Online Ad Tracking Defined and Explained!

Online ad tracking helps you to determine where your clicks and sales came from so that you can utilize your advertising and get a better return on your dollar.

online ad tracking
hit the basket

You can’t hit the basket without a ball.  But here’s the deal, you can’t throw the ball without a player, right?  The coach wants to know what player put the ball into the basket! And actually so should you!  In your online business that is why you would use “online ad tracking”.

What’s the point in online ad tracking?

Say you are promoting a Clickbank product via your website, e-mail list and pay per click (OK mainly only advanced marketers will be doing all three right now). You make 20 sales of a product, but you have no idea through which media you made the sales.

Highly annoying and expensive if you are using pay per click. Imagine you got 50 clicks at $1 each and none of the clicks led to a sale. You have eaten into your profit by $50 for no return. The sensible thing to do would be to stop the PPC campaign for the product, but how can you if you don’t know where your sales came from?

Also – if you are promoting via e-mail marketing you need to know whether or not your list is responding to the product promotion. If they aren’t then you are likely annoying them, leading to unsubscribes, complaints and lost opportunities.  Online ad tracking helps to prevent these issues.

What is an Ad Tracker?

The official definition of an ad tracker is a utility or program (typically an intermediary) that can be relied upon to gather statistical data from connected web sources for the purpose of analyzing their relationship.

For Internet Marketing Purposes

A tracker is a special URL that will tell you how many people have clicked on your ad link. You can also use tracking links to find out which ads are producing sales and sign-ups. This will tell you very quickly which ads are getting the job done. Tracking links can also help you to keep your commissions or credits from being taken from you.

Ad trackers also utilize secondary JavaScript based requests and reporting to pass identifying information for a given action.  “Who put the ball in the basket and did it accomplish what it was supposed to?”

What is the Purpose of an Ad Tracker?

The goal of an ad tracker is to gather information about the interaction between two sources – typically an individual user and an online resource. This data can be analyzed to determine the relationship between the two sources including the purpose of the user’s visit, their motivation for accessing the resource, and the source of their request.

This data is typically used to promote marketing efforts, improve user experience, and streamline workflow.  A common use for an ad tracker is typically for online advertising to measure return on investment (ROI) for a marketing method. They’re most often used to measure profitability and market penetration.

Tracking and Testing, then Track and Test some more!

You are probably going to join a lot of safelists and traffic exchanges, right?  But if you don’t get any results from your advertising why would you want to stay a member even if it is free!  Whether the resources are free or not they should be effective and help me reach my goal of building my lists, making sales and making money. Online ad tracking helps you to determine where the results come from.

online ad tracking
online ad tracking

It takes me about 5 minutes to cut and paste an ad and then post it into a safelist.  That’s a lot of time when you are utilizing say 50 to 100 safelists.  Don’t know about you but I don’t have a lot of money to waste and I also don’t have a lot of free time to waste either.  I do not like chasing a ball and never catching it.

For many people, this is not the most exciting topic, but I cannot stress to you enough just how important this element is for the success of your safelist campaigns.

Tools and Resources to Aid you in Online Ad Tracking

There are several different tools to effectively track online ads: banner ads, ppc ads, pop-up ads, and other types. Several online advertising companies such as Google offer their own ad tracking service in order to effectively use their service to generate a positive ROI. Third-party ad tracking services are commonly used by affiliate marketers.

Many different companies have created tools to effectively track their commissions in order to optimize their profit potential. The information provided will show the marketer which advertising methods are generating income and which are not. This information will allow the marketer to effectively allocate his budget in the best possible way.

Here’s An Example!

I used a complete affiliate link somewhere in my last advertising campaign, instead of cloaking it and using a tracking link.  The campaign gave me about 6 new subscribers for the program but I have no idea where they came from (i.e. what advertising resource was used and got them to click the link).  I received credit for the signup in my affiliate account but they did not sign up to my newsletter.  So, in effect, I lost 6 good leads.

I use a paid ad tracking service.  Hits Connect offers a free account with a limited number of links you can track.  There is an upgrade that you can purchase for unlimited url tracking.  It is an easy program to use and has some very effective reporting.  The tutorials are easy to understand and to put to work.  Hits Connect also has split testing available which makes things much easier.

Free Online Ad Tracking Resources

There are a lot of free ad tracking services offered online.  You can do a google search and come up with a wide variety.  Just do your due diligence and research the limitations on each program.  Remember free is not always really free!

Several of the top ranking safelists offer free link tracking.  I know that ViralURL.com offers this feature to their free members.  ViralURL is a combination mailer and tracking platform.  They offer a free membership and also several paid subscriptions.

Leads Leap is a text ad exchange with a unique twist.  You can earn money with this exchange (you WILL NOT get RICH).  But they also offer a free membership, a free tracker and autoresponder.  You can get a free membership and use the Real Tracker program.  There are a lot of other benefits available in Leads Leap and it would be a good idea to check them out.

In short, online ad tracking will help you to utilize your marketing efforts to the maximum and help you to determine what type of advertising brings you the best results.

Here is to your success in 2020!

Donnie Ellis
TrafficTips4U.com
WebTrafficSources.com

PS Your comments are always welcome

Tags: , ,
Previous Post

E-Mail Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Next Post

Viral Mailers with a Twist

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *