Tracking your google adwords

How to track them if you´re an affiliate

[socialight]

I´ve been promoting affiliate programs mostly through google for some months now. I have been tracking my clicks and my sales in a separate excel wordsheet.

The thing is I know that there are many adwords I am getting clicked and there is a very high probability that only a few are the ones making sales. I think i know this by instict maybe because it´s the same way when you have a lot of keywords, only a few of those will get considerably more clicks.

My question is, how do you track your conversions on google if you are an affiliate... and overture for that matter. Do you tell the affiliates to place a code in their website, or how do you guys do it?

Thanks
Socialight

[patient2all]

Many programs, including the popular Commission Junction allow for you to add a tracking id (CJ calls it an SID) to the end of your URL. Remember, in AdWords, each keyword can go to a seperate URL. In this case, the URL would be URL + TRACKING_ID

One could then assign different tracking ids/SIDs to each keyword. The affiliate program back-end, if they go to the trouble of providing tracking ids, should be able to show you in your reports which tracking ids converted to sales.

This could be tedious depending on how many keywords you have.

I should do this myself, but don't!

patient2all

[vibgyor79]

>>> I should do this myself, but don't!

Do it at the AdGroup level instead of keyword level. Saves you time and works pretty well. When you make bid changes, change the max CPC of the entire AdGroup based on the conversion results.

[socialight]

I use CJ a lot for example. But i didn´t understand how you place the tracking links? Sometimes I´ll use a landing page and sometimes i´ll link it directly to the affiliate i´m promoting.
Could you explain where do you place the tracking links.
Thanks
socialight

[socialight]

I use CJ a lot for example. But i didn´t understand how you place the tracking links? Sometimes I´ll use a landing page and sometimes i´ll link it directly to the affiliate i´m promoting.
Could you explain where do you place the tracking links.
Thanks
socialight