CPV Lab Pro Review: Dive into a Sea of Data without Drowning!

Digital marketing is a whirlwind, and media buyers are often caught in a storm of challenges that can feel overwhelming.

Disorganized data swirling around, actionable insights slipping through your fingers, and the constant stress of hitting event limits with your tracking solutions. It’s a recipe for missed opportunities and dwindling budgets!

If you’re tired of playing a guessing game with your campaigns or feel buried under mountains of data with no clear path to decipher it, you’re definitely not alone.

And that’s where CPV Lab Pro comes in. It’s your potential guide in a chaotic sea of ad tracking.

In this review, we’ll explore how this innovative tracker might elevate your strategy and assist you in achieving your goals more efficiently, helping you determine if it’s the right fit for your needs.

Key Takeaways

• CPV Lab is one of the oldest affiliate tracking platforms, having been around since 2018.
• Allows the creation of versatile campaign types that can be tailored to the advertiser’s needs.
• Is a self-hosted solution, so it provides total control over data and traffic scalability without extra costs in license.
• Has a user-friendly interface that simplifies the tracking process.
• Makes optimization easy through custom profiles that help identify which campaigns, landing pages, offers, targets, etc. need adjustment.
• Has extra features like landing page protection, dynamic keyword insertion, and API integration.
• Provides cost-effective plans for media buyers at different levels of business.
• Needs to include some important calculated metrics like EPV (earnings per view), which could affect performance analysis for specific ad types.
• Needs an expanded catalog of affiliate networks and traffic sources.

What is CPV Lab?

CPV Lab is one of the oldest affiliate tracking platforms available. It’s certainly one of the first ones I myself have tried back in the day, but it has changed a lot since then.

The original company has been around since 2010, though there has been a change of hands in 2018. A new and improved version was launched under the name CPV Lab Pro.

CPV Lab isn’t just any ad tracker; it’s a self-hosted ad tracker that knows your needs.

Whether you’re managing traffic from diverse sources or you’re reliant on cookies or not, CPV Lab has you covered. It’s designed to track all your marketing campaigns seamlessly, providing you with the crucial data needed to fine-tune and optimize your efforts.

As a performance marketing tracker, it gives you the power to discover the top-performing combinations of traffic, offers, landing pages, and ads—all from one intuitive dashboard. It’s not just about tracking; it’s about mastering your marketing landscape.

Anyone can use this tracker. From e-commerce wizards tracking every sale to affiliates scaling paid ad campaigns, CPV Lab Pro is a versatile tool for diverse marketers. Whether you’re generating leads or boosting ROI, it equips you with the insights and optimization power you need to succeed.

In this review, we’ll discuss just the self-hosted version — CPV Lab Pro. We’ll talk about the cloud-hosted version, CPV One, in a separate review.

CPV Lab Pro Best Features

Being around for more than a decade ago, the people behind CPV Lab Pro understand the needs of the modern affiliate marketer. As such, they’ve developed and updated features that would benefit us most.

Let’s explore the aspects that matter most.

Secure Self-Hosted Tracker

This tracking platform gives you total control over your data. Since it runs on your own servers, you don’t have to stress about some random third party sneaking a peek at your sensitive marketing info.

Your campaign insights, your performance metrics — everything stays right where it belongs: in your hands.

And unlike those cloud-hosted solutions that love putting limits on clicks and events based on pricing tiers, CPV Lab Pro says, “Go wild!” No limits here, folks. Except the limit that the server you use can handle.

You can scale your tracking as much as you need without worrying about extra costs. So whether you’re sending twenty thousand or twenty million events per month, a single CPV Lab Pro license has you covered. It definitely gives a cost-effective solution for long-term tracking needs.

This scalability means you can manage rapidly growing campaigns effortlessly and efficiently.

Note: CPV Lab has partnered with a few hosting solutions so that you can get ones that’s optimized for this tracker. The higher the hosting plan, the more clicks you can accept per month.

Real-Time Statistics Updates

CPV Lab Pro offers near real-time statistics updates that allow you to stay on top of your campaigns with up-to-the-minute data. This feature ensures that you can make timely and informed decisions based on the latest performance metrics.

It’s important to note, however, that if your server location is far from where your traffic is coming from, you might encounter a slight delay in updates.

But rest assured, the tracker is designed to handle and monitor such campaigns with a high degree of reliability. It delivers accurate results 99% of the time.

Thorough Reporting Features

When it comes to scrutinizing your marketing data, CPV Lab Pro’s reporting features are like having a magnifying glass at hand. We’re talking comprehensive — you can dig down to the deepest level of every click or event that breezes through this tracker.

One of the standout elements of CPV Lab Pro is its ability to break down your marketing data into an almost absurd level of detail. It provides more than 30 data points for every click, whether they be mobile or desktop.

From the geography of your clicks to time zones, devices used, browser types, ISPs, carriers, exact browser versions, and many more — every nugget of data is at your fingertips.

This granular level of analysis allows us marketers to fine-tune our campaigns with laser-like precision, so even the smallest of tweaks can lead to massive improvements.

This level of detail isn’t just for the data nerds out there (though let’s be honest, we all have a bit of that in us). Whether you’re tracking conversions, analyzing funnel drop-offs, or simply curious about which landing page is working best, CPV Lab Pro gives you the full story.

Multiple Campaign Types

As a marketer, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of trying to fit all your campaigns into a one-size-fits-all tracking system.

The good news is that this tracking platform offers six specialized campaign layouts designed to harness the full power of various funnels. Let’s break down each type.

1. Direct Link and Landing Page Campaigns

First up, we have the bread-and-butter of digital marketing, which is also the most common one. Whether you’re rotating unlimited landing pages or testing direct links vs. landing pages, this setup works great.

It’s ideal for tracking sales and conversions from all offers. You can easily see which approach is more effective. Tired of guessing which page works best? This one’s a no-brainer.

2. Landing Page Sequence Campaigns

Got a complex funnel? No problem. The Landing Page Sequence Campaign layout is your go-to for guiding audiences through intricate, step-by-step journeys. Think of it as a detailed guide for your visitors.

It leads them through multiple pages which can include opt-ins and various offers. Perfect for those who value a well-planned journey over a simple direct path.

3. Lead Capture Campaigns

Capturing leads is streamlined in CPV Lab Pro. With Lead Capture Campaigns, you can test different lead capture pages. Use autoresponder forms and track subscribers, rates, and costs.

If you intend to turn prospects into loyal customers or if you want to sell leads directly to advertisers, then this campaign setup is your best bet.

4. Multiple Option Campaigns

If you love giving your audience choices, then this option is tailor-made for you. Perfect for review-style landing pages, upsells, and downsells, this layout lets you quickly test multiple offers from a single landing page.

It’s the ultimate playground for marketers who thrive on variety and want to provide their audience with multiple pathways to conversion.

5. Multi-Path Campaigns

For marketers who know the journey matters as much as the destination, Multi-Path Campaigns are here. With it, you can set up complex funnels with ease.

Create multiple paths, run themed ones, or rotate them as you like. Control each path to find the top performer. Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure book for your marketing.

6. Email Follow-Up Campaigns

While CRMs and autoresponders can track open rates and link clicks, it can seldom track what happens next. CPV Lab Pro can help you there, through the Email Follow-Up Campaigns.

You can track link clicks, gather click data, and assign revenue to the initial opt-in. This gives you a complete view of your marketing efforts. No need to juggle multiple tools.

Templates for Multiple Traffic Providers and Affiliate Networks

With over 90 traffic sources and almost 100 affiliate networks, CPV Lab makes setting up new traffic sources and affiliate networks a breeze. The templates are pre-configured with the necessary tokens and tracking parameters. No more hunting for these details yourself.

However, there are almost 400 affiliate networks and almost 200 traffic sources existing today. We sure hope CPV Lab can catch up and add more networks to their templates.

You can have custom network integrations with the Expert Plan, but I don’t think jumping from Pro Plan to Expert Plan just for additional network integrations is worth it.

Alerts and Optimization Profile

Diving into stats and making smart decisions based on data trends is necessary if you want to get a good ROI for your paid ads. This can be made easier with Alerts Profiles and Optimization Profiles.

You set your metric goals once, and the tool takes care of identifying which targets, offers, landing pages, and campaigns fit the bill.

All you need to do is set the metrics that identifies whether the item needs improvement, must be removed, or is working. If it’s working, then you can take the necessary steps like whitelisting the target, increasing the bids with your ad network, or more.

When you assign it to a campaign, CPV Lab Pro handles decision-making automatically — it gives you an Optimization Report filled with actionable insights so you’ll know what to do right away.

The Stats page shines a light on areas that need work, using color-coded indicators.

Red shows options to remove or change, while yellow highlights successful campaigns. The system uses your filters and sorts elements into Winners, In Progress, and for Removal.

API Integrations

The API Integrations feature of CPV Lab Pro is super handy for managing campaigns. It lets you pass conversions and revenue to traffic sources automatically. No more manual data entry, which means fewer errors.

If you’re running auto-optimization like for Meta Ads, this can come in handy. Integration is available for several networks, including Microsoft Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, and Facebook/Meta Ads.

Dynamic Insertion for Landing Pages

Dynamic insertion means your landing page content changes based on the information passed by the link.

With CPV Lab Pro, you can use dynamic tokens to make the user experience personal. This lets you pass specific data directly to landing pages, making your content more engaging.

Dynamic insertion tweaks headlines, images, calls to action, and more.

Imagine a scenario where a user who lives in London using a Samsung phone visits your landing page. If the tokens on the city and device brand are added to the page, it will automatically adjust to show these information.

And as we all know, personalized landing page messaging boosts engagement and conversion rates. Plus, testing different variations with precision refines your campaigns.

Using CPV Lab Pro’s dynamic insertion, your landing pages become more effective and versatile. This flexibility offers a tailored experience without the inconvenience of creating multiple static pages.

Landing Page Protection

Ever worry about prying eyes on your landing pages? CPV Lab Pro has your back with its new landing page protection feature. Think of it as having a digital bouncer at the door, kicking out unauthorized visitors and spy tools trying to sneak a peek at your hard work.

Here’s how it works: when you set up a campaign, CPV Lab Pro generates a special key in the URL that’s good for a short time (5 minutes by default).

This key ensures only legit visitors get through by checking their IP address, User Agent, and the time they clicked on the campaign URL. If everything matches up, they’re in. If not, sorry buddy, no entry.

Without this protection, anyone with the link could access your landing page — and we all know how fast spy tools can latch onto that. But with the Landing Page Protection Script, even if someone gets a hold of your landing page URL, they’ll hit a dead end unless they come through the correct Campaign URL first.

In short, CPV Lab Pro adds an essential layer of security, making sure your landing pages are only seen by the right eyes. Aside from being able to redirect or block bots, LP protection is a must-have feature.

Limitless Page and Offer Rotation

Just as CPV Lab Pro accepts unlimited events, it also allows marketers to create an unlimited number of campaigns, link unlimited landing pages, and create unlimited offer rotations.

No more constantly monitoring and managing the number of your campaigns or having to delete some assets to make room for new ones. You have a free hand to experiment, scale, and optimize your marketing efforts to their fullest potential.

Imagine the possibilities. You can run many A/B tests, try different offers, and tweak flows without limits. This removes the restrictions other platforms might impose on your creativity.

MV Lab (Multi-Variate Testing Feature)

Speaking of A/B tests, for an additional fee, you can utilize CPV Lab Pro’s MV Lab.

I can say that this tool surely takes the hassle out of testing multiple variations. Instead of creating numerous copies of the same landing page, MV Lab allows you to test endless variations from one single page. It’s an incredibly potent way to identify the best-performing elements of your landing page.

So, how can you use it? Simple! Start by setting up different variations of your landing page elements — headlines, images, call-to-action buttons, and more.

MV Lab will then run these variations and provide you with data on which combinations are driving the most traffic and conversions. This insight is invaluable as you can increase traffic to the winning combinations and quickly remove the underperforming ones.

Bot and Proxy/VPN Detection, Blocking or Rerouting

Bot and fraud traffic can be a real pain, inflating your numbers with zero actual value. Bots can even be used to spy on your campaigns and landing pages. This messes with your hard-earned strategies and will make you lose possible earnings. Annoying, right?

CPV Lab Pro helps you tackle this headache head-on. It lets you detect and block those pesky malicious traffic sources, so your data actually reflects real human interactions.

More accurate performance metrics? Yes, please. By kicking out bot traffic, you get to focus on genuine user engagement. Plus, this improves traffic quality, which makes advertisers and affiliate networks trust us more.

Aside from bots, CPV Lab Pro is also super flexible when dealing with proxy and VPN traffic. Instead of a one-size-fits-all solution, you get options.

If proxy traffic isn’t valuable for your campaign, you can block it outright. Or, if there’s some strategic benefit, you can let it through or reroute it elsewhere. This adaptability keeps your campaigns sharp and efficient.

S2S and Cookieless Tracking

Have you ever had that moment where you realize cookies — those little digital crumbs—aren’t enough to track every move your visitors make? Well, CPV Lab Pro to the rescue with both S2S (Server-to-Server tracking) and cookieless tracking.

First off, S2S tracking is like having a direct line to the data gods. It allows you to send conversion data directly from your server. This means ultra-accurate tracking without relying too much on browser cookies, which can get blocked or deleted faster than you can say “privacy policy.”

Now, let’s talk cookieless tracking. With the increasing focus on user privacy and browsers doing away with third-party cookies, CPV Lab Pro has stayed ahead of the curve.

Say goodbye to complex workarounds and hello to cookieless tracking that ensures you don’t lose sight of your valuable data. It relies on first-party data and other modern techniques to keep tabs on your visitors without intruding on their privacy. It’s sorta like tracking without the trail of crumbs — stealthy and super effective.

Link Cloaking and Shortening

You know that feeling when you look at your ad campaign links and think, “Wow, that’s one ugly URL”?

Well, this tracker has got you covered with its link cloaking and shortening feature. No more hideous, mile-long links scaring away potential clicks. Instead, you get sleek, manageable links that are as attractive as they are effective.

But it’s not just about aesthetics. Marketers can seriously up their game with this feature.

By cloaking links, you’re effectively hiding the destination URL, which comes in handy for a few reasons.

• Keeps competitors from seeing where you’re driving traffic (another anti-competitor spying feature).
• Makes the URL less likely to be flagged or blocked by ad networks.
• Can improve click-through rates since shorter, cleaner URLs look more legitimate and trustworthy to users.

Hold tight, because, in the next sections, we’ll dive into our hands-on experience with CPV Lab Pro. We’ll share how we tested this tool and whether it lived up to the hype. But before that, let’s talk price.

CPV Lab Plans and Pricing

All these features are so inviting, but how much does CPV Lab Pro cost?

There are actually three available plans with three different payment frequencies. Let’s break down these plans and see what they bring to the table.

Starter Plan: A Beginner’s Paradise

Alright, beginners, this one’s for you! The Starter Plan is your gateway to effective affiliate marketing. Here’s what you’re signing up for:

• Price: $47 a month paid monthly, $39 a month paid annually, $957 for a lifetime license.
• Two Campaign Types: Perfect for those just dipping their toes into affiliate marketing. You get two campaign types to get started, so it’s a good way to familiarize yourself with the process without feeling overwhelmed. These two campaign types are Direct Linking/LP Campaigns and Email Follow-up.
• 10+ Reports & 20+ Data Points: This plan provides insightful reports and data points, including crucial mobile data.
• Basic Support & Free Updates: Expected response time of 24 hours for inquiries.

Who should opt for this?

If you’re new to affiliate marketing and want to start small while still having powerful tools, the Starter Plan is the way to go.

Pro Plan: The Crowd Favorite

Next up is the Pro Plan, which seems to be quite the popular choice. It offers a robust set of features that can take your tracking game to the next level.

• Price: $77 a month paid monthly, $64 a month paid annually, $1,557 for a lifetime license.
• 6 Campaign Types: Full usage of CPV Lab’s campaign types.
• 20+ Reports & 30+ Data Points: Better insights with a more comprehensive set of data metrics.
• 10 Custom Tracking Domains: Personalize your tracking with custom domains, giving you more control over your campaigns.
• Feature Access:
  • Geo-Redirect / Multi-condition Redirect
  • Bot Detection & Filtering
  • Proxy Detection & Filtering
  • Upload Exact Bids (CPC)
  • Landing Page Protection
  • API Access to Campaigns & Data
  • Primary Mobile & Desktop Detection Database
  • Alternative Mobile & Desktop Detection Database
  • TrueCache – for high traffic volumes
  • ISP/Carrier Reports
• Standard Support & Free Updates: Enjoy the standard level of support with one 1-on-1 video call (campaign setup assistance) and update privileges as the Starter Plan.

Who is this for?

This plan is ideal if you’ve been in the game for a while and need more advanced features without breaking the bank. It’s a perfect blend of functionality and affordability.

Expert Plan: The Full Monty

Now, for those who want it all, meet the Expert Plan. You get everything from the Pro Plan plus some extra goodies that make it worth every penny. Same campaign types, reports, and data points.

• Price: $107 a month paid monthly, $89 a month paid annually, $2,157 for a lifetime license.
• 50 Custom Tracking Domains: A huge leap from the Pro Plan. Customize your tracking to your heart’s content.
• Priority & Live Chat Support: Got issues? Get them resolved faster with priority and live chat support. You’ll get two 1-on-1 video call plus on-demand Traffic Source and Affiliate Network integration.
• All Features Access
• All Campaign Types
• Multi-user Access: Allows up to 5 users with adjustable access.
• MV Lab for Multivariate Testing: Can be used for up to 50 domains.

Who should get this plan?

If you’re serious about affiliate marketing and want to leverage the most advanced tools, this is the plan for you. It’s perfect for seasoned marketers who already have a team of their own.

For all these plans, you get a 14-day free trial unless you purchase the lifetime license.

For Starter and Pro Plans, the MV Lab can be added for a separate fee that starts at $69 for five domains. The more domains, the higher the price.

How to Start Tracking with CPV Lab

Getting started is as easy as pie—maybe even easier? First things first, you’ll want to grab yourself a CPV Lab Pro account.

Choose the self-hosted account. (Again, we’ll discuss the cloud-hosted version in a separate article.)

Choose either a monthly, yearly, or lifetime license for one instance.

As for the plan types, we recommend choosing at least the Pro plan so you get all the campaign types and data points.

How to Install CPV Lab in Your Hosting

Before we get started with the installation, you need to purchase your own server first.

It must be a Linux Server.

VPS or Dedicated Hosting is recommended, though Shared Hosting can be acceptable if your expected traffic volume is less than 500K a month. But don’t skimp on this and go for the VPS option.

Other server requirements are as follows:

• PHP 7.4 or 8.1
• MySQL 5.6.3 and above or MariaDB 10.0.12 and above
• at least 250 MB of disk space
• ionCube Loader 11.0 or newer
• External requests enabled
• 256MB of Memory allocated to PHP Process

Note: If you choose any of the hosting providers in their partners‘ list, CPV Lab’s team can even install the tracker for you.

Next, head over to the User Area of the CPV Lab Pro website. You should have received your login credentials via email when you made your purchase. Use these to sign in.

Once you’re in, you’ll need to download the Install Wizard Package and follow the next steps. If you have the technical know-how, it’s really not that difficult and will take only about 15 minutes.

Here’s a rough outline:

• unzip the installation package in your computer;
• upload them to your server using an FTP client or through the File manager option in your cpanel;
• configure the file permissions;
• create the database;
• create users and set their privileges;
• head back to CPV Lab Pro installation wizard to add the necessary info to finish the installation.

This is pretty much it.

BUT if you are not that techy or you want to make sure it’s configured properly, you can always ask for assistance from CPV Lab Pro’s support team. Pro and Expert Plan holders are entitled to 1-on-1 video call assistance, which they can use for this purpose.

Dashboard Tour

Once your installation is good to go, you can login to your CPV Lab Pro dashboard. Here’s what the main dashboard looks like:

Shown are:

• date range
• summary stats cards on top
  the top 5 or bottom 5 list (for campaign, country, traffic source, etc.)
• the campaigns chart that shows the cost, revenue, and ROI of top/bottom campaigns
• the visitor’s chart
• device types share
• browsers share
• operating system share
• top campaigns list

The navigation menu is located on the left pane. As you can see, it’s quite easy to navigate without going through a lot of training.

Still, CPV Lab makes sure the user knows how to navigate the space properly with a few quick guides that appear on screen.

Let’s go through how things are done just so you have an idea how everything works.

Adding Custom Tracking Domains

By default, you can use your tracker’s domain name as the base link for tracking or campaign links. However, that is not a safe practice. After all, if someone spies on your tracking links, they might even attack your installation.

The same goes for when uploading your landing pages. Make sure your CPV Lab installation’s domain is different from your landing pages.

As a best practice, you can use the same domain as your landing page and the campaign. Doing so helps stricter traffic sources (like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and other similar social networks.

As such, CPV Lab Pro allows you to add up to a hundred domain names. Of course, the limit is based on the type of plan you get, the lowest being 10 domains for the Pro plan.

To add your custom tracking domains in CPV Lab, start by navigating to the Settings section, followed by selecting Custom Domains.

Here, you’ll want to input your tracking domain, ensuring that it begins with “https://”.

Make sure you edit your domain’s DNS Records for this to work. Either point the A Record to your CPV Lab Pro installation’s IP address, or your CNAME Record’s target host name should be your CPV Lab Pro installation’s domain name.

After doing these steps, you have the option to test the domain, which checks if the A record or CNAME configuration is correct and whether SSL is enabled. I recommend doing so to evoid posible errors.

Once you’ve confirmed that everything is in order, don’t forget to click Save.

And you’re done! Your custom tracking domain is now ready.

Before creating campaigns, let’s setup some traffic sources and affiliate networks first.

Adding an Affiliate Network

First up, head over to the Offer Sources page, you’ll find it under Sources menu.

If your chosen network is already strutting its stuff in the catalog, just click on “Import from Catalog” and scroll through the list.

Want to save some time? Type the network’s name in the search bar to locate it faster.

Once you’ve selected your network, CPV Lab will do its thing and pre-fill the necessary info for you. It’s like they know what you need before you even ask!

Now, if your affiliate network isn’t listed, just fill out all the required fields in the form. You might need to do a quick check with your affiliate network to snag the right tokens (placeholders) and Postback URL for this task.

After you’ve ensured everything is in tip-top shape, just hit that Save button. You can add as many networks as your heart desires.

Adding Traffic Sources

For this part, click on Sources in the main menu again, then select Traffic Sources.

Just like with the affiliate networks, you’ll have the option to input your traffic source details or choose from the catalog.

Here’s what the catalog looks like:

The key difference when manually adding traffic sources compared to affiliate networks is that there are more tokens to place. The more data you want to collect from every click or event, the more tokens you’ll need to search for and input.

Make sure to check your traffic source for specific information about the tokens required. Once you’ve configured everything, don’t forget to hit Save, and you’re all set to track clicks effectively!

Adding an Offer

If you’ll be using the same offer for several campaigns, it’s a good practice to add it to your list of available offers. To do that, first, head over to the Offer Management Page under LPs & Offers heading in the menu.

On the main page, you can immediately add your offer. It’s a simple enough form.

First, type in the name of your offer. This helps you easily spot it later when you’re adding it to a campaign.

Next, you’ll want to mark the offer as either active or inactive. There’s a handy toggle switch that lets you change this status anytime. Perfect for when you need to pause an offer without deleting it entirely.

Select the source of your offer. If it’s from an affiliate network, pick that from the dropdown. If it’s your own offer, choose “In-House.” This keeps everything organized and easy to track.

Next, determine the payout for each conversion or sale. This is crucial for keeping tabs on your revenue and assessing the performance of each offer. If you’re offer is on RevShare or if you want more accurate tracking of your earnings, it would be best to leave this blank and use the cost tracking token within the link.

Now, plug in the URL for your offer. This is the link that your traffic will be directed to.

There’s a space to include any notes about the offer, in case you need it. These could be details like geo-restrictions, caps, or any special conditions. It’s always good to have these reminders at hand, especially if you have several people in your team with access to the same offer.

Lastly, assign the offer to a group if you like. If you don’t see a relevant group in the dropdown, you can create a new one right on the spot. Grouping offers keeps everything neat and tidy, especially when you’re juggling numerous campaigns.

Click Save, and your offer will then be ready for use.

Bulk Import

If you have multiple offers to add, the bulk import feature is your friend. You can copy offers from a CSV file that contains the right formatting and paste them into the provided textbox, then click save. All your offers will be imported at once.

Managing Current Offers

Once your offers are set up, you can edit, delete, or add them to campaigns straight from the Offer Management Page. You can find it below the Offer form.

There’s also a bulk delete option if you need to clean house quickly. There’s an option to toggle the active/inactive status with just a click, giving you full control over your offers with minimal hassle.

Adding a Landing Page

Landing pages are often the lifeblood of a campaign. If you want to increase your chances at getting a conversion, use a pre-lander.

Recommended Reading: 10 Top Landing Page Optimization Tips to Boost Conversions

Here’s how to add LPs in CPV Lab Pro.

First, navigate to the Landing Page Management Page. It’s just under LPs & Offers as well.

Start by entering a name for your landing page. Make it something memorable so you can easily recognize it later. Next to it, toggle the status of your landing page to active or inactive.

Now, plug in the URL of your landing page. Don’t forget to include “http” or “https” at the beginning—otherwise, you’ll be left scratching your head wondering why it’s not working.

If you like, you can jot down any notes about the landing page, just like when adding offers. You can place details like target audience, special offers, or unique features of the page.

You can likewise group your landing pages into categories like Website, Blog, Nutra, Dating, or iGaming. I like grouping based on the types of offers I promote using the landing page. This makes it easier when looking for pre-landers to rotate.

If your category isn’t listed, simply select “Add New” from the dropdown to create a new group. This will keep your pages neatly organized.

Bulk Import

If you’ve got a bunch of landing pages to upload, use the bulk import feature, too. Download the CSV file template, fill it out with your landing page details, then copy and paste the content into the text box provided. There’s still no option to upload the CSV file.

Click save, and presto! All your landing pages are imported in one go. Any landing page with all the mandatory fields (name and URL) will be saved. Finish up by clicking “Done,” and your landing pages will appear in the list below.

Landing Pages List

Scroll down and you’ll see all your predefined landing pages listed in a table. From here, you can edit or delete them as needed. The table also lets you activate or deactivate pages with a simple click.

You can also check how many campaigns the LP is being used in.

Creating a Campaign

I’ve already mentioned that there are six types of campaigns that you can create with CPV Lab Pro (if you get the Pro or higher plan). So let’s talk about all of them!

Head over to the Campaign menu option and then the Add Campaign submenu.

Here’s what you’ll find on the Add Campaign page — your six options.

They’re all pretty useful for affiliates. Even the email follow-up can be of great use, if you know how to utilize them well.

1. Direct Link and Landing Page Campaigns

If you choose this option, you’ll be asked to use the Quick Setup or Advanced Setup. Let’s go the long route here and opt for the latter.

Note: You can also access the Quick Setup by clicking on the Quick Campaign Setup link under the Campaigns submenu.

On the main page, you can configure the general settings for your campaign. Here’s a rough overview of the first section:

• campaign name
• campaign ID – Pre-filled by CPV Lab.
• Failure page – Where the visitor will go when an error occurs.
• Group
• Alert Profile – Add this if you want to see underperforming campaigns and targets immediately on the Stats page. They’ll be highlighted in red. You can also be notified via email when the metrics you set per profile are reached.
• Optimization Profile – Add this if you want to see targets/offers/LPs/campaigns that you want to edit and adjust immediately. They’ll be highlighted in either red or yellow based on the metrics you set in the profiles.
• Tracking domain – Use any of the custom domains you’ve added.

On the right side of the first section are the Tracking Settings.

Under Data Options, you can select the data that you want to capture. Your chosen tokens will be appended at the end of your campaign tracking link. For this reason, I like selecting All Capture Options. The more data, the better!

Other tracking settings include:

• Engage Rate – Set to 0 if you want to display all campaign views, even if they last less than a second. Recommended setting is 5.
• Priority – This sets the precedent for where the traffic should go in case you use landing pages for multiple campaigns. If you set a higher priority over others for this campaign, traffic from here will be prioritized.
• Capture IP Address – Enable this in case you want to get the IP addresses of visitors. EU and California can be excluded for GDPR purposes.
• Redirect Type – Choose among Direct Redirect, Double Meta Refresh, and Redirect Loop.
• Campaign Type – Your options are Direct Link, Landing Pages, and Split. For the last option, you can specify the percentage of traffic that goes to your landing page.

Scroll down for the Macros & Tokens section. Pick your traffic source from the list.

If your source is not shown, you can manually place it and indicate the right tokens. But just make your life easier and add the traffic network.

It’s time to add your landing pages!

Start by selecting any of the landing pages you previously added. You can add more than one landing page, then establish the share of traffic that each LP must receive.

Next, you’ll want to input your offers.

Start by selecting an offer in the dropdown. You can choose from predefined options or manually add one, ensuring that the offer URL includes the {!subid!} parameter at the end.

Like in the LPs, you can add several offers and split the traffic among them.

That’s pretty much all you need for this campaign. Click Save and get your link from the Links & Pixels section of the page.

You’ll find the scripts for the landing page as well as the pixels for the offer page (in case you have access to that).

2. Landing Page Sequence Campaigns

If your campaigns require the user to go through several landing pages to warm up your audience, then this is your best bet.

The initial parts of the campaign creation is the same as above (Direct Linking), up until the Landing Pages section.

If you will notice, there’s a button that says “Add Level.”

Level 1 is where the visitors will first land on, Level 2 is where they will go after clicking a button, and so on.

Choose your main landing page on Level 1 and indicate the traffic share (if using more than one LP).

Then choose your landing pages on Level 2 and indicate the traffic share as well.

After setting these up, you can head over to the Offers section.

You can also use this campaign type for Listicle-style landing pages.

A listicle is a type of content that combines lists and articles. It usually refers to a main landing page that features multiple products or offers.

Each product has its own Level 2 landing page and an offer. This setup makes comparison easy and directs traffic efficiently.

Listicle campaigns are highly effective for media-buying affiliates. They allow for the promotion of multiple products in a user-friendly format, making comparisons easy and even boosting conversions.

3. Lead Capture Campaigns

This type of offer is best used if you plan on warming up your leads first or if you want to sell leads directly to advertisers.

The setup is the same except for an additional option to track opt-ins with the help of a Thank You page. You can enable this option at the Tracking Settings section during campaign creation.

If you choose Landing Page for the Thank You Page tracking, you’ll have the additional section (After Opt-in). This is where you’ll define the Thank You page where the user will go to after they fill out your lead capture so CPV Lab will be able to track successful leads.

Whether you choose LP or offer for Thank You Page tracking, make sure you add the necessary codes to the TY page, and edit links in the LP or offer page (so you should be able to edit the offer page as well for the tracking to work).

These codes and links can be found at the bottom of the Campaign page after saving.

For more information on tracking without a thank you page or tracking double opt-in subscribers, refer to the CPV Lab Pro documentation.

The best part here is that you can automatically send visitors to a different offer page after capturing the lead, which means you can maximize your traffic!

4 and 5. Multiple Option and Multiple Path Campaigns

Setting up these campaigns are similar to the first three we’ve discussed.

The only difference with Multi-Option campaigns is that you can create offer option groups. Each option can rotate several offers, too.

As for Multi-Path, you can create several paths, each with its own landing page and offer.

I wish they would add the option to direct traffic to a specific path based on user profile. Like sending a visitor who uses an iPhone to an iPhone-focused landing page and offer combination, and sending a Samsung visitor elsewhere.

Something similar to their If/Then Redirect Profiles, though more focused on directing traffic to several paths within the same campaign.

6. Email Follow-Up Campaigns

If you already have a mailing list and you’re sending them newsletters with offers, you can use this campaign.

The beauty of this campaign is that it provides you with more data than an email marketing tool can. More than open rates and link clicks, you’ll get a clear view of whether the visitor engaged with the links on your landing page and if they converted.

To create one, just set up a campaign as usual, adding landing pages and offers with unique IDs as necessary.

The main difference is that you should indicate how many people this will be emailed to:

You can click on “Add Email” if you’ll be tracking a separate email within the same campaign.

When it comes to tracking accurately, you can also add extra tokens to identify which section of the newsletter or email the user clicked on to go to the main landing page.

Once saved, use the campaign link for the links within the email body and send out your emails. You’ll be able to monitor the performance of your emails now.

***

And that’s it for creating campaigns!

To access the campaigns you’ve already created, head over to Campaigns List and you’re golden. The campaigns are listed based on type.

How to Dynamically Insert Keywords in Your Landing Page

This is one of my favorite features, as automatically changing the text in a landing page to the user’s info always increases my conversion rates.

Here’s a list of tokens you can use:

To use this feature, follow the steps to creating a campaign, then under landing pages, make sure to add the token you want to insert dynamically.

For example, I wanted to show the user’s city name on the landing page, so I added the city token at the end of the LP’s URL, like so:

Once you’ve saved the campaign, head over to the Links &Pixels section at the bottom. Click on the (+) icon next to Pass Keyword/Target to Page and get the first code.

Replace the word target with the token you’ll be using. In my case, it’s “city.”

Use this code on the spot where the keyword should appear. When you test the campaign link now, the LP should show up like this:

How to Protect Your Landing Page

Imagine you’ve just poured hours into crafting the perfect landing page for your campaign, only to find out it’s been accessed and copied by someone else. Frustrating, right?

That’s where CPV Lab Pro’s Landing Page Protection Script comes into play. It’s designed to safeguard your landing pages from unauthorized access, ensuring that only genuine visitors can see your content.

To generate the Protection Script, go to the campaign setup page to find the Landing Page Protection section, which is at the very bottom.

Do the following:

• Enable the option by clicking on Use Landing Page Protect checkbox.
• Choose what happens to unauthorized visitors under “No-access behavior.” Options include displaying a message, redirecting to a URL, or showing a “white” page. Just leaving “No Access” message is pretty common as many affiliates who use ad spy tools can attest to.

Copy the script generated then paste it at the very beginning of your PHP landing page to ensure it runs as soon as the page loads.

Note: LP Protection only works for PHP pages. HTML pages won’t work here. If you have an HTML page, just change its extension to PHP. It’s that simple!

Don’t forget to configure the Global Settings.

Visit the Configuration Editor page from the Settings menu to adjust the global settings for all campaigns:

• Protection Timeout – Set the interval (in minutes) to allow access after the initial click. The default is 5 minutes.
• Protection Level – Choose between IP Address + User Agent + Time, User Agent + Time (default), or Time-only to determine how strict the protection should be.
• Default No-access Message – Customize the message displayed to unauthorized visitors.

Setting up Landing Page Protection might feel like adding another hurdle to your already busy schedule, but trust me, it’s totally worth it!

Think about it — this feature guards your hard work from nosy onlookers. You definitely want your meticulously crafted landing pages seen only by the real deal, right?

Viewing Your Stats

This is the meat of CPV Lab, the real reason why we’re using a tracker — to be able to see how our campaigns are going with better insights than what our traffic sources can provide.

Click Stats on the navigation menu, and you’ll see that you have a boatload of options.

I usually visit the Campaigns Overview just to have a rough look at how all campaigns have been performing before heading over to individual campaign stats. But that’s just me.

Let’s visit one of the report types now — the Campaign Stats.

Once there, choose the campaign you want to view and the date range.

As you can see, you’ll first be greeted with a summary of the campaign’s performance. You can toggle the Graphic Performance to view the traffic and conversion trends.

Scrolling down the page shows you the different aspects of the campaign:

• Target Performance
• Ad Performance
• Offer Performance
• Campaign Performance (in tabular format)

You can edit which columns you want to be shown and filter out traffic sources and device types.

You can also move columns for your convenience.

Another report type that you’d likely use a lot is Drill Down Stats. Here, you can simply select the campaign and then choose to see drilled down analytics up to 4 levels.

The available parameters you can drill down depends on the tokens you added in your campaign links, so make sure you include in your links whatever data you want to capture.

You can also dig deep into each click’s information by going to Click Lookup.

Once you get the SubID or ClickID, you can use the search information on the Click Lookup page and learn the Campaign Data, Geo Data, Device Data, and more.

And speaking of Trends, there is a separate space for that, which you can find on the menu panel.

You can view traffic trends based on Time of Day, Days of the Week, Days (over a data range), and Heatmap.

We can say for certain that CPV Lab Pro is up to par with other tracking platforms.

With its modularity and comprehensive suite, it’s clear that CPV Lab Pro is committed to robust performance tracking and enhanced data integrity.

Plus, its extensive features provide strong security and flexibility. It’s easy to see why many media buyers love it.

CPV Lab Pros and Cons

Here we are at the final stage, where we reflect on our experience with CPV Lab Pro as a tracker. As with anything, we need to evaluate what makes CPV Lab great and not-so great.

Pros

• Versatile Campaign Types: You can create campaigns depending on how you want them to work.
• Self-Hosted Solution: Offers a self-hosted, web-based platform, giving users full control over their data. Not to mention you can scale traffic as much as you want without paying more for the license. Those who prefer a cloud-hosted version can turn to CPV One.
• Ease of Use: Users find the software very easy to use, which can simplify the tracking process.
• Mobile Compatibility: It’s designed to seamlessly work with mobile tracking.
• Helps Make Optimization Easy: With the help of custom profiles, you can easily identify what you need to adjust with your campaigns.
• Original Tracking Tool: One of the original tracking tools used by many successful online marketers, and it has effectively adjusted through the times.

Cons

• Brief Dormancy Period: The tool experienced a period where it went dormant, which might concern some users about its longevity.
• Small Networks List: The list of affiliate networks and traffic sources in their catalog must be improved, as it can be tedious to research some affiliate networks’ and traffic sources’ tracking tokens.
• Some Important Metrics are Missing: It’s missing some metrics that I believe are important. For instance, it doesn’t have EPV (earnings per view) which is revenue calculated against the views the LP receive, as opposed to EPC (earnings per click) which is calculated against the clicks the LP received. If you’re running pop ads and paying for views, EPV is important. There are a few more they can add.

CPV Lab Verdict

Overall, this tool offers a good range of features. The usability combined with powerful options make it a strong contender in the industry.

While there are certain areas that could use improvement, it remains a solid choice for both newcomers and experienced marketers alike.

Its self-hosted nature empowers users with full control over their data, making it a worthwhile investment for those serious about campaign management. The ability to tailor campaigns to how you want them to work and the detailed analytics offered help marketers optimize their efforts effectively.