I'm hoping someone can help this newbie?! My buddy sells his art through his site, but he doesn't have an affiliate program as such. He has offered me a commission on sales though.
If I send leads to his site (via Adwords and an eFlyer), is there any way I can somehow track this?
Many thanks in advance!
Perry
I looked at Clickalyzer now, and whilst it looks impressive, and something I'd like to have, I think it's overkill and a bit expensive right now for my requirements.
Can you recommend any alternatives?
Thanks again.
I too am not 100% certain what you wish to track, but it you're simply trying to track whether or not a visit to your friends site came from an adwords ad, then you could use a tracking URL, as briefly described below.
Do you or your friend has access to the site's server logs? If so, then one way to track whether the click came from your AdWords ad is to use a Destination URL for your ad that is not used for anything else, by adding some URL parameters. For example, if your web site address is www.yoursite.com, you could use the unique URL www.yoursite.com?source=adwords or even just www.yoursite.com?s=aw.
(In this situation, the question mark and everything beyond it will not change the address to which the user is taken, but it will show up in the site's server logs.)
Hope this helps.
AWA
Even though I've been in IT for many years, I've always had the luxury of having a webmaster etc. That, unfortunately, is no longer the case, so here I find myself needing to find other income sources, hence Adwords > Affiliates.(Is there money in this?) It seems like I also need to get to grips with something like Dreamweaver. I tried MS Publisher, which is nice and easy but with shortcomings. Wish me luck!
I think you have pretty much answered my Q's. At this point, all I'm wanting to do is pre-empt any possible contentions as to where the lead emanated from.
Would another option be for me to set up something like: www.mysite.com/hissite?
In the meantime, I'll try not to abuse your goodwill too much! ;-)
Thanks again.
Haven't tried it myself but as far as I understand it, it tracks from the adword to an other page (e.g. thank you page). You have to place a tracking-image on that page, so G knows that it was called up and can compare data from clickthrough on adwords with data from loading the image.
Would another option be for me to set up something like: www.mysite.com/hissite?
GreenHorn, I am not a technical expert on this subject, and invite other on the Forum to comment/correct me. However, it would not work to simply combine the two URLs.
Your destination URL must be an exact address of an existing page on the Internet. Simply combining two URLs into one will not create that, and a user clicking on an ad with such a Destination URL would arrive at a 'page not found' error page.
It would sort of be like putting two entirely different addresses on a letter, then dropping it off at the post office for delivery. Confusion would ensue, and you'd likely get the letter back.
In my understanding, when you add a '?' after a URL, then everything that follows is not read as part of the address. So adding something like '?source=adwords' will not interfere with the actual address.
I hope that others on this Forum will jump in with some additional information on adding tracking information to URLs.
Anyone?
AWA
So adding something like '?source=adwords' will not interfere with the actual address.
bb) feed a cookie to the visitor on your friends landing page that is also read during order processing, so you get the credit.
