@Mistica Interesting question. I have no clue how to code the first part of your post - it never occurred to me that this would be a great feature on a website but thinking about it now I can definitely see it. I have to give this some thought.
I started my site at https://sanfrancisco.zone last November so it’s less than a year old. My sales have steadily increased (slowly, really slowly) and I have made 12 referrals. I know, that’s not very impressive. But I hope to learn more and to improve my skills for down the road.
@Mistica Oh, now I understand what you are asking. I believe (I could be wrong but that’s what I believe is the case) that Zazzle does not count your own clicks. I think Zazzle can “see” if it’s you either via cookie or stored ISP table for each designer. I believe that because my own clicks on my own items have never been counted by Zazzle and I click each item first when I have created it (to check if all looks fine) and than of course again once I link from my site to the item I just had created. I check each link I create because if you do something a thousand times you get sloppy and I sometimes catch my self not working carefully (hence messing up).
By the way: linking from your website to Zazzle brings you directly to your products item. Linking from Social Media to your item brings you automatically to a “landing page” where one more click is required to reach your product on Zazzle. Therefore (in my opinion) a link from your website is more effective than a link from social media because there is less of a chance that the visitor will see an item from a different designer hence you won’t earn the counted visit nor will you make a sale BUT YOU WILL MAKE A REFERRAL if the visitor purchases something (unless they have a cookie stored from a previous visit).
Because of this I post on social media almost daily but never link to my designs on Zazzle - I always link to my own site. It’s the same for visitors because they have to click through either on your site or the landing page but there is less distraction coming from your site than the landing page and it strengthens the brand of the website owner (in my case it’s “San Francisco Zone”).
I hope Zazzle doesn’t include links coming from websites to go to the landing pages instead of going directly to the product pages anytime soon.
And the data refreshes daily (meaning it’s not a real time event, it lags generally one day behind but sometimes even a couple of days).
@Mistica Unless you are in the special promoter affiliate program (2.0 or something like that?) it definitely works. I made a referral just five days ago. I have seen him on my own website (with my tracking program) and he moved on to Zazzle and bought one of my business card designs. He actually came back about two hours later and bought more business cards which means I have gotten two referrals from him on the very same day. And he was a repeated customer too which made me really happy - he had bought business cards months ago from me.
Now I heard that this might not work with that special affiliate program (I was picking that up from some YouTubers) but I’m positive that someone enrolled in that program can and will clarify this here (hopefully).
@Cat Thanks for bringing that up. It’s one of my goals for next year (my second year with Zazzle starts November 11th) to do exactly that - if I can wrap my brain around it that is. I already have downloaded the PDF to study it but haven’t done so yet. Again it’s on my to do lists, smile. I might fail (I wouldn’t be surprised) but I will certainly give it a shut. 🤞🏽
By the way: linking from your website to Zazzle brings you directly to your products item.
Not always though. Whether one gets the landing page or not depends on the type of link you've used. For regular links, with or without an RF attached, you'll get the landing page if it's your first visit to the Zazzle domain. After that, you'll not encounter the landing page again until/unless you clear your cookies.
If you've used the short PID format link or an API format link, no landing page even if it's your first visit.
Information on the "Landing Page" (interim 'View Product Details' page) & Referral / Affiliate Links
@ColsCreations Wow Col - that knowledge is pure gold! I didn't realize - thank you so much!! I think there is nothing Col doesn't know related to Zazzle - I have learned so much from her and she's always willing to share her gold nuggets.
Regular link:
https://www.zazzle.com/atomic_tie_dye_psychedelic_rainbow_colors_poker_cards-256360957888436130
Short-form link:
https://www.zazzle.com/256360957888436130It's just zazzle.com/product ID number
I just read your linked post and not certain whether you are saying your own views aren't registering at all, or if they're registering as a view but not working to re-set the Optimize Needed countdown?
My views of my own products do register, I always see them at the top when sorted by Last Viewed date. But to make sure it's not coincidence that some other random person is happening to view same things, I tested it. Yesterday I picked three not-popular products from the bottom of my Recently Viewed list, all last viewed over a month ago.
#1 - I clicked to view it from my back-end.
#2 - clicked the link to it from my website, while signed in, which took me straight to full product page, no "landing page"
#3 - using a virgin browser as a guest, I clicked a link from my website which opened the "landing page". I did not click to "view details" to go on to full product page, just closed the browser.
That was about 1:30pm yesterday and all three are now (about 1:30pm again) showing as last viewed 1 day ago, both in the back-end and in Quick Stats. I checked before I went to bed around 4am and none of them were showing yet, so seems to have skipped the "within last 24 hrs" stage.
#3 is important, happy to know that even if one only gets the "landing page" and goes no further, it still registers as a view.
OK, well that definitely doesn't seem right. I'm wondering if there's an add-on in your browser or a security program or such blocking your visits from being counted but I don't even know if that's technically possible. I tried searching for if it's possible to keep a website from counting your visit as a view but all I could find were results about preventing tracking which is a different animal. So I don't know but it sure sounds like you are caught in a glitch of some kind as your views should be registering.
