Cookie vs. Session Tracking

The type of tracking plays an important part whenever it comes to evaluating the true effectiveness of any particular marketing channel. Although most of the users complete the action in the same session yet this is quite possible that a user comes on any merchant’s website through any affiliate website but doesn’t purchase anything at that instant and comes later on through bookmarks or may be any search engine and completes the action. To track this behaviour cookie based tracking comes into picture. The two types are explained below:


• Cookie based tracking: as explained in the above diagram, a user might come on merchant’s website through affiliate site (a cookie is set in user’s browser at this instant) however doesn’t purchase or perform any action at that instant. But he might come later on through search engine or directly and completes the action this time. This action is recorded by the tracking code on thank you page in assistance with cookie residing in user’s browser.

• Session based tracking: the lifecycle of a Session is bounded by the beginning and end of a logical transaction. Now suppose a user clicks on any AD running on an affiliate website and lands on merchant’s website and completes some action (filling any form or purchasing something) and lands on thank you page. Session tracking is also a type of cookie based tracking wherein the cookie duration is equal to the session the user stays on merchant website.