Almost every affiliate that I know (who is worth his salt) uses Prosper202 for their tracking. For the uninitiated, it is the open source version of Tracking202. Open source means that everyone is free to poke around in the code and mod or hack it to work better for their specific instance.  Also it means that you keeep all your data on your server and host the installation yourself. Since the release of Prosper202 there have been a few nifty hacks that have been released on various blogs, and they are a pain to track down so I thought I’d compile my favorite 5 mods here.

1. Adding New Traffic Source Icons To Prosper 202

This one comes from the Masterless Samurai himself, Wes. It’s a fairly simple mod, but extremely useful. The original P202 install only has a few Traffic Sources (PPC networks) built in. Now that affiliates are using P202 to track almost every traffic source imaginable, you will want to add the new icons in so you can see at a glance which accounts you are looking at in the Overview report. If there’s no icon, it just appears as a question mark. It’s nice to be able to add newer traffic sources like Plenty Of Fish, etc.

2. Redirect Prosper202 To Any Tab

This is one of two mods on this list by Jasper, aka Nerdy Affiliate. This one is also simple in nature but a big time saver. When you go to check your stats, it takes 3-4 steps for you to get to the information you want. With this mod, you can set it up to go straight to the reporting page that you want when you go to your tracking domain. Very handy.

3. Prosper202 LP Click-Through for Text Ads & Keywords Mod

This one is also from Nerdy Affiliate. It is a pretty deep mod that adds an additional layer of statistics that you can track: the landing page click-through rate on an individual keyword or text ad basis. This is used to compare the effectiveness of each keyword or text ad by seeing which ones generate the highest click-through rate from your landing page to the offer page. Without this mod, you are only able to tell the overall landing page click-through percentage for all keywords combined.

4. Prosper202 Offer Rotation Setup

This one is by AdHustler, and it’s not an actual hack to the software. It is just a different mindset for using the offer rotation feature in P202. This doesn’t take any coding to setup, just simply follow the instructions on the linked post and you will see how effective it can be for split testing offers to make sure you are getting the most money for your traffic.

5. Prosper202 Complete Install Package for Hostgator

Hostgator is one of the most popular web hosting companies our there. Because of this, more than a few people have tried to install Prosper202 on their Hostgator account and run into a nasty error. The guys at BlueLayerMedia have created an all-in-one fix and install package for version 1.3.2 of P202 that will get you up and running on your Hostgator account quicker than you can say “make monies online”.

If you’ve got a sweet hack that I didn’t list here, let me know in the comments and share the wealth! The open source nature of P202 and its users is what makes the software so essential.