Support

Welcome to the MemeCounter support section. If you have a general (non-technical) question, please read the General FAQ. If you have a technical question, please read the Technical FAQ. For an explaination of what some of the terms used in memecounte mean, please read the Explanation of Terms. For information on the MemeCounter chart, please read the Chart FAQ. If your question is not answered anywhere here, then registered MemeCounter users can raise support issues here, and all other questions can be asked here.

General FAQ

How do I add a tracker?

Trackers can be added by visiting the Create New Tracker page (click here). If you don't already have a MemeCounter account you'll be taken through the simple account creation process at the same time.

What can I track?

MemeCounter has been designed from the beginning to be the world's best Flash games tracking system. Any Flash game or application can have the code inserted.

Is the process difficult?

Not at all. Anyone who can create a Flash game or application will have no trouble adding the tracker. The process is very straightforward: we give you an ActionScript file to download. You then compile this when you publish the Flash movie.

Can I track more than one game?

Yes. Each game requires its own tracker and these can be easily managed from by visiting the Your Tracking page.

What's a Meme?

The dictionary definition: meme, n [meem] a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

How much does it cost?

Please see the Create New Tracker page for pricing. Self-install trackers are a single charge for the life of tracking. If your needs are more complex – for example, you would like us to set up your tracking – then please get in touch for more information.

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Technical FAQ

Does MemeCounter support AIR applications?

MemeCounter does not officially support AIR applications. Our tests show that most features of MemeCounter do work with AIR applications, the standard exceptions being Click-Tracking and Events. However, AIR applications can still use the old-style URL or Image-style Clicks and Events.

I've just played the game/triggered an event/clicked a link but this isn't showing in the results pages

For greater efficiency MemeCounter caches data. It can therefore take up to six minutes for clicks and events to appear on the MemeCounter results pages, and up to 8 minutes for a visit to be recorded after a user's session has ended (i.e. they close the movie).

Can I put a click tracker for tracker X in the movie for tracker Y?

No. The click tracker must be set up for the same game as the movie which it is in. Each click tracker returns the i.d. of its movie: if the two don't correspond then no data is recorded. This is to avoid erroneous results, such as in the case of another user mistakenly entering your click tracker i.d. in their movie, and appearing to give you extra traffic.

How do I add a client to a tracker so that they can see only their tracker stats?

Simple! Check out the 'User Access' section of the Tracker concerned, just add your client's email address and they'll be given access and sent a password (make sure you get them to check their junk folder just in case!)

How are geographic results calculated? Can traffic be misreported, for example could US traffic be UK based - accessing through ISPs with .com extensions?

Geographic results in MemeCounter are based on IP addresses and not domains. When a request is received from a user, their IP address is indexed against a database of international IP ranges and a geographic location is returned. Obviously within this model there is room for error and it is possible for users to be assigned IP addresses that are incorrectly indexed by our system. However, the IP data that we use is between 98-99% accurate so deviations are slight at worst.

How do you define a unique visitor?

Unique visitors (or returning percentage) in MemeCounter are calculated in different ways depending on the method of tracking you're using and are intended to represent all-time returning users. We expect a very small margin of error, less than 1% deviation.

On the User Access page, what do the different user types mean?

As the manager of a Tracker you can also allow other MemeCounter users the ability to see your results. These four viewer types allow you to assign different levels of access to your account users:

Although Full Viewers have the right to see all information, they are not able to change any details. Only a Tracker owner may change tracker details.

Why are users I've created getting the message: "You do not have permission to view any campaigns" when they log in?

You must go to the User Access page for that tracker (log in and go to the tracker Overview page. Under the different options for Administration choose User Access), and add this user to the tracker.

How do I add a campaign?

To add a campaign go to the new campaign page page and fill in the form.

What's the difference between Hosting Domains, Referrers and Other Domains?

These three sets of results show you which websites, webmail systems, blogs, forums etc. are driving traffic to your game. The three result sets are separate because they are collected in different ways and therefore have different levels of veracity:

The first, Hosting Domains, shows you who has your file on their servers and is the most accurate.

The second, Referrers, measures the source of any traffic coming to your main game page or campaign site (if there is one, and the supplied javascript has been included on the page). Please bear in mind that due to the generally unreliable nature of referrer tracking these figures should only be used as a guide.

Finally, Other Domains refers to any additional domains that we detect as promoting your content in any way. Most often these are sites that are deep-linking to the content on your server - for example, by embedding the content directly into their page.

Together these three sets of figures should help you to assess where your traffic is coming from and therefore improve the effectiveness of your trackers in future.

How do I set my Tracker sampling level?

Each MemeCounter tracker comes with a standard number of trackable sessions. By default these sessions are sampled at a ratio of 1-in-1; in other words, one user session equates to one visit recorded by MemeCounter.

For greater flexibility this sampling rate can be increased (up to a ratio of 1-in-20) so that each tracker can record a larger number of visits. For the vast majority of trackers the default setting should be sufficient and can be left at the 1-in-1 ratio. However, if you have a very high trafficking game (for example, over a million visits each month) you may want to increase the sampling rate in order to track more visits with your initial allowance.

How does the sampling work?

The system works by ignoring the results of non-sampled users and counting those that are sampled multiple times: twice in the case of a 1-in-2 ratio, three times for 1-in-3 and so on.

The degree to which sampling will affect your results depends on the level of traffic your game is getting. Generally speaking, a high trafficking game can have a higher level of sampling and still give very accurate results. For example, if you are receiving a million visits a month then sampling 1-in-5 (or higher) will give highly accurate results.

For high trafficking games that require low levels of sampling (such as 1-in-1) it is possible to purchase additional blocks of 5 million user sessions when required. If your campaign does run out of sessions it will enter emergency tracking where it will be sampled at a rate of 1-in-100.

What level of sampling should I use?

Most people can leave this unchanged. Only when you expect to have more than 5 million visits over the life of the game should you consider changing the sampling level.

For an advergame where accuracy of results over the initial period is key we recommend that you leave this unchanged initially and adjust it after a few months if required.

If you're tracking a Flash game which isn't an advergame and from which you expect high levels of traffic then you may wish to set this as somewhere between 1-in-5 and 1-in-10.

Can I buy more user sessions?

Of course. If you have a very high-trafficking game you can get in touch to purchase another 5 million user sessions that we will add to your tracker.

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An Explanation of Terms

Average View Time

The length of time the average user has your viral open on their computer screen.

Clicks/ Click-throughs

When an out-bound link has been clicked on. You can set up unlimited click-throughs with each MemeCounter tracker.

Events

Designed to be used to track how users interact with your game. E.g. counting every time a user completes a level. Find out more about the Event Tracking system [link].

Hosting Sites

This shows you the domains of the servers that host your Flash file.

Other Domains

Any additional domains that we detect as promoting your content in any way. Most often these are sites that are deep-linking to the content on your server, for example by embedding the content directly into their page.

Pixel

We refer to a 'pixel' as an invisible 1 by 1 pixel tranparent gif that, when embedded onto a webpage or video, can be used to collect data.

Referrers

Sites that have sent traffic to your game.

Returning

The percentage of visits that are from IP addresses that have previously been tracked interacting with your game.

Uniques

A person may view your game twice, which would be counted as 2 'visits' and 1 'unique'. Read more about how we define a unique visitor.

Users

The number of people viewing your game at the current time.

Visits

The total number of times a viral is viewed.

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Chart FAQ

How Does the Chart Work?

Every Monday morning the chart is generated by MemeCounter based on traffic data that it has recorded in each territory over the previous week for each entry. Separate charts are generated for almost every country in the world as well as for the continents as a whole. As well as this traffic based ranking each chart entry is also assigned an Interaction Grade, there are separate charts available that adjust the chart rankings based on this grade as well as charts that only include campaigns released in the last twelve months.

What is the Interaction Grade?

We feel that traffic is not the only indication of a successful campaign. There’s no point having hundreds of thousands of players on an advergame if once they get to the game they hate it, that just destroys the relationship between the brand and the user. Therefore the Interaction Grade is a score produced by MemeCounter which is designed to indicate how users are interacting with a viral.

How is the Interaction Grade calculated?

The interaction grade is made up of several factors, which are combined to give the overall score. These factors are:

You can see how well each campaign scores on these factors by rolling over the interaction grade, each of these grades are produced by comparing how well each entry does against the other chart entries. For example, the game with the longest viewtime will get an A+, the shortest will get a C- and all the others will be graded depending on where they fall between these two points. Since some of these factors are more important than others or can even be effected by the way a campaign is released and the characteristics of the game model, a simple algorithm is used to weight them in importance to produce the final grade. This weighting is ultimately subjective and definitely not full-proof but all entries are scored automatically on exactly the same basis and we constantly monitor the results to make sure that they are as fair as possible.

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