ShareASale not tracking sales

I am using s2MemberPro and PayPal hosted buttons and am not able to get the sales to track. I have tested it by having a friend sign up for my site using my affiliate link for my own program.

Here is what I have pasted in at the API/Tracking Signup Tracking Codes:

<img src="https://shareasale.com/sale.cfm?amount=%%initial%%&amp;tracking=%%subscr_id%%&amp;transtype=SALE&amp;merchantID=26763" width="1" height="1" />

Is my code wrong?
Is it that I am using PayPal hosted buttons?
Any other ideas?

ADDED COMMENT:
I cannot switch to using the S2Member generated buttons because my theme inserts about four inches of blank space above the button and I have never been able to solve that problem.

ADDED URGENCY:
Being able to integrate with ShareASale is one of the main reasons I chose s2Member and I have put in hours and hours and hours trying to get s2Member to work on this site and really need this to be working ASAP as I have a huge promotion planned based on being able to run my affiliate program on this site. I cannot stress enough the urgency of making this work ASAP. Thanks so much for any help that can be offered.

• This topic was modified 4 years ago by  Kim Dushinski. Reason: Inserted code tags
• This topic was modified 4 years ago by  Kim Dushinski. Reason: Added info about S2Member generated buttons
• This topic was modified 4 years ago by  Kim Dushinski.

Hi Kim.

Is my code wrong?
Is it that I am using PayPal hosted buttons?
Any other ideas?

The code looked fine, the only difference I saw with the sample that comes in the documentation, was that you were using the HTML entity for the ampersand (&), instead of the symbol, but as far as I know, either one would be fine. In any case, you can try this:

<img src="https://shareasale.com/sale.cfm?amount=%%initial%%&tracking=%%subscr_id%%&transtype=SALE&merchantID=26763" width="1" height="1" border="0" />

It’s fine to use a PayPal created button, as long as you integrated it with s2Member. If you didn’t integrate it, that’d explain why the s2Member tracking API didn’t fire. Here’s an article on how to integrate the button with s2Member: Knowledge Base » Using PayPal created buttons.

I cannot switch to using the S2Member generated buttons because my theme inserts about four inches of blank space above the button and I have never been able to solve that problem.

That’d indicate that the theme or another plugin is messing with the content filtering, and adding a bunch of HTML paragraph and line break tags. Try the suggestions in this article, please, if possible it’d be best to use the shortcode for the button: Knowledge Base » Common Troubleshooting Tips

---

I hope that helps. :)

Thanks for answering me.

I should have said, but yes, everything else is integrated perfectly between s2Member and PayPal. Right down to the Aweber integration.

Any other ideas? I really need to get this working.

Is there any documentation or information about this:
*Tip* ShareASale® also provides an alternative method, using a 3rd-party call. The alternative 3rd-party call, could be used with s2Member -> API Notifications. A 3rd-party call, is essentially an HTTP connection that runs silently behind-the-scene, as opposed to being loaded in a browser. It’s a bit more powerful, but also more advanced.

I have spoken with ShareASale to verify that the code is correct and it is. I am wondering what the thank you page is for the sales process. Where is the tracking code actually placed?

Per ShareASale, this is where it needs to go:
The ShareaASale tracking code should be permanently placed in the HTML body of your “Thank You” page, which is also referred to as the confirmation, and/or receipt page. This page is on your website – and for Per-Sale programs typically displays a “Thank You” summarizing an order. We are able to tell if the order was referred by a ShareASale Affiliate.

**It is important that this thank you confirmation page with the ShareASale tracking code pixel can only be reached by completing a sale.

Be sure that the thank you page will not display the ShareASale tracking code when reloaded or refreshed.
Verify the same will not happen with any other shopping cart functionality and features that needs to access the thank you page such as order status-orderhistory-order e-mail confirmation, invoice history.

Is it possible that the thank you page this code is being placed on is being skipped in the process somehow by routing by either PayPal or wherever people go after they purchase?

UPDATE:
I just ran a test order to see what the Thank You page is. Here is where I was directed:
http://immbn.com/?s2member_paypal_return=1&tx=4BB30522VR234030W&st=Completed&amt=1.00&cc=USD&cm=immbn%2ecom&item_number=&sig=c0L4mQ5nfzMx5yKllBJOkezFX%2fI2Ctx%2fCtluuBLwJwaFDJyS306%2bLxk5PDXaGCoBvJWuhAn%2bxXrwvDT75n9cEAIlAlEh9kJDh5BVl3OZa6DcHzJwadnrWylt9l%2f7yBo6PnDIW41wBVVqXa%2fzTjUyezxYa2oQygG3t2kZw%2fdZCoI%3d

When I look at the View Source for this page I do not see the ShareASale code on here. Isn’t this where it should be going?

POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
Could I paste the ShareASale tracking code on the Auto-Return Page Template in the PayPal PDF/ Auto Return Integration area? (I am going to test it right now and will come back to update whether it worked or not.) If you are here in the meantime, please let me know if there is any reason not to do this.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by  Kim Dushinski. Reason: just fixed a typo
• This reply was modified 4 years ago by  Kim Dushinski. Reason: Added in test order / thank you page results
• This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by  Kim Dushinski. Reason: Added in a possible solution

Thanks for confirming that the PayPal integration is working right. Could you please enable logging, if you didn’t have it, do a test 1 cent transaction and get the log entries from all the log files created? I’d like to take a look just to confirm that nothing seems out of place.

About when it’d be displayed and where the pixel should be, this is from the documentation:

Signup Tracking Codes will only be displayed once for each Member. Signup Tracking Codes are displayed right after a “new”, “paying” Member, signs up successfully through your Payment Gateway, regardless of whether any money has actually been transacted initially. In other words, Signup Tracking Codes are displayed anytime a “new”, “paying” Member, signs up, even if you provided them with a 100% Free Trial Period ( e.g. no money is being transacted intially ).

s2Member will display your Signup Tracking Codes in one of four possible locations… 1. If possible, on the Thank-You Return Page, after returning from your Payment Gateway. 2. Otherwise, if possible, on the Registration Form, after returning from your Payment Gateway. Note. If you offer a 100% free Trial Period, Tracking Codes will be displayed in location #2 when using PayPal® Standard Button integration. 3. Otherwise, if possible, on the Login Form after Registration is completed. 4. Otherwise, in the footer of your WordPress® theme, as soon as possible ( immediately with s2Member Pro Form integration ); or after the Customer’s very first login.

So even if you didn’t find it in the thank-you page, s2Member may still fire the pixel in one of the other listed ones.

I’ll ask Jason what could be done to test if the Tracking API is working correctly other than looking for the pixel in those places.

About using the Notifications API, it may be a good idea, but like the documentation says, you may need to work at it a little more. I’m not familiar with Share-a-Sale’s 3rd-party calls. Maybe their support rep can tell you what the URL should be like? The signup notification has replacement codes similar to the tracking one, and they’re documented below the text area where you enter the URLs.

Here’s a video that explains both APIs, in case it helps: Video » s2Member (API Tracking/Notifications)

By the way, it doesn’t look like you do, but did you add the post-registration auto-login by chance? I ask because it causes these APIs to not work, which is fine if you don’t need them, but troublesome if you do.

By the way, could you add your email address to the Singup Notification? I’d like to know if that’s working correctly. [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Notifications -› Signup Notifications -> Email[/hilite]

OK, I have enabled logging and also turned on the SignUp Notifications > Email. Not sure what I should be getting, but I didn’t get anything new that I haven’t already gotten with every other sign up before this test.

Here is the log from the test order I just did.

HP v5.2.17 :: WordPress® v6531 :: s2Member® v121023 :: s2Member® Pro v121023
Memory 54.30 MB :: Real Memory 54.50 MB :: Peak Memory 54.45 MB :: Real Peak Memory 54.50 MB
immbn.com/?s2member_paypal_return=1&tx=1H5003036K849442V&st=Completed&amt=1.00&cc=USD&cm=immbn%2ecom&item_number=&sig=qBTaAs5KC640GY998EIgaBWVw1Hcv8Y4jhfLmDwxgx31exG9%2br2Vmtc3o5CQZynnI6Uv3WtrRyqKjPGgzjn%2buz8f08dIqVRNRf7zbh3BOlW5qy4brXwlu3ml%2bFDz2%2fvY6inJYRMJ87RudEv3VJpQ1R9AUtNQXsAZpM%2bz%2bQIra2g%3d
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/23.0.1271.97 Safari/537.11
array (
‘transaction_subject’ => ‘IMMBN Annual Membership (auto renewed every year)’,
‘payment_date’ => ’14:00:02 Jan 08, 2013 PST’,
‘txn_type’ => ‘subscr_payment’,
‘subscr_id’ => ‘I-CTY6VRWDHP24’,
‘last_name’ => ‘Dushinski’,
‘residence_country’ => ‘US’,
‘item_name’ => ‘IMMBN Annual Membership (auto renewed every year)’,
‘payment_gross’ => ‘1.00’,
‘mc_currency’ => ‘USD’,
‘business’ => ‘kim@xxxxxxxxxxx.com’,
‘payment_type’ => ‘instant’,
‘protection_eligibility’ => ‘Ineligible’,
‘payer_status’ => ‘verified’,
‘payer_email’ => ‘kim.xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.com’,
‘txn_id’ => ‘1H5003036K849442V’,
‘receiver_email’ => ‘kim@xxxxxxxxxxx.com’,
‘first_name’ => ‘Kimberlee’,
‘payer_id’ => ‘H3RRV4W9DPCQU’,
‘receiver_id’ => ‘4ESQQCMRZQPNN’,
‘item_number’ => ‘1’,
‘payment_status’ => ‘Completed’,
‘payment_fee’ => ‘0.33’,
‘mc_fee’ => ‘0.33’,
‘btn_id’ => ‘55685109’,
‘mc_gross’ => ‘1.00’,
‘custom’ => ‘immbn.com’,
‘charset’ => ‘windows-1252’,
‘s2member_log’ =>
array (
0 => ‘Return-Data received on: Tue Jan 8, 2013 11:00:11 pm CET’,
1 => ‘s2Member POST vars verified through a POST back to PayPal®.’,
2 => ‘s2Member originating domain ( `$_SERVER[“HTTP_HOST”]` ) validated.’,
3 => ‘s2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ).’,
4 => ‘s2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
5 => ‘Registration Cookies set on ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
6 => ‘Transient Tracking Cookie set on ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
7 => ‘Redirecting Customer to Registration Page. They need to Register now.’,
),
‘subscr_gateway’ => ‘paypal’,
‘eotper’ => NULL,
‘ccaps’ => NULL,
‘level’ => ‘1’,
‘ip’ => ‘184.99.251.149’,
)

You were logged out of your admin account when you did the test, right? The log entry looks okay.

Did you get an email from the signup notification after the test?

Could you submit your site info in case Jason would like to take a look at your installation when he sees my message? s2Member® » Private Contact Form

I was logged into my Admin account in FireFox, but did my test order in a separate Chrome browser while first wiping all cookies and cache. I did not use my admin name or email in the test order.

I have also had an outside person do a test order who has never been on my site and her ShareASale order was not tracked either.

When someone signs up I get the New User Email Message which I have customized. I have always gotten that.

When I did this: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Notifications -› Signup Notifications -> Email,
and put my email address in this field: Send An Email Transaction Log Of This Event?
I did not start getting any new email notifications or any new information in the email I was already getting.

Yes, I will submit my account info for Jason. I will do ANYTHING to get this working.

Thanks for the heads up on this thread.

I’m reviewing this thread now and I’ll add a reply shortly for you :-)

Thanks for your patience.

I’ve just completed a review of this thread. Here are my findings.

1. Your ShareASale Tracking Code looks good to me.
2. It sounds like you’ve properly implemented this in the s2Member -> API Tracking -> Signup Tracking section.

Problems…

3. It looks like your Return-Page URL is missing a vital piece of information. You posted this:

http://immbn.com/?s2member_paypal_return=1&tx=4BB30522VR234030W&st=Completed&amt=1.00&cc=USD&cm=immbn%2ecom&item_number=&sig=c0L4mQ5nfzMx5yKllBJOkezFX%2fI2Ctx%2fCtluuBLwJwaFDJyS306%2bLxk5PDXaGCoBvJWuhAn%2bxXrwvDT75n9cEAIlAlEh9kJDh5BVl3OZa6DcHzJwadnrWylt9l%2f7yBo6PnDIW41wBVVqXa%2fzTjUyezxYa2oQygG3t2kZw%2fdZCoI%3d

This URL should include the s2member_paypal_return_tra variable, but it is missing.

4. As a result of the missing Return-Page variable (s2member_paypal_return_tra), your log file is missing an entry which states that s2Member has processed your Signup Tracking Codes. What you should have in the logs, is something like this.

5 => ‘Registration Cookies set on ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
6 => ‘Transient Tracking Cookie set on ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
>>> 7 => 'Storing Signup Tracking Codes into a Transient Queue. These will be processed on-site.',
8 => ‘Redirecting Customer to Registration Page. They need to Register now.’,

---

To correct this problem, let’s start by taking a look at the actual s2Member Shortcode that you’ve used to implement your PayPal Button. The missing s2member_paypal_return_tra variable, is probably not making it into the final Return URL, due to one of the following:

1. You’ve NOT used the s2Member Shortcode, and instead you’ve used the full PayPal Button Code in raw HTML, or a PayPal-hosted button? We recommend that you integrate with s2Member Shortcodes for the best compatibility across all features made possible by s2Member.

See: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Buttons -› Membership Level # Buttons

2. Your Shortcode is being modified by a custom hack file, or another plugin that is attempting to integrate with s2Member?

NOTE: If you’re attempting to build the PayPal Button via PHP code, we recommend using the do_shortcode() function provided by WordPress. Here is an example:

<?php echo do_shortcode('&#91;&#91;s2Member-PayPal-Button ... attributes go here of course... /&#93;&#93;'); ?>

Please let us know if problems persist. Thank you!

NOTE: If you’re using a PayPal-generated button that you integrated based on instructions provided our team, please be aware of the following limitations.

PayPal-generated buttons, instead of using s2Member Shortcodes.

Most of the time, it’s fine to do this, so long as you’re following the instructions we’ve laid out here.

However, if you would like to enhance s2Member’s compatibility with other advanced features made possible by s2Member, like s2Member -> API / Tracking, you will need to use s2Member’s Shortcodes exclusively, because s2Member Shortcodes inject some additional dynamic variables into your PayPal Buttons when the Shortcode is in use. These dynamic variables cannot be included reliably in a raw HTML button code that you produce at PayPal. Thus, we recommend the use of an s2Member Shortcode if at all possible.

The problem when raw HTML buttons (aka: PayPal-generated buttons) are used.

API Tracking Codes integrated with s2Member will not be displayed immediately. Instead, they’ll be displayed during registration if at all possible, or upon the customer’s first login, in the footer of your WordPress theme.

Not really a HUGE deal, but if you’re testing for IMG tracking pixels in the Return-Page after returning from PayPal, s2Member can’t display those immediately unless you integrate with an s2Member Shortcode.

This is for security purposes.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: s2Member -> API Tracking Codes WILL be displayed on-site, even if you’ve used a raw HTML button code. However, as I mentioned before, your API Tracking Codes will not be displayed until registration occurs, or upon the customer’s first login. This is NOT ideal in most cases.

Thank you very much for taking a look at this. Here are some responses:

3. It looks like your Return-Page URL is missing a vital piece of information.

I did not create this Return-Page URL, it is taken directly from the page that s2Member created. Furthermore, you said, This URL should include the s2member_paypal_return_tra variable, but it is missing.

How can you make s2Member include this? It seems to me that this is something s2Member should be doing. Why isn’t it? You have said…

1. You’ve NOT used the s2Member Shortcode, and instead you’ve used the full PayPal Button Code in raw HTML, or a PayPal-hosted button? We recommend that you integrate with s2Member Shortcodes for the best compatibility across all features made possible by s2Member.

I am using a PayPal hosted button because the ones created by s2Member put in about 4 inches of blank space ahead of them and cannot be fixed. I have spent hours working on that to no avail. Using the PayPal hosted buttons is the only option I have gotten to work with my site. How is it that the PayPal button strips out code from the Return URL? Really, the button can do that?

2. Your Shortcode is being modified by a custom hack file, or another plugin that is attempting to integrate with s2Member?

I do not know how to custom hack a file, so that is not happening. No hacks on this site. I have only worked within the boxes and fields of s2Member user interface.

I have no other plugins that integrate with s2Member to my knowledge. Is there a particular type of plugin that seems to mysteriously attack s2Member and thus render it useless? Forgive my sarcasm, but honestly, I have spent hours and hours trying to get s2Member set up correctly and at the end of my rope here.

I bought s2Member because it integrated with ShareASale and Aweber. There must be a way for it to work and the fault simply cannot be other plugins.

NOTE: If you’re attempting to build the PayPal Button via PHP code, we recommend using the do_shortcode() function provided by WordPress.

Yeah, again. I do not know how to build a PayPal button via PHP code, so that is not happening either.

The ball is back in your court. I really need more help here. How can you make s2Member work properly?

Thanks for the follow-up.

I am using a PayPal hosted button because the ones created by s2Member put in about 4 inches of blank space ahead of them and cannot be fixed. I have spent hours working on that to no avail. Using the PayPal hosted buttons is the only option I have gotten to work with my site. How is it that the PayPal button strips out code from the Return URL? Really, the button can do that?

Yes, this is the issue. No, a PayPal-hosted button DOES have some limitations.

Please see my response here for details about these limitations. Actually, just one.
http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/shareasale-not-tracking-sales/#post-36675

Regarding blank space around your PayPal Buttons. It sounds like your theme could be applying a global CSS style to all INPUT fields, which is causing the display of your PayPal Button to have margin or padding. That’s installation-specific, not a bug with s2Member. (e.g. it’s NOT something we can control, so you will need to review this).

If you would like to post a link to the page on your site where your s2Member Shortcode has produced a PayPal Button that is being displayed by your theme with additional margin or padding, please do. We can point you in the right direction by inspecting your site in FireBug and finding the CSS that is causing this.

Please let us know if problems persist. Thanks!

How can you make s2Member include this? It seems to me that this is something s2Member should be doing. Why isn’t it? You have said…

That’s because of the type of button used. He just mentioned having noticed that missing as something that’d cause the Tracking API to not work ideally. When he said it, he had not yet realized that you aren’t using the button shortcodes, but he then followed up with his last reply when I mentioned it to him.

I am using a PayPal hosted button because the ones created by s2Member put in about 4 inches of blank space ahead of them and cannot be fixed.

Like I said before, this would be caused by the theme or another plugin affecting the way content is filtered, causing a lot of HTML line-break tags where they shouldn’t be (like after hidden form fields or HTML comments).

Did you do the theme/plugin tests I suggested to find which is causing this problem in order to solve it? Knowledge Base » Common Troubleshooting Tips

I do not know how to custom hack a file, so that is not happening. No hacks on this site. I have only worked within the boxes and fields of s2Member user interface.

Again, he mentioned this when he still had not understood you are using the PayPal created buttons. He was mentioning possible things that could cause the behavior.

I bought s2Member because it integrated with ShareASale and Aweber. There must be a way for it to work and the fault simply cannot be other plugins.

Sure, they work. Yes, another plugin could affect this, as in the content filtering adding line-breaks in the HTML form causing it to display wrong and even fail to work in some cases.

The ball is back in your court. I really need more help here. How can you make s2Member work properly?

If you could please do the theme/plugin tests I pointed to, so we can spot what’s causing the content filtering to behave like that and find a solution. I’ll wait for your update on this. :)

Updating this KB article to mention this limitation.
http://www.s2member.com/kb/using-paypal-created-buttons/

Thanks for your replies. A few things I would like your thoughts on before I do the whole process of shutting down my plugins one by one.

For the record, I have done a lot of work on this in the past as referenced in these two posts:

http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/huge-gap-before-paypal-button-issue/
http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/extra-white-space-around-paypal-button/

1)
Changing my theme to Twenty Eleven still leaves the space above the PayPal button created by s2Member and installed via shortcode. My theme is not causing this.

2)
I just realized that my PayPal Subscr Cancellation button (created by s2Member and installed using a shortcode) did not put the extra space above the button. Are these buttons different in way that would explain this?

3)
You mention in the new KB article http://www.s2member.com/kb/using-paypal-created-buttons/ that
IMPORTANT TO NOTE: s2Member -> API Tracking Codes WILL be displayed on-site, even if you’ve used a raw HTML button code generated at PayPal. However, as I mentioned before, your API Tracking Codes will not be displayed until registration occurs, or upon the customer’s first login.

That is not true. The user who ran the test for me did register and did log in. ShareASale has not been notified of this sale.

OK, I have figured out a plugin conflict that is causing the extra space above the PayPal button. It does not make me happy because this plugin (Lizatom Shortcodes) is used quite a lot on my site including my home page.

Before I have to figure out a way to overhaul my home page and scour my site for the many times I used it in order to accommodate s2Member, can you please see why the Subscriber Cancel button is not affected by this plugin and the ordering button is?

Here is a page you can inspect with Firebug to see what CSS is causing this.

http://immbn.com/test-order-page/
This page has a PayPal button installed via shortcode and the same shortcode using the image I would prefer to use instead of the default image. At the bottom you will see the Unsubscribe button and see that it does not have this extra space.

Thank you very much for your help on this.

can you please see why the Subscriber Cancel button is not affected by this plugin and the ordering button is?

The order button is an HTML form with several lines of hidden fields and comments, all of which are incorrectly getting an HTML linebreak, which is what causes the empty lines in your page. The cancellation button is just a linked image, so even if it gets a linebreak incorrectly, it’s not significant.

OK, I have figured out a plugin conflict that is causing the extra space above the PayPal button. It does not make me happy because this plugin (Lizatom Shortcodes) is used quite a lot on my site including my home page.

Glad you found the plugin causing the problem. You don’t necessarily need to remove it, you could contact the developer and tell him about the problem so it can be fixed.

Another option is to use button encryption, which doesn’t solve the content filtering problem by the other plugin, but at least shortens the button’s code considerably and there’re a lot less lines to add a linebreak to. Actually, encryption is a good idea even if you didn’t have this problem, because it prevents users from being able to edit the order details. [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Account Details -› Encryption[/hilite]

Another thing you can try is edit the button’s HTML template to minimize it, removing all newlines and HTML comments from it. /wp-content/plugins/s2member/includes/templates/buttons/paypal-checkout-button.php

Another thing you can try is deactivating Lizatom Shortcodes in just the page where the button is, using something like the Plugin Organizer. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/plugin-organizer/

---

I hope that helps. :)

That is not true. The user who ran the test for me did register and did log in. ShareASale has not been notified of this sale.

Doing a test purchase with the shortcode’s button, how did the tracking behave?

Cristián:

Thank you so much for all the suggestions to try. I will do those right away and report back.

The test order you did will not track because you would need to click an affiliate link first in order for it to even try to track. But the worst news is that I didn’t receive the test order at all. I don’t see it in PayPal and nothing was sent to me.

Don’t do anything yet, I will work on these other suggestions first since we know the PayPal hosted buttons works for everything except ShareASale tracking. If I can get the plugins to play nicely with one another I may not need to worry about that.

OK, I was able to install the Plugin Organizer plugin and get Lizatom Shortcodes (the plugin that was causing all the extra line breaks) to keep the extra space from showing up above my button.

However, a test order shows that the ShareASale integration is still not working!

The test order was done on a page using the s2member created button with a replacement image installed via shortcode. The conflicting plugin is turned off on that page.

The integration IS working. Through a phone call with ShareASale tech support I was able to find out that if the end user had ad blocking on in their browser it will cause the affiliate tracking to fail. I checked in with my tester and found out that was the case.

A new test on a browser allowing ads got this sale tracked to ShareASale!

OH MY GOSH AFTER FIVE DAYS OF DEALING WITH THIS IT IS WORKING!

I did not perform this action:
Another thing you can try is edit the button’s HTML template to minimize it, removing all newlines and HTML comments from it. /wp-content/plugins/s2member/includes/templates/buttons/paypal-checkout-button.php
because I don’t know how to do that. It seems to me like you should make the button in a way that works and I shouldn’t have to do that.

I also did not do this:
contact the developer and tell him about the problem so it can be fixed.
First of all, it is not their problem, secondly, I have no idea what to tell them to fix and thirdly, they wouldn’t be able to do it in time for me to launch my affiliate promotion. When we get this all sorted out I will be glad to report to them that their plugin does not work with s2Member so they can report it in their documentation. I am hoping you will do the same with yours.

I also did not do this:
For extra security, you should update your PayPal® account too, under: My Profile -> Website Payment Preferences. You’ll want to block all non-encrypted payments.

This seems like it will make my other shopping cart useless with PayPal unless they happen to already offer encrypted payments. Is that right? I can’t take down my ability to accept PayPal across the board just to get s2Member to work with ShareASale.

I did just now (after the test order) turn on button encryption.

My logging is turned on and you have my FTP details sent previously so you can check the logs.

Thanks, again, for all your help.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by  Kim Dushinski. Reason: The tracking is now working! YES =:)

SOLUTION WRAP UP:
I am posting this wrap up for anyone else who may be having trouble with ShareASale integration not working.

Here is what solved this problem for me:

1)
I discovered that another plugin (in my case Lizatom Shortcodes) was causing my s2Member created button to have a ton of extra space on top of it.

Note: If you are having this space issue with your PayPal buttons, try other shortcode plugins first to see if that is what is causing the problem.

2)
By installing the Plugin Organizer plugin and disabling the Lizatom Shortcodes plugin on just my order page, I was able to eliminate that extra space.

3)
I ran into further trouble with my test order because the guy doing my test order had ad blocking enabled on his browser. So, anyone with ad blockers on their browser will block all attempts of ShareASale affiliate tracking working.

That’s great, Kim! Well done solving it and thanks for the update and summary. :)

The integration IS working. Through a phone call with ShareASale tech support I was able to find out that if the end user had ad blocking on in their browser it will cause the affiliate tracking to fail. I checked in with my tester and found out that was the case.

I wasn’t aware of this. Thanks for the tip. I’ll see if we can add it to the Share-a-Sale integretion’s documentation.

because I don’t know how to do that. It seems to me like you should make the button in a way that works and I shouldn’t have to do that.

The buttons works in a normal WP installation with no other thing causing the content filtering to be incorrect. We wrote the HTML for the buttons normally, nothing wrong with it. We avoided minimizing it by default because it’s less readable and thus harder to edit if the site owner wanted to customize it, but we may just end up doing that to side-step this problem caused by plugins/themes.

First of all, it is not their problem, secondly, I have no idea what to tell them to fix and thirdly, they wouldn’t be able to do it in time for me to launch my affiliate promotion. When we get this all sorted out I will be glad to report to them that their plugin does not work with s2Member so they can report it in their documentation. I am hoping you will do the same with yours.

Oh, but it is their problem, because their plugin is the one causing content filtering to work incorrectly. You happened to notice it with s2Member’s shortcode button, but it could affect other things as well.

I added it to our list of known plugin conflicts: http://www.primothemes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=6309&p=62570#p62570

This seems like it will make my other shopping cart useless with PayPal unless they happen to already offer encrypted payments. Is that right? I can’t take down my ability to accept PayPal across the board just to get s2Member to work with ShareASale.

Button encryption would just encrypt the button data to order, so the details aren’t visible/editable by the customer in the source code. The transaction itself happens the same way on PayPal’s side. I don’t think your cart would be affected, but am not sure either, you’d just have to enable button encryption in s2Member and PayPal settings and then test a purchase in your cart to see if it works fine.

OH MY GOSH AFTER FIVE DAYS OF DEALING WITH THIS IT IS WORKING!

Again, I’m so glad for you. Well done. :)