Sunday, July 04, 2010

Do You Need Ad Tracking?

Like nearly all businesses today, yours is likely cutting back on expenses and revising the budget. As advertising is necessary in order to grow a wider customer base, by nature it can be hit or miss at times. It is imperative to identify what works as well as where it works which is why advertising tracking is a step that your business must not overlook.

Ad tracking is actually a pretty simple method and can be done in a variety of ways. Below I've added my shortlist to get you started to better understanding what ads are working for your company.

First, choose how exactly you want to track your site visitors. There are many ways, but your basic options are:

- Read your web site's server stats: Nearly all hosts have a form of tracking built into your cPanel already therefore if you have cPanel access and are comfortable with this method, this could be the method to go for your web site.
-Find a free third party site meter: There are so many available, just do a search of free site meters, you would then put the code on your pages and you're finished. Look for reviews prior to deciding on one particular site meter as some offer more detailed reports while others merely track how many times a page is loaded and nothing more. The more information that you have regarding your site's visitors, the better benefit to your business.

-Google Analytics: This is a free service from Google that numerous web site owners are finding helpful in tracking their web site's visitors and where they are coming from. This service not only tells you where your site visitors are finding your site online, and also their geographical location, their duration of stay on your website, their bounce rate and so much more. I recommend Google Analytics to all of my customers.

Next, you can install a program on your website that will track your advertisements. This will make it look like the link is found on your website even if it's an affilitate link which you need to track. People are further likely to click on a link such as this than one that they know to be an affiliate link. Because the software is on your site you would retain more control and would only have a one time expense as opposed to a month to month charge for tracking from a hosted website.

At the end of the month when you notice that your product sales are up, it will be easy to look at your tracking method and find out what page received the most traffic. This should help you to better understand where your audience is plus assist you to make certain that you are allocating your marketing resources in the way that helps your business the most.
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Keep in mind that a properly thought out and tracked marketing campaign can simply help you to stretch your advertising dollar two and three times as long as you focus less on placement that does not gain site traffic and further on those placements that do.

To check out ad tracking software visit my site at http://www.hootowlsoftware.com

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