are you doing ROI tracking on Adwords?

hands up if you are :)

[Shak]

Been looking at 100s of sites lately which do adwords, and still amazed at the number that do NOT have any form of tracking in place.

Now I appreciate that in ceratin sectors such as affiliate programs, or front end brokers (travel, car hire etc) it can be very difficult, but what about all the other industries.

There simply is NOT an excuse to not do ROI tracking (imo)

be nice to hear some views on the matter.

Shak

[Crush]

Hi Shak

I am spending a few grand a month now and I have not done anything about it. Some campaigns are purely adwords with no seo, so basically I know where all the cash is coming from. Others not. Like you say " no excuse" ( hangs head in shame)

We are going to make some software this week.

[hannamyluv]

We have always done tracking. I was lucky in that the company I work for inadvertantly built tracking into their website design. They didn't know it until I started working for them but now we use it to track everything. It is VERY helpful. It has probably saved us thousands of dollars in finding ads that got high click through but didn't perform or in figuring out exactly how high we could go on the bids and still turn a profit.

I'd say, if you aren't doing it, you need to hop on it. You are losing money.

[tosspot17]

The majority of our sites sell via the phone, so tracking is difficult, however we do have some where we could be using tracking, but don't. :(

I really need to get my act together. I've just started to use webtrends - does anyone use tracking URLs with this?

[Shak]

The majority of our sites sell via the phone, so tracking is difficult, however we do have some where we could be using tracking, but don't. :(

Why NOT show different Telephone number based on referrer,

eg: 0800 123 1234 (google adwords)
0800 123 4567 (overture)

Ok it wouldnt be 100%, but you would work out whats working very quickly...

Shak

[running scared]

I think cost of many tracking solutions has been a major prohibitor for lots of small advertisers. However as more and more cheap packages become available, the excuses are dwindling. We are finally tracking most things but still got a long way to go before it is truely sweet.

[GumbyDave]

I think if more people tracked complaints would rise. Just curious, how do you know people are not tracking? It should be invisible.

Those in affiliate program should really use a third party script. It causes a slight delay, very slight if on a decent server. [foo.com?affiliate.program...] in the Google destination URL.

That why a reliable server is needed, if the server takes a break, your clicks are for nothing. I've used it since day one, no problems. Raises many more questions than there are (reliable) answers for though. *shrug*

Tracking actually helps increase your ROI. Knowing how people navigate, what they are doing and not doing is a tremendous help. If they are landing on your site, there really is no excuse, log files are free, a script to interpret them is free. For those not on the technical end of things, whovever is doing the work for you can access your logiles, make them readable, and it probably already exists...

If your in an affiliate program and not all that technical and try it, don't get taken for a ride price wise. 5 minutes and a server is all it takes.

(Drifting off a bit)

If your big into multiple affiliate programs ( or even one) and just sending them on to each individual site your doing it wrong. A wise investment would be having an arrangement where you control the content and what customers see. You'll end up sending people to retailer that have their own "arrangements" with third parties..

[anallawalla]

Why NOT show different Telephone number based on referrer,

Good suggestion. In Australia, Dell used to get an 1800 number for every single print ad. Don't know if they still do it.

Here are some of the columns in our ROI spreadsheet:

Ad-Gr. #
Ad Group
Ad Cost$
Clicks
Impressions
CTR
Avg.CPC
Avg.Pos
Visits
SignUps
Tot Paid
Sales$
Red Widgets
Blue Widgets
Green Widgets
Net Gain (Sales$ - Ad Cost$)
Gain %
VTR (Visits/Clicks)
STR (Signups/Clicks)
PUP (Ad Cost/Tot Paid)

Tracking is done through an Oracle db linked to the web stats and parsed from manually collected data.

- Ash

[Robert Scott]

Several months ago I subscribed to a conversion tracking service. It costs me about $50 per month based on the number of click-thru's I receive. It saves me more than $50 per day in wasted advertising so I wouldn't be without it. I use it to track all my PPC advertising and email newsletter responses.

I added a tracking code to my adword URL's that contains 3 variables. Also a snippet of code to each landing page and another snippet to the order page (ASP - but it supports other page types).

Results are available in real time which means I know what is happening before Adwords reports the same information. For those who aren't aware, there is a time delay with Adwords, possibly half an hour or sometimes longer.

It displays the results in a neat table type format, with clickable links to detailed information if I want to know more.

I can see the source of each click so I know which Adwords partners produce clicks or sales. It shows time/date etc for each action. I'm surprised how many people come back 3 days or a month later to order after initially clicking on the ad. Even ads I've stopped running are still bringing in sales - from bookmarks I suppose.

It's nice to know which keywords are profitable and what the best times of the day are for conversions. The results confirm conventional wisdom on PPC advertising, however it allows me to fine tune my advertising to a level that wasn't possible before saving me about 10 - 15%.

[Terrier]

I am preparing for an adwords campaign at the moment and in order to make tracking clickthroughs and conversions simple, I am considering building a new site specifically for this campaign.

Some of the keywords I am targeting are expensive and I really want to make it work and not waste hard earned cash.

That is a brilliant idea about a different telephone number for adwords; I find that serious buyers often call rather than email.

Another interesting phenomenon I have noticed while considering this campaign is just how intensely it has focused my mind on the site copy needed for making a sale with each keyword targeted.

[Furmanov]

yes, I do... manually :( takes lot's of time

can anyone suggest some roi-tracking software for ppc? We're going to develop our own script for ppc tracking, but if there is some software that works well... and if it's free :)... why not to use it? :)

[Shak]

a search on "roi tracking" or "ppc tracking" should do the trick.

failing that, pop over to the Tracking and Logging forum:
[webmasterworld.com...]

lots of quality stuff out there for around $20 a mth.

Shak

[edited by: Shak at 1:26 pm (utc) on July 14, 2003]

[elgumbo]

I only recently started tracking ROI but it's pretty basic. I just stuck Adwords as a new affiliate on my site.

I can compare click thrus with their figures and also track any sales.

The main problem is not knowing exactly which keyword is generating the sale. I'm currently looking at upgrading to a purpose built tracking program.

[edited by: Shak at 1:26 pm (utc) on July 14, 2003]