Tracking Conversions in Stripe Checkouts

If you're running an online business, understanding how well your marketing efforts are performing is crucial for success. When using Stripe for processing payments, it's important to set up conversion tracking for your checkouts. In this blog post, we'll explore different ways to track conversions in Stripe checkouts and attribute them to the source of the checkout.

Identifying the Source of Checkouts

To effectively track conversions, you need to know where each checkout originated from. There are two main methods for doing this:

1. Using Unique Identifiers: Stripe allows you to pass a unique identifier when creating a checkout session or payment link. This identifier can be used to associate the checkout with a specific source, such as a marketing campaign or referral. By including this unique identifier when setting up the Stripe checkout or payment link, you can later retrieve this information when processing the conversion. This method is more commonly used in the context of Stripe payment links.
2. Implementing a Sign-up or Lead Form: Another approach is to add a sign-up or lead form step before sending the user to the Stripe checkout. During this step, you can associate personal details of the users with additional information about the website visitor, such as their referral source or the marketing campaign they came from. This information can be stored in database and later associated with the checkout conversion. After the user submits the form, you have a couple of options:
   1. If you require the user to create an account, you can prompt them to log in to your website. Once logged in, you can direct them to the Stripe checkout with their information pre-filled, ensuring the Stripe checkout conversion would be attributable to the rest of the user journey.
   2. Alternatively, you can send the user a unique payment link via email. This link will take them directly to the Stripe checkout, where they can complete the payment. The unique payment link should include the necessary information to associate the conversion with the sign-up or lead form submission.

Receiving Conversions from Stripe

Once a user completes a checkout, Stripe sends a notification to your designated endpoint. To receive and process these conversions, you need to set up a webhook handler on your backend server. The webhook notification will contain relevant information about the successful payment, including the unique identifier if provided.

In your webhook handler, you can extract the necessary information from the notification and store it in your database. This allows you to associate the conversion with the corresponding source and perform further analysis.

Attributing Conversions to Ad Clicks

If you're running online advertising campaigns, you may want to attribute conversions to specific ad clicks. This helps you measure the performance of your ads and optimize your campaigns. To achieve this, you can follow these steps:

1. Capture Ad Click Information: When a user clicks on an ad, capture the unique ad click information provided by the advertising platform. This information should be stored alongside the user's journey until they reach the Stripe checkout.
2. Pass Ad Click Information to Stripe Checkout: Include the ad click information as part of the unique identifier when creating the Stripe checkout session or payment link. This ensures that the ad click information is associated with the checkout.
3. Send Conversions to Ad Platforms: After receiving the conversion from Stripe, extract the ad click information from the unique identifier. Use integrations with the respective ad platforms (e.g., Facebook (Meta) Ads, Google Ads) to send the conversion data along with the ad click information. This allows the ad platforms to attribute the conversion to the correct ad and provide accurate reporting.

By implementing these steps, you can effectively attribute conversions to specific ad clicks and gain valuable insights into the performance of your advertising campaigns.

Conclusion

Tracking conversions in Stripe checkouts is essential for understanding the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and optimizing your sales funnel. By utilizing unique identifiers or implementing a sign-up or lead form step, you can associate checkouts with their respective sources. Receiving conversions from Stripe and attributing them to ad clicks allows you to measure the performance of your advertising campaigns and make informed decisions.

Using Able CDP for Stripe Checkout Tracking

If you're looking for a solution to track your Stripe checkouts and attribute them to the correct sources that wouldn't require to custom-code all integrations, Able CDP is a tool to consider. Able CDP seamlessly integrates with Stripe and provides a range of features to help you track and analyze your checkout data.

Here's how Able CDP tracks Stripe Payment Links and regular Stripe checkouts, and attributes purchases to the correct sources:

1. Client Reference IDs: Able CDP automatically appends client reference IDs to your Stripe Payment Links. These IDs connect each payment to the customer's previous interactions on your website before they clicked the link. This allows you to track the customer's journey and attribute the purchase to the correct source.
2. First-Party Tracking: Able CDP uses first-party cookies to track UTM parameters, referral URLs, and landing pages. This enables reliable attribution even if a customer uses the payment link on a different device or browser than the one where they originally found your link. First-party tracking ensures accurate attribution across different sessions and devices.
3. Server-Side Tracking for Ad Platforms: Able CDP offers server-side tracking for popular ad platforms like Facebook (Meta) Ads, Google Ads, and TikTok. By sending conversion data directly from Able CDP's servers to the ad platforms, you can avoid issues with browser-based tracking, such as ad blockers or cross-device tracking limitations. Server-side tracking ensures accurate and reliable attribution of conversions to your ad campaigns.

With these tracking methods, Able CDP connects Stripe checkouts to the original traffic source and the customer's previous touchpoints on your website. You can then view this data in the Able CDP revenue report and your CRM, marketing, analytics, and ad platforms, giving you a comprehensive view of your checkout performance.

Setting Up Able CDP for Stripe Checkout Tracking

Getting started with Able CDP for Stripe Checkout tracking is a straightforward process:

1. Sign up for an Able CDP account: Create a free trial account, which will be instantly created. You'll be redirected to the Able Dashboard, where you'll find a step-by-step guide to set up Able CDP to track Stripe checkouts.
2. Generate tracking code: In the 'Get Code' section of the Able Dashboard, generate the necessary tracking code. This code will assign (if necessary) and track client reference ID parameters for each Stripe Payment Link on your website, as well as associate customer emails entered in lead and sign-up forms with website visitors.
3. Set up a webhook in Stripe Dashboard: Navigate to the 'Add Service Integration' section in the Able Dashboard and select 'Stripe'. Follow the step-by-step instructions to set up a webhook in your Stripe Dashboard to send conversion events to Able. You'll be provided with a personalized webhook URL.
   View and analyze your data: Once set up, you can see the sources of each Stripe payment in the Able Dashboard revenue report. Additionally, you can connect Able CDP to supported integrations such as Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, or TikTok, allowing you to see the source, value, and contents of each purchase in your preferred analytics and ad platforms.

By using Able CDP for Stripe checkout tracking, you can gain valuable insights into your customers' behavior, optimize your marketing efforts, and make data-driven decisions to grow your online business.