Tracking your ads
by Dmitry Nanev
----------------------------------------------------------- Tracking your adsBy Dmitry Nanev-----------------------------------------------------------
I'm sure that you've heard that to succeed with advertising you must research This means to track your ads and based on these results to measure your ad's success.
The more hits/leads it gets - the better it is...
Of course there are many factors, which affect your ad's success but today we're going to stress on tracking!
Why is it so important?
As I said above this is the only way to find out which ad works and which not. This will help you pick up the best ones and use them. And this will save you money, as you'll pay only for effective ads! Even if your ad is free it'll save you time.
How to track ads?
Glad you asked me:)
I. Tracking URLs
-------------------------------------------- Using specialized ad tracking services. --------------------------------------------
There are several I know about, as this kind of service is not very popular on the Net because of the scripts available.
The best and free one is hyperTracker (http://www.hypertracker.com/index/36688/). I personally use it, as it's very easy to use. All you have to do is insert your URL, description of the campaign, etc. and you're ready to go!
The next proven tracker is ROIBot but it's paid one and besides I haven't used it so I can't tell whether it's good or not so good. But I can assure you that if there are so many people using it - it can't be bad! To find out more about it visit: http://www.roibot.com/r.cgi?R30335_ROIbot/
LinkCounter - A free one but doesn't have many features. Actually its only feature is to show you when and how many times your URL has been visited! Which is a very basic option... It can be found here: http://www.linkcounter.com/
ReferralWare offers a free tracker too. Although I haven't used it(only reviewed it) I'm satisfied with it. To get more information visit: http://www.referralware.com/home.jsp/8628557/
My Success Center Pro - they offer a very good tracker! Find out more at: http://www.msc-pro.com/
------------------------------------------------- Using a script-------------------------------------------------
I'll be short at this one. Go to one of the below sites, search for a 'URL(link) tracking' and you'll find several scripts. Then get the ones that you like the most and use them!
CGI Resource Index - http://cgi-resources.com/
PHP Resource Index - http://php.resourceindex.com/
There are many more sites full of scripts but these kinds of scripts can me mostly found here. I will recommend you to use PHP scripts, as they are easier to use.
------------------------------------------------- Basic Tracking-------------------------------------------------
The most basic way to track your URLs is to use a '?'(Question mark) after the URL of the page. Example: http://www.profit-position.com?123
Be sure to include some symbols after the '?' so that you can see where from the URL was clicked...
After that see your LOG files at the server or use a free counter such as WebTrends Live - it'll show you automatically the symbols!
There is one more but very BASIC way - make different pages for every of your ads. Example: your URL is http://www.yourdname.com/index.html
You can make:http://www.yourdname.com/index2.html http://www.yourdname.com/index3.html http://www.yourdname.com/index4.html etc.
II. Tracking your autoresponders
There are only two ways of doing this:
1. Make a different account for each ad. Example: autoresponder1@yourdomain.com autoresponder2@yourdomain.com autoresponder3@yourdomain.com
2. The next way is by making different subjects. This can be made by adding a '?'(Question mark) and 'Subject='(the word 'Subject' and '=') after the link. Example:autoresponder@yourdomain.com?Subject=Your_Subject_Goes_Here
Be sure that the different words in the subject are separated not by intervals but by '-' or '_' as some of the email programs won't read your full link...
If your link is'autoresponder@yourdomain.com?Subject=Your Subject Goes Here' They will read ONLY'autoresponder@yourdomain.com?Subject=Your'
Also always be sure to include the prefix 'http://' for web sites and 'mailto:' for email addresses.
Always with You towards Success: Dmitry NanevDmitry@profit-position.com http://www.profit-position.com
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