There are many techniques people use for tracking the performance of their PPC campaigns. Some are incredibly advanced and intense and others are plain and simple. One little trick I like to use is not only simple to put in place, but can provide very powerful results.
You may have a great Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign running that drives a ton of traffic to your website, but what do you really know about the visitors you are getting? Many webmasters that take part in PPC advertising simply have direct links in place to landing pages, but there is a simple and easy way to get the information you need.
We’ll stick to the over-used example of widgets. If you are running an AdWords campaign to promote your site www.widgets.com all you need to do is add a little piece of tracking code to the end of your destination URL that clearly identifies the source.
If your campaign is with AdWords and your keyword phrase is blue widgets’ a good destination URL may be: http://www.widgets.com?source=google&keyword=blue-widgets’. This can be shortened to src=ggl&kw=blue-widgets,’ or whatever works best for you. The real estate after the ?’ is yours to place whatever will best suit your needs. I have seen people simply use ?g1′, ?g2′, etc, but if you have an extensive keyword and ppc engine list, this may get confusing when it comes time to analyze your traffic.
So you have the URL’s in place, now what? There are several popular pieces of tracking software on the market today, and it is near impossible to cover them all, so for the purposes of this article I will use ClickTracks. ClickTracks is a very powerful web stats tool that displays visitor behaviour visually right on your website. (For additional information on Clicktracks please visit the StepForth Website at stats.stepforth.com.)
ClickTracks allows you to create labels based on a variety of items, one of which is entry pages, and visually see exactly where visitors have gone on your site. By creating labels that refer to the specific URL’s entered in your ad campaign you are able to not only see various stats such as number of visitors and country of origin, but also time spent on site, which links they have clicked, and their actual path through the site. You can also identify specific target pages, which are likely to identify the visitor as a successful sale or lead.
By including such a small piece of code to your destination URLs you can increase what you know about your visitor behaviour making it easier to find tune not only your PPC campaigns but also your website, ultimately increasing sales.
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Search Engine Placement. Scott has worked with StepForth Placement since Aarly 2003 and has thoroughly enjoyed working in the search engine industry. When he’s not punching away at the keyboard he can be found spending quality time with his wife Lyndsay, or out on the golf course. Scott would be happy to answer any questions, and can be reached at scott@stepforth.com.
