Tracking Keyword Traffic Levels

Tracking between PPC and organic results, whats the best way?

[webhound]

I am trying to track traffic levels on the keyword level for both PPC terms and Organic listings.

What I need to track is total traffic (unique visitors), from the keyword and CTR's. Again this applies to organic and PPC.

I don't think that the PPC listings are so much the issue, rather it's the organic keyword tracking. And when you combine the two, how can you acurately track the two separetely?

Does anyone have any suggestions on methods to use that would provide reliable, accurate data?

Thanks a bunch! :-)

Webhound

[larryn]

webhound,

First thing is to make sure you use tracking URL's so you can identify the source of the referral.

Larry

[webhound]

Hey Larry, yeah we are for the PPC stuff. Its more with the organic traffic that I am concerned with.

Tracking this at the keyword level for unique visitor levels might be tricky. Any suggestions on this one?

[cgrantski]

Do an exclude filter for visits coming through PPC?

[webhound]

I think i have it sorted via the log file program we have setup server side.

thanks guys.

[moftary]

I am interested too. What sort of server side tracking are you using?

Cheers,
mOftary

[webhound]

Using Nettracker. I think i have it sorted. I am taking total clicks from overture, total clicks from adwords, then comparing this number to the total clicks nettracker is reporting on for the given keyphrase. Some of the terms seem wacked - ie. more clicks from the two PPC programs then nettracker is reporting on as a total number of clicks, but have an email into support to sort this.

[moftary]

Thank for your reply. I have been experiencing awstats today, and I am quite satisfied so far.

I think with some little awstats hacks you would be able to produce the customization you're interested in.

Cheers :)

[cgrantski]

webhound - there are reasons why those numbers don't match. I think you'll be happier if you stay with nettracker for all your stats except for impressions. If you mix Google and Overture's stats with those from NetTracker, you'll have plenty of discrepancies.

As said above, it's essential that you put the phrase you PAID FOR into the URL, as well as an identifier as to which service (O or G) is involved. Check out how Overture currently marks your URLs (it's an option they offer) and make Google ads behave the same way (it's not an option they offer, which is one of Google's biggest oversights to date).

See, if you don't use Exact Match plus the marked URLs, a visitor coming through phrase A according to Overture/Google can be reported by NetTracker as coming through a completely different phrase. O/G report on the phrase you paid for, which is not necessarily the phrase that was used for a particular visit.

Even if you do use Exact Match ... we've found lots of exceptions, especially from the affiliate site realm.

[webhound]

Yeah we are using the standard?source=Overture&keyword=widget+widget+widget URL's for Yahoo, and then?source=Google&keyword=widget+widget+widget for Google.

But we are still having trouble with getting the numbers to Jive.

What do you guys think about creating separte and unique landing pages for the paid stuff? separete pages for Overture ads, and separete pages for Google ads... Any concerns with tripping duplicate content filters, or anyother organic concerns with this method?

Thanks!