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The UltraCart Autoresponder will embed a 5x5 5 x 5 transparent image at the end of each html email message before the closing body tag. If the recipient displays images in their emails, this image tracks the opening of the email and records it.
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All links are rewritten to route through the Autoresponder. When a link it is clicked, the event is captured during the routing process. This creates a link click event for the recipient.
If the recipient does not display images, and therefore no Open event was captured yet, this also creates an Open event for this recipient.
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Error Message for a non-existent tracking id
Placing an Order
When a recipient places an order, the sale is associated with the campaign history using an optimistic algorithm. The Autoresponder will attempt to capture every sale made, which includes sales generated without the email links. For example, if a recipient receives an email, opens his/her browser, uses a favorite to navigate to your site, and then makes a purchase. Such an event will carry no tracking ids to associate the purchase with a campaign. The optimistic algorithm will do a check after the order is placed to look for a matching email addresses to associate the sale. The Autoresponder will look for the most recent, non Failure EMAIL step containing a history record for the recipient and associate the order with that history record.
Tip: It is possible for the wrong association to be made. One scenario would be multiple campaigns sending emails to a recipient and the recipient makes a purchase based on the earlier email. In this case, the Autoresponder will incorrectly associate the sale with the most recent email. This would be a mistake, but as far as mistakes go, this is nothing near the magnitude of Caddyshack 2, eh?
However, this will probably not be a problem for the following reasons:
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It's impossible to know the exact driver for a purchase. Perhaps the second email reminded the recipient of the first and triggered the sale? The important result is this: any order for a recipient with a successful email step will be captured and reported.