Setting up WebTrends to track paid vs natural search

[Fieldingv]

I get webtrends reports from several different sources. When no paid (adwords/overture) campaigns are running the reports track natural search engine traffic just fine. But when the paid search ads get in the mix things don't make sense. For Example: Google Adwords will say they genrated 10,000 clicks and WebTrends will say that there were only 8,000 total search engine visits for all search engines (including Google). I pretty sure i know why this is happening but I don't know how to remedy the problem. From what I've read I know it is possible to set up WebTrends to track natural vs. paid search traffic. However, I don't know how. And I have to tell several different IT groups to do so. The simplest solution is desired. Any ideas?

[ogletree]

Could it be from Adsense sites as well. Also some of your users could be behind corp firewall or use software that hides referer info. Also you could have a subdomain of your site where all the AW traffic goes to. Have a seperate log files for that subdomain and seperate log files. Fixing webtrends will not make that number correct. It will just split it into 2 sections organic and paid.

[Fieldingv]

I'm not running any adsense ads for these campaigns. However, I have noticed that sites that use Google's search as their internal site search are showing ads when someone uses the search function and those are creating some traffic. WebTrends has no idea that this could be "search" traffic and I think this may be causing the problem. Is anyone else seeing this type of behavior.

[digitalv]

You have to use tracking codes. Instead of having Google point your ads to www.yourdomain.com have them point to something like www.yourdomain.com/?track=google_adwords

Then when you look at your logs, skip the referrer information and count how many visits you got to the URL with /?track=google_adwords in it. That will tell you the real number. Lots of people block referrers too, and that prevents programs like WebTrends from accurately reporting where they came from. If you use a tracking URL you can't miss.

[Fieldingv]

I saw that Google recommended using tracking codes like you mention. That seems like a good method. Does the same apply for Overture ads? Any rules to follow on how to properly implement tracking codes?

Anyone know of a good resource for WebTrends information? Their site is lacking.

thanks

[cgrantski]

Overture has a toggle that makes it add a parameter automatically. It's in a very high level account management screen, just a checkbox about "use tracking URL" or something like that. It's absolutely amazing that Google does not do it, though I hear it's going to be available there soon.

We learned a lot from adding that parameter to Google terms. You'll be surprised where that content-match (adsense sites) traffic comes from.

I would set up the google tracking parameter the same way overture does, which is "googlePPC=search+term" where "googleppc" can be any parameter name you want that tells you it's a google ppc source, and "search+term" is the actual term you are buying for that particular ad. You can then compare the term you paid for (in the URL parameter) to the term that was actually used on the other search engine (in the referrer field). Again, you'll be pretty surprised at what you find.

WebTrends has a whole lot of documentation available as downloads but (i just checked) apparently not unless you download the trial copy of the program. Oh well. I assume you have a question about reporting on PPC vs organic? There are a couple of ways to accomplish it, and neither is terribly hard. But you have to have a <2 year old version that has the custom report feature.

[Fieldingv]

Got this working like a charm on Google. But i can't find the toggle on Overture to add the tracking. Anyone know how to get to that screen?

[cgrantski]

"Account" >> "Account Set Up" >> "Overture Tracking URLs" (lower right quadrant)

[Fieldingv]

When I review the raw logfile data I see sessions that are showing the tracking codes but there is no referring site. It appears that WebTrends then says these visits are referred by/orginated at the actual site (self referred). Would this be an example of someone blocking the referrer information?

[cgrantski]

In WebTrends and all others I know of, visits whose first hit has no referrer are listed as "Direct Traffic" or "No Referrer." Are you sure these visits are being displayed as self-referred?

[Fieldingv]

the logfile is showing that the session started with the tracking code. For the referring site in the logfile it lists my site. I'm trying to find out if these are visits from a site running Google or Overture search ads?

[cgrantski]

When you look at the first hit of a visit and see the tracking code in the landing page URL, and you look at the referrer field of that exact same line in the log file, you are seeing your own site?

If so, I'm guessing you have some interesting server-side redirects happening that are the cause of this situation.

If you see instead a "-" in the referrer field of that log file line, then WebTrends (or any package) will display that visit labeled as "direct traffic" or "no referrer," and never as "yoursite.com." If it's doing that, something really bizarre is happening that I don't understand at all.

[Fieldingv]

That is what is happening. And yes there are some odd redirects in use with the site (i didn't build it and don't understand what or why they did)and based on your input it would seem that was what was causing this.

thanks