by Harvey Segal
The ad tracker was originally developed to provide a record FOR AFFILIATES #1. The Long Url Problem Have you ever seen an ad where you are asked to click on an http://www/anysite.com/cgi-bin/dir1/dir2/.cgi?code=123RT&type=102 Do you think your reader will bother to do the necessary cut Probably not. And that's probably one lost sale. And even a one line affiliate link may exceed the The solution: use a short tracking URL. #2. Losing Your Affiliate Code As an affiliate you may have your affiliate code embedded in http://www.abc.com/123 Some customers will bypass the affiliate code and just type The solution: use a tracking URL - so that your affiliate #3. Make Your Ad Stand Out You may have seen search engine results showing near Your listing here will be just one of many unless you make #4. How Effective Are The Links You can measure and compare the effectiveness of the #5. Changing Links If an affiliate company change their links then your #6. Affiliate Program Discontinued Similarly if an affiliate program is discontinued you just #7. Better Affiliate Stats Not all affiliate programs provide you with stats about visitors. Compare a basic monthly figure say with a detailed analysis such as - Jan 12: 10 hits where you can relate those dates to particular ad campaigns. Tracking URLs will give you these improved figures. #8. Checking Affiliate Stats Even if you do receive good stats from your affiliate A large discrepancy could mean errors in their software or An alternative reason is that their measurement takes place FOR EZINE PUBLISHERS #9. Win Advertisers With Tracking Reports If you sell advertising space in your ezine you can offer to Tell your advertisers about these benefits in your - They will know the number of clickthroughs their ad has - If they use a tracker program with your own domain name in - They can use your ezine as a test centre, modifying their #10. Use Tracking Report Results The tracking reports above will provide you with information Also, once your advertisers have seen for themselves the #11. Measure Your Readership You may know how many subscribers you have but how many Here's how to find out if you distribute your ezine in HTML For an ezine distributed as plain text it is not possible to AT YOUR WEB SITE #12. The Problem Of Permanent URLs Web sites are continually evolving and changing. You may want to rename a page to make it more consistent and The solution ? Never provide the actual URL, just a tracking URL. You can The external links, in your ebook for example, stay the same #13. What Are Your Visitors Doing ? You have text links all over your site, links to your other Where are your visitors clicking ? Where are they leaving your site, why, how can you stop them ? Which graphic do they click on the most ? Do they click on the text link more than the graphic link? Your log files may tell you at best which are the most Use tracking URLs to replace actual links wherever you need #14. Sell Website Advertising Space You can offer tracking reports to your advertisers in the #15. Stop Piracy If you have invested man-months of time setting up a vital If you use tracking URLs for those directory links you can At the same time of course you can measure the popularity of USING PAY PER CLICK SEARCH ENGINES #16. Better Click Activity Reporting Pay per click search engines will report to you click #17. Prevent Fraudulent Activity You can compare your figures with the engine's and should If click activity is unusually high you may have a OFFLINE MARKETING #18. Check How Successful If you have ever wondered whether it was worth advertising - newspapers #19. Use The Time Reports The date and time when clicks are made will allow you to - has your newspaper ad been submitted yet ? For a long running ad you can study the response and switch
of all hits to a site resulting from ad placements. This
article shows a host of different ways to utilise an ad
tracker.
affiliate URL so long that it stretches over 2 lines, like
this
35&subid=89715
and paste to put it in a browser?
permissible length for some ad posting requirements.
a link something like this:
in the home URL http://www.abc.com (possibly because they
think that they will be paying extra for an agent's
commission)
code number is never seen.
identical listings for the same product, differing only in
an affiliate code appended to the URL.
it stand out. So bypass the standard affiliate URL and use a
tracking URL.
different banners or text links the affiliate programs
provide you by using a tracking URL.
existing ads, wherever they are posted, become worthless.
But if you use a tracking URL you simply revise the
affiliate URL at the tracking control centre.
change your tracking URL to a new page where you explain the
circumstances and point your visitor to your other
promotions.
And if they do are they adequate ?
- Jan: 39 hits
- Jan 13: 2 hits
- Jan 20: 21 hits
- Jan 21: 6 hits
program it still makes sense to use tracking URLs so that
you can compare your figures with theirs.
(hopefully not) fraudulent activity on their part.
when their page is fully loaded rather than at the start,
indicating that visitors are clicking away because it is
taking too long to load.
your advertisers to replace their URLs with your tracking
URLs and Email them the results.
advertising guidelines
generated. They can then decide how to improve the ads for
better performance
the tracking URL your ezine subscribers will be more
inclined to click
ads until they are happy, before launching with other
publishers
on your subscribers' interests, influencing your editorial
content and helping you select which potential advertisers
to approach
benefits of an ad tracking program they will be inclined to
purchase one. So set yourself up as an affiliate for a
program and promote it to them.
actually open and read your ezine and which parts of it
attract most attention ?
Format: include an image on your page, e.g a banner or logo
or a single pixel GIF. Then reference this image with a
tracking URL.
see if it is actually opened or read. But what you can do is
insert tracking URLs at the appropriate points, such as
product offers or special articles, and get comparative
figures for which items are being read.
logical but there's a huge problem. You have given out the
URL in an ebook, or a directory submission, or an article or
wherever. There's no way you can undo this.
then just edit the link at the tracking centre whenever a
page is moved or renamed.
but they will redirect to your new page.
pages and links to recommended sites.
popular pages at your site but it is vital to know how your
visitors move through your site and what is tempting them.
to monitor click activity.
same way as for ezine publishers (above).
resource site involving a directory of links it's very easy
for a pirate to simply copy your page and provide useful
content for his own site.
detect this copy - because the ad tracking program will
record the referring URL.
the directory links.
activity on your URL. Engines vary in the frequency and
format of the reporting so you can use tracking URLs instead
to obtain better information.
query any large discrepancy.
competitor clicking on just to incur costs against you. You
may be able to detect this by comparing the figures for
unique hits and actual hits (several hits per visitor).
off line because of the supposed impossibility of measuring
the response then ad tracking URLs will answer that problem.
Just include them in your ads in
- magazines
- flyers
- billboards
- press releases
- shop notice boards
- and so on
check the progress of your ads, for example
- has your billboard notice been removed ?
- how long does a magazine ad stay around ?
the link midstream if necessary to an improved web page.
EBOOKS #20. Do Free Books Work ? The main purpose of a free ebook is to get the reader back Put tracking URLs in the book and you will find out. #21. Maintain Control After Download Once your ebook is downloaded it would appear that you no OTHER WAYS #22. Become An Ad Tracking Affiliate Since ad tracking programs are high demand marketing tools Owning the product that you promote always gives that extra #23. Privacy You may want to post an URL somewhere and - for reasons of About the Author
http://www.ad-tracking.com/adbook.html Publishers can reproduce this article and change the URL
to your site. But how successful is it proving ?
longer have any control over it. Not so. You can redirect
the reader to other pages of your site by changing the
tracking Url links.
you can profit by joining their affiliate program (if they
have one).
advantage e.g you can give an example of how you use it or a
personal testimonial as to how it has benefited you.
your own - not let it reveal your website. You can do this
with an ad tracking program where the supplier domain name
is used in the tracking URL.
For more details about the above tips and yet more ways to use
an ad tracker see Harvey's free ebook Ad Tracking SuperTips
to point to their own rebranded version.