com?PA=AFFILID

what a useless thread I made, lol

Perfect :)

You might find you have to url-encode the query string part of the url to your site in that link.

I would not have your affiliate use the ccbill url in their link code.

I would have them link to your own php file, then have that file load the ccbill link plus whatever other parameters you want to carry with it.

BV or Anyone:

Is it ok to have linkcodes that point to a redirect file on my servers, then redirect off to ccbill link codes. Obviously it will "work" but anyone know if it may screw with stats/tracking/etc?

not at all, works fine, in ccbill it shows referring urls hits etc etc

you can test it and see

bump 4 help:)