- Third-party tracking tools. These tools tend to be more powerful than those offered
by PPC providers. The most important area of increased functionality is the capability to
track PPC campaigns across companies. Because most web-site owners have PPC campaigns
running from more than one PPC provider, the ability to manage and control all
those campaigns from a single location can be valuable.
- In-house tracking tools. Because some companies are unable to find tracking tools that
provide the information they need, they create their own tracking tools in-house. If you
have the capabilities to create in-house tracking tools, you can have tools that provide only
the specific information you need.
- Tracking using a spreadsheet. Before there were PPC campaigns and the tracking tools
that go along with them, web-site owners would track their online advertising using a
spreadsheet, developed to include all of the different categories that needed to be tracked.
Today, there are still some web-site owners who prefer to track their PPC campaigns (and
their other online advertising campaigns) using the “old-fashioned” spreadsheet. It’s one
of the least expensive ways to track your PPC campaigns, but it’s also one of the most
time-consuming. Should you decide that a tracking spreadsheet is the way to go, you
may want to consider include columns for:
Keywords
Headlines
Ad Copy
Click Through Ratio (CTR)
Keyword Cost
Sales Indicators (to show which keywords resulted in sales)
Information Requests Harvested
Information Requests Resulting in Sales
No matter what method you decide to use to track your PPC campaigns, you’ll need a way to differentiate
one keyword ad from another. Some PPC providers require that this be done by inserting
a snippet of tracking code on your web site. This code then catalyzes the tracking process so that
when someone clicks through your PPC ad, you can track whether the click-through results in a
conversion.
Following is an example of what the tracking code for your PPC campaign might look like if you’re
running a Google AdWords campaign. This specific code is intended as an example only. If you try
to use this code to track your web site, you’ll find that it won’t work because this code was designed
only as an example by the Google AdWords team.
src=”http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js”>
The code is placed in the HTML of your web site, according to directions provided by the PPC
provider.
Another way to track your PPC campaigns is by URL. Using this method, each PPC ad is given a
separate URL, which is used only by that keyword. Then, when a visitor clicks through a PPC ad
and is taken to your web site, you will know which ad is working best according to the amount of
traffic on the specific site.
This method does require that you have a way to track your web-site traffic, but you should be doing
that anyway. If you’re not tracking it, how will you know what kind of traffic your web site gets?
Before you get too far into tracking your keywords and conversions, it helps to have a plan for
what you want to gain from your PPC campaign. The first things that you’ll need to know are the
long- and short-term goals for your PPC campaign. You need to track both long- and short-term
goals because without both you could find yourself throwing money into a PPC campaign that
doesn’t provide the results you need.
Far too often, web-site owners find that they’ve instituted a PPC campaign that does really well in
the beginning but then over time becomes more costly and less effective. If you’re conducting all the
elements of SEO for your site properly, it isn’t worrisome to find that the effectiveness of your PPC
campaign drops after a while—as long as the overall traffic to your site and the number of conversions
on your site continue to rise.
This means that your organic SEO efforts are working. When this happens, it’s time to consider other
keywords for your PPC campaign. Instead of pouring more money into improving your ranking,
which will decrease the return on investment from your PPC campaign, you might change the
campaign by using different keywords.
As you’re tracking your PPC campaign, you should also have a set of key performance indicators (KPIs)
that you compare your results to. KPIs are performance indicators that you develop based on the
long- and short-term goals you have in place for your PPC campaigns. These indicators are of value
for deciding when it’s time to change some element of your PPC campaign.
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