Creative conversion tracking

*low tech solutions needed*

[clickwit]

I need some creative ideas for conversion tracking from AdWords. We are a small private hotel and currently take all our bookings by phone. When we ask how the client found out about us, the answer is always "on the internet". Obviously, that doesn't help us.

Here's what we've considered so far to help us track conversions:

1. Online booking. I'm looking into this. But there will always be people who prefer to book by phone.

2. Special code in the AdWords ad itself. Most visitors would never write down the code before clicking the AdWord ad, would they? Seems like a waste of characters, too.

3. Landing page with Google-specific discount code they give us when they call. I don't have the expertise to do dynamically generated web pages, so this would have to be a hard-coded page. The problem is the visitor rarely makes a booking decision without looking at lots of other pages on our website. If the landing page is NOT forward-linked by site navigation (ie, "hidden" from non-Adwords visitors), the AdWords visitor may never find his way back to the landing page with the discount code. The only way to do so would be using the "back" button on his browser, which is iffy. If he tried to navigate, he'd never find the discount page. At which point he either goes back to Google and clicks on our ad AGAIN, or we lose the prospect altogther. I don't much like this solution.

Of course, you could make sure the AdWords visitor can find his way back to the discount code page if it's part of the site's navigation. But then all site visitors could see the same page. No use there.

I would welcome any thoughts you gurus have on how to get a better idea of how many of our bookings are attributable to AdWords.

And please don't say Google Analytics. I've been waiting for an invitation since day 2. Who DO you have to sleep with at Google to get Analytics? :)

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Here's a variation on #3 for you.

1) Mark the page as noindex and noarchive so people won't get to it accidentally via the search engines.

2) When the user lands on the page then set a cookie, and on every relevant page (order, contact us, etc) have the cookie trigger a message saying something like "Don't forget, your special 5% extra discount code is ADWORDS-SUCKER" or whatever (!) in big red type. I believe that this can all be done in JavaScript on static pages.

3) Have the cookie expire after (say) 1 week.

How does that sound?

Rgds

Damon

[Kings on steeds]

Why not install a second phone line, and have it so if they come in via adwords it shows that number, something like

www.mysmallhotelhere.com/adwords

noindex the page and have it display 0800 theadowrdsnumber

then when that phone rings you will know if it has come from adowrds, no discounts, no codes, no relying on people to rember they came from adwords

[idolw]

the cheapest way is to make a copy of your website on a new domain and block all SEs from it with robots.txt file.
on that copy of your website give your phone number with an extension, such as: [phone] ext. 115
everytime someone calls you and ask for the extension you will know that they come from Adwords.

[eWhisper]

For a low tech approach, you can also frame your own site. Keep a small banner running across the top of the page that displays a unique 800 number or a unique code corresponding to that particular PPC (or adgroup, keyword, etc).

With the frame approach, you can set up one frame per item you want to track without making adjustments to your website.

[clickwit]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I think everyone recommended I block the page from the search engines, which I hadn't thought of. Excellent point.

I will need to look into the other ideas I've heard here.

As for adding a javascript cookie or adding frames to my site, I would need technical help or would need to learn. Any good reference sites you can recommend?

The "mirror" site is a good low-tech possibility, but would it get unwieldy to have >2 mirror sites if I want to try other advertising outlets (like Yahoo or its brethren)? I change my content frequently.