Archive for the ‘PPC Conversion Tracking’ Category
Tracking your conversions at the keyword level is a big step forward in maximizing a PPC campaign’s profitability. Many marketers are intimidated by it, but there is no need to be. In fact, McKinsey even reported that big companies view insufficient metrics as a major obstacle to marketing online. Conversion tracking at the keyword level can be done in 4 easy steps, eliminating the guess work.
1. Set up your individual keyword URL’s. If you were going to send someone to your landing page and your URL looks like this:
http://www.mykickasslandingpage.com/sweat.php
Change it so that each keyword has it’s own unique URL. I like to assign a number to each keyword. If I had 6 keywords, my URL’s would look like this:
http://www.mykickasslandingpage.com/sweat.php?tid=1
http://www.mykickasslandingpage.com/sweat.php?tid=2
http://www.mykickasslandingpage.com/sweat.php?tid=3
http://www.mykickasslandingpage.com/sweat.php?tid=4
http://www.mykickasslandingpage.com/sweat.php?tid=5
http://www.mykickasslandingpage.com/sweat.php?tid=6
In this case, we are using a Clickbank product as an example. Each affiliate network has it’s own SubID tracking code.
Clickbank = tid
Commission Junction = sid
Share A Sale = afftrack
Linkshare = u1
Performics = mid
Make sure to use the appropriate code for the affiliate network you are using. If you do not use the right SubID code, the affiliate network cannot report which keyword made the conversion for you.
2. Paste your URL’s and keywords to Adwords. You can do this in the “Quick Add” screen for your keywords. The format to use is:
KEYWORD ** BID ** URL
3. Set up your affiliate link with PHP code. If your affiliate link looks like this:
<a href=”http://XXXXX.stopsweat.hop.clickbank.net”>Stop Sweating Now!</a>
Change it to this:
<a href”http://XXXXX.stopsweat.hop.clickbank.net?tid=<?php echo $_REQUEST['tid']; ?>" >Stop Sweating Now!</a>
This code will automatically take the tid from the URL and place it at the end of your affiliate link. Your affiliate network (Clickbank in this example) will record this tid and you can then view your transaction reports to determine which keyword generated the sale for you.
Adding the ?tid=<?php echo $_REQUEST['tid']; ?> to your affiliate link is all the coding you have to do. Again, make sure you are using the appropriate SubID tracking code specific to the affiliate network you are using.
4. Paste your affiliate link and PHP code into your landing page. Save your landing page with the .php extension so that the PHP code we insert in this step will work. If you save your landing page as a .html or some other extension, the PHP code will not work.
Pretty easy, and the benefits are ginormous. This won’t quite get you to be a tracking ninja yet, but you’ve definitely reached yellow belt status and you’ll kick the crap out of all those white belt marketers out there.
Questions you can answer using this method of PPC keyword conversion tracking:
Which keywords are profitable?
Which keywords are losing money?
How much profit am I making per keyword?
How much can I raise my PPC bids and still make a profit?
From there, you can begin to analyze WHY certain keywords are profitable and others are not. This will help you determine what you can do to get more profitable keywords.
Check out this video for more detailed information. If you want to view the video in full screen mode, right click the video and select “Zoom.”
To get the spreadsheet I used in the video, click here:
Link Generating Spreadsheet
Update: Here is the Mac Version of the video. Right click to download.
Pede