Encoding and encrypting token data

It's typical to pass data to affiliate networks such as funnel IDs, traffic source IDs, and even placement/zone IDs from the traffic source.

However, in some cases you may wish to pass values for optimisation/feedback, but not inherently reveal the traffic source being used – some traffic sources are well-known enough that passing such IDs would reveal a lot of information.

In these cases, you can use special token operators to modify the data being sent.

These are separated by a : then the function name.

The available functions are:

• rot13 - a simple cipher that changes number/letter values
• base64 - encoding to base64 representation
• bin2hex - converts a string of ASCII characters to hexadecimal values
• md5 - encrypts using the md5 hash function

Of the above, all are reversible if the method used is known, except for md5.

To use these you will need to manually enter the modified token in your base page URL, or in the data passing section using the "Custom String" option.

So, example tokens would be:

• {funnel-id:rot13}
• {trafficsource-name:base64}
• {data-placement:bin2hex}
• {data-zone_id:md5}

Provided you know the function used, you can readily reverse these when given feedback or checking stats. There's no way to do this in FunnelFlux reporting -- you will have to do manually. These functions are employed at the time of redirect and the values are not in your FunnelFlux data.

For md5, you would need to create something like an Excel sheet with your original IDs and a column with md5 results, should you want to take an md5 and find the matching source value.

That of course is tedious, so you should only use such hashing when it's critical.