Ad tracking 4 Steps to Laser Precise Ad Tracking & Budget Management By: Ettione Stuckey Tracking your ads is very critical to your success online. You must, you must, you must, track your ads. Ad tracking allows you to see where your traffic is coming from. Okay, let's say you've just found this killer promotion to get the word out about your product or service. You pay your fee, type in your URL, and upload your ad(s) or banner(s). How will you know if this program really produces the traffic it claims? How will you know if this program sent you the traffic that you do get? How can you gauge whether your advertising dollars are paying off, ie, number of clickthroughs vs number of sales? How will you know what your ROI is? The fact is, you can't, and you don't - not without an effective tracking system! That's why you need a robust ad tracking system that lets you track your ads across multiple campaigns. Use a Quality Service - Don't Settle For A Freebie Ad Tracker! The first thing I want you to do is to get yourself a first-rate ad tracker! Don't just settle for the freebie accounts that only let you track one little ad. That freebie account is just to give you a taste of what ad tracking can do for your business. The goal is to get you to upgrade your membership. That's where the real power comes in, especially if you have multiple programs, products, and/or services to promote. Some automated e-business systems even integrate the ad tracking right into the system. That way, you can track ads for each of your products, ad campaigns, newsletters, and anything else you want. You can find Ad Tracker services all over the Internet. Just type ad tracker into your favorite search engine. However, if you have your own website and products/services, I recommend using an automated e-business system with integrated ad tracking. This gives you more control and versatility in your ad tracking, allowing you to track whatever you want, with no limit as to the number of trackers you can set up. some systems also let you track your expenses. That way you can quickly see the ROI of each of your promotions. See the end of this article for more information on that. Label Your Ad Trackers For Lightning Fast Reference! You must label each of your trackers for later quick reference, so you don't have to guess what campaign the tracker is for. This comes in handy when your viewing your trackers and you have several trackers for several campaigns displayed on your screen all at the same time. At a glance, you'll be able to tell which of your ad promotions is paying off, or which affiliates are performing well, and which ones need your help. You can also see which ezine promotions you would like to run again, and which ones you should scrap. Are you beginning to see the extreme edge you can gain by simply tracking your ads? I hope you do, 'cause this stuff is crucial to your business! Use Ad Tracking to Rescue Your Ad Budget! If the tracking service you choose permits you to enter your ad expense as well, then you've just stumbled upon a real Gem of a service. This is called expense tracking, and what this does is allow you to see what your Return On Investment (ROI) is for each of your ad campaigns. Inside your ad tracker's control panel you should be able to clearly see your visitors, your orders, you conversion percentage, your sales, your expenses, and your profit, all at a glance. If you cant' then what is that missing element worth to you? Using the information from each of the things I just listed, you should be able to get a firm grip on your advertising budget, as well as discern which advertising mediums produce the best results. What Have You Learned? You learned that you MUST track your ads. You learned that you should use a quality service, and dump the "Freebie" account. You learned that you should label your trackers for quick reference. You learned that you should use ad tracking to manage your ad budget, as well as to weed out the bad advertising mediums. Okay, now you've all got all the bases covered, now find you an ad tracking service, GET TO TRACKING! Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com So what is an ad tracker? It is tracking software or program that allows you to trace and take note of every click-through made by visitors of your site and by other customers who got your referral link. There are ad tracking service providers as well, so you will just have to pay them to do the tracking for you. If you use an ad tracker, you can keep an eye on the progress of your marketing and advertising campaigns even offline. This tool is especially helpful if you are engaged in several affiliate and pay-per-click programs and have placed ads in emails, pop-ups and pop-unders, message boards, auto responders, Ezines, forums, several web sites, surveys and various ad service providers. As such, you don’t want all your efforts and money to be put to waste so you want to be sure you are getting paid for your hard work. Likewise, you want to make sure every dollar you disburse in your advertising campaigns is not wasted. With the help of the ad tracker, you will know exactly how many and which of your links where clicked on, how many clicked on your links, how many of your emails were opened and how many of those who opened your email clicked through the business site and purchased a product, how many products were purchased, which of your banner ads or links brought the most leads and sales and many other facts and figures you need. Sales records and all the data you collect is necessary in any business as this could determine if your affiliate program is worth continuing. This would also help you determine which of your marketing strategies is most effective and which is most beneficial for each product or service you are promoting. Every decision you make must be supported by facts. That decision may not be the best, but it is something not to regret when you had valid reasons for coming up with that decision. You cannot just decide to quite your affiliate program, just because you don’t earn big immediately. If you're serious about affiliate marketing, keep in mind that your success lies on promotion and your hard work. If you don’t seem lucky enough to convince many of your site users to buy the products, don’t get discouraged and think your affiliate program is a failure. If it works for others, it should work for you. Know whether your advertising techniques are effective or not, which works best and which doesn’t. Get an ad tracker to track everything and you’ll surely be on the right track towards success. Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com