Landing Page Cookie

When a sale is made, which landing page did the customer see first?

When visitors subscribe to an ezine, which page of the web site did they see when they first arrived?

What percentage of visitors arriving at your landing page follow through?

Maybe it doesn't matter. And maybe it does.

If you knew for a fact that 12% of everybody who lands at pageone.html goes on to buy a widget from you, but only 2% of those who land on pagetwo.html, you would have information with which to work. You could tweak pagetwo.html to convert better or change your advertising and links so pageone.html gets most of the traffic, or both. Or ignore it.

The information gives you a choice.

This article will show you how to implement a system of logging the landing page whenever a conversion is made.

The landing page sets a cookie identifying the page. The conversion's "thank you" page logs the cookie. You import the log into your spreadsheet to see the results.

How it Works

Three things happen, two are caused by the site visitor and one by the site owner.

When the visitor arrives, the landing page sets a cookie. The cookie identifies the landing page (so you can enable many landing pages, if you wish).
When the visitor buys or subscribes or takes other desired action, the conversion "thank you" page automatically sends its own identification, along with the value in the cookie, to a CGI program. The CGI program logs the event. (A conversion "thank you" page is the web page displayed immediately after the desired action is completed.)
Intermittently, or on a schedule, the site owner downloads the log file (which is a CSV file) and imports it into desktop spreadsheet software for studying and calculating.

For the cookies to work, the landing page and the conversion "thank you" page must both be on the same domain. The domain is the domain portion of the URL used to access the page.

If one page is accessed with http://example.com/... and other other with http://www.example.com/ then those are two different domains as far as cookies are concerned. If the landing page URL contains "www." in the domain name, then the conversion "thank you" page URL must also contain "www."

The Perl CGI script can run on any domain so long as the server is Unix/Linux.

How to Implement the System

There are three scripts, two JavaScript and one Perl.

One of the JavaScript scripts is for inserting into the landing page (or pages). The other JavaScript script is for inserting into the conversion "thank you" page (or pages). And the Perl script is to be installed as a CGI program.

Implementation Step 1 —

First, install the Perl CGI script.

#!/usr/bin/perl
# Landing Page Cookie
#    Version 1.0
#    December 11, 2006
#
# This script is one part of a system. See 
# http://bontragerconnection.com/library/landing_page_cookie.shtml
#
# Copyright 2006 Bontrager Connection, LLC
#
# Agree to license agreement at 
#    /master/LicenseAgreement.html
#    before using this script.
#######################################################
use strict; # Keep this line as is.

# Specify the location of the log file (include directory path if appropriate).
my $LogFileName = 'LandingPageCookie.csv';

# Un-escape the value sent to this logging script.
my @parameter = split /&/,$ENV{QUERY_STRING},2;
for(@parameter) { s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C",hex($1))/eg; }

# Determine the server date and time.
my @month = qw( January February March April May June July August September October November December );
my ($second,$minute,$hour,$day,$month,$year) = localtime;
$year += 1900;
$month = $month[$month];
$hour = "0$hour" if $hour < 10;
$minute = "0$minute" if $minute < 10;
$second = "0$second" if $second < 10;
my $date = "$month $day, $year";
my $time = "$hour:$minute:$second";

# Initialize log file if it doesn't exist.
unless(-e $LogFileName)
{
	open W,">$LogFileName";
	print W qq~"Server Date","Server Time","Confirmation Page","Landing Page","IP Address","Browser/OS"\n~;
	close W;
}

# Print the log line.
open W,">>$LogFileName";
print W qq~"$date","$time","$parameter[0]","$parameter[1]","$ENV{REMOTE_ADDR}","$ENV{HTTP_USER_AGENT}"\n~;
close W;

# Send a 5x5 clear gif image to the browser.
print "Content-type: image/gif\n\n";
my $image = "R0lGODlhBQAFAJH/AP///wAAAMDAwAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAUAAAIElI+pWAA7\n";
$image =~ tr|A-Za-z0-9+=/||cd;
$image =~ s/=+$//;
$image =~ tr|A-Za-z0-9+/| -_|;
print join '',map(unpack("u",chr(32 + length($_)*3/4) . $_),$image =~ /(.{1,60})/gs);
# end of script

You may wish to change the log file name before installing. If the log file is to be written to a location other than where the script is to be installed, include directory path information with the file name.

Once the Perl CGI script is installed, test it by typing its URL into your browser.

Verify that the script creates the log file. (The log file created by this test may be deleted — the script creates the file as needed.)

Implementation Step 2 —

Now, determine which of your web pages shall be a landing page. Insert the cookie setting JavaScript into the web page.

The higher in the page you put the JavaScript, the sooner the cookie will be set. The JavaScript can be inserted into the HEAD or BODY area of the source code.

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
<!-- Copyright 2006 Bontrager Connection, LLC
// Developed for BontragerConnection.com 
//    and associated domains.
// See "Landing Page Cookie" article for more information. 
//    http://bontragerconnection.com/library/landing_page_cookie.shtml
//    Article first published in Possibilities ezine December 5, 2006
//    /library/
//
// This is the cookie setting JavaScript, for the landing page.
//
// (Cookie retrieval JavaScript is used on the page that is 
//    presented when the visitor does the desired action.)
//
//
// Two cookie setting JavaScript customizations:
//
// 1.
// Specify a cookie name for variable CookieName. (This 
//    cookie name must be identical to the cookie name 
//    in the cookie retrieval JavaScript.

var CookieName = "aCookieNameHere";

// 2.
// Optionally, specify the number of days the cookie shall last 
//    for variable DaysToLive.

var DaysToLive = 90;


// //////////////
// No other JavaScript customizations are necessary.
// //////////////

var cookiecontent = '';
if(document.cookie.length > 0) {
	var cookiename = CookieName + '=';
	var cookiebegin = document.cookie.indexOf(cookiename);
	var cookieend = 0;
	if(cookiebegin > -1) {
		cookiebegin += cookiename.length;
		cookieend = document.cookie.indexOf(";",cookiebegin);
		if(cookieend < cookiebegin) { cookieend = document.cookie.length; }
		cookiecontent = document.cookie.substring(cookiebegin,cookieend);
		}
	}
if(cookiecontent.length == 0) {
	if(! (DaysToLive > 0)) { DaysToLive = 0; }
	var exp = '';
	if(DaysToLive > 0) {
		var now = new Date();
		then = now.getTime() + (DaysToLive * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
		now.setTime(then);
		exp = '; expires=' + now.toGMTString();
		}
	document.cookie = CookieName + "=" + escape(document.URL) + '; path=/' + exp;
	}
	//-->
</script>

A cookie name needs to be specified in the JavaScript. It doesn't really matter what the name is, so long as it begins with a letter, is composed only of letters and numbers, and, importantly, the same name is used in the JavaScript for the conversion "thank you" page (implementation step 3).

The second decision to make is how long the cookie shall last.

Things to consider:

Once the cookie is set, it will not be overwritten by any landing page of this system so long as the cookie exists.
A conversion "thank you" page will launch the logging CGI script only when a cookie is present.
Once the cookie expires, it can be overwritten.

The JavaScript is marked where you can specify the cookie name and the number of days the cookie shall exist.

Put the JavaScript into one landing page. After testing proves everything works as it should, other landing pages can be enabled with the JavaScript.

Implementation Step 3 —

For this final implementation step, determine which of your confirmation "thank you" pages shall launch the logging script. Insert the cookie retrieving JavaScript into the web page.

The higher in the page you put the JavaScript, the sooner the cookie will be set. The JavaScript can be inserted into the HEAD or BODY area of the source code.

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
<!-- Copyright 2006 Bontrager Connection, LLC
// Developed for BontragerConnection.com 
//    and associated domains.
// See "Landing Page Cookie" article for more information. 
//    http://bontragerconnection.com/library/landing_page_cookie.shtml
//    Article first published in Possibilities ezine December 5, 2006
//    /library/
//
// This is the cookie retrieval JavaScript, for the page that is 
//    presented when the visitor does the desired action.
//
// (Cookie setting JavaScript is used on the landing page.)
//
//
// Two cookie setting JavaScript customizations:
//
// 1.
// Specify a cookie name for variable CookieName. (This 
//    cookie name must be identical to the cookie name 
//    in the cookie setting JavaScript.

var CookieName = "aCookieNameHere";

// 2.
// Specify the URL of the script that will log the cookie.

var URLofLoggingScript = "http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/LandingPageCookie.cgi";


// //////////////
// No other JavaScript customizations are necessary.
// //////////////

var cookiecontent = '';
if(document.cookie.length > 0) {
	var cookiename = CookieName + '=';
	var cookiebegin = document.cookie.indexOf(cookiename);
	var cookieend = 0;
	if(cookiebegin > -1) {
		cookiebegin += cookiename.length;
		cookieend = document.cookie.indexOf(";",cookiebegin);
		if(cookieend < cookiebegin) { cookieend = document.cookie.length; }
		cookiecontent = document.cookie.substring(cookiebegin,cookieend);
		}
	}
cookiecontent = escape(cookiecontent);
if(cookiecontent.length > 0) {
	var Timage = new Image();
	Timage.src = URLofLoggingScript + "?" + cookiecontent + "&" + escape(document.URL);
	var now = new Date();
	then = now.getTime() - (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
	now.setTime(then);
	document.cookie = CookieName + "=" + escape(document.URL) + '; path=/' + '; expires=' + now.toGMTString();
}
//-->
</script>

A cookie name must be the same name as specified in the cookie setting JavaScript for the landing page (implemented in step 2).

The second customization is to specify the URL to the Perl CGI script you installed in implementation step 1.

The JavaScript is marked where you can specify the cookie name and the Perl CGI script URL.

Put the JavaScript into one confirmation "thank you" page. After testing proves everything works as it should, others can be enabled with the JavaScript.

Testing

You've tested the Perl CGI script installation in implementation step 1. All that's left is to test the landing page and confirmation "thank you" page JavaScript.

To test, go through the motions a site visitor would. Then download the log file and import it into your desktop spreadsheet software.

When everything works okay, you're good to go.

Delete the testing log file from the server, just so you don't have your testing clutter in the file.

The Perl CGI script will make a new log file whenever it doesn't find one already existing.

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WillMaster > Web Development Tools Reference Library > CGI Code, Scripts, and Tips

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