Fun with tracking {using the new script}

Fun facts from tracking your contextual clicks

[loanuniverse]

- First thing I can tell you is that good ad copy that is targeted to the specific content of the page works. And works great. The only advertisers receiving multiple clicks are the ones that seem to be perfectly targeted by the bot. {on the other hand, the other ones could be as well targeted, but don't get shown as often}

- One of the advertisers is like an authority site in this particular field. I even have a couple of links out to this site peppered through pages because I think it would be useful to my users. The fact that this site is paying me for some of the clicks is very hehehehe nice.

- I have been too lazy to filter my own ads from my site. Imagine my surprise when I see my ad as an advertiser with a click "LOL"

More fun to come. :) Feel free to share your stories.

[robho]

Here's a few things I've noticed when running the javascript (and logging to a database) for a couple of days.

Firstly, just seeing which domains have clicks is worth it. The click rate varies dramatically depending on page layout and especially site subject. It's now possible to decide which sites are not worth running Adsense on (or at least see where major tweaks are needed to improve things).

I've noticed double clicks (and triple, etc) are extremely common (almost normal), so they are no doubt filtered at Adsense. The record so far is 7 clicks (same ad, same user) in about 10 seconds.

It's very interesting to see what subjects are actually clicked on. Some slightly off-topic ads that I was thinking of filtering out seem quite popular...

The javascript doesn't work for Mozilla/Netscape/Opera based browsers, so the results could be limited if you have a site popular with those users.

Finally, I've had a couple of clicks (or at least triggers of the javascript) from Googlebot (not Mediabot). No page title/url shown, just the User Agent and IP. Strange.

And nearly forgot to mention: it's also extremely interesting to see what ads are targetted to other areas. For example, I've had clicks on one that appears to targetted only to users in Singapore, wouldn't even know they were an advertiser otherwise.

Does anybody have a similar script to log all ads shown? (I'm not a javascript person).

[loanuniverse]

....And nearly forgot to mention: it's also extremely interesting to see what ads are targetted to other areas....

I know what you mean, I found a couple of UK based widget companies that are getting clicks throug my site. They seem to like a couple of pages in my site. Too bad they are not USA based with me having 85% US visitors :(

[Mario]

Those triple clicks are kinda scary. I hope they're not being triggered by the new script?

Somebody put me at ease. :-(

[loanuniverse]

Well I don't think there is much chance of that. The script is outside and not really in between your user and where he wants to go. Then again, there must be a bunch of versions of the script going around, and my knowledge of programming is limited.

Edit: One bad thing I just realized from the new script is that you no longer have the possibiliy of adsense being behind on the counting of clicks to make you feel better when you have a bad CTR day. Before you could say to yourself, "Nahhh, I am ok today there must be a bunch of clicks that have not been counted". Then you go check your stats at the tracking station and find out that adsense is behind by only a few.

Bummer :(

[figment88]

I believe there were a total of three free (not counting my inital test script) and one for-sale scripts presented in the forum.

Which one is everybody using?

[annej]

Those triple clicks are kinda scary. I hope they're not being triggered by the new script?
Somebody put me at ease. :-(

Probably an extremely impatient person on a slow dial-up. I know, I used to be one. :)

[Mario]

Thanks everyone. Not so worried now. Phew.

[Mario]

I turned it off on my site.

Looking at 20 clicks for one ip/ad was making me woozy. I just hope its the norm and Google filters it all.

[loanuniverse]

Ok here is the latest update.

The latest version that I am using allows you to see the referrer and see how many of those convert into clicks.

Amazingly, Google is the one that sends me the most traffic, but has the least conversions as a percentage.

Surprisingly the one that converts the best are:

Excite {don't laugh}
MSN
Altavista
AOL
Yahoo
and finally Google

If you ask me, we need Excite to become the #1 engine in the Web :)

[jonathanleger]

loanuniverse, have you noticed anything in regards to your search keywords that you did/didn't expect?

[jonathanleger]

One more thing. My thought about Google not converting as well is this: perhaps Google users are used to seeing the AdWords ads, and so are not drawn to the AdSense ads as much because they are aware that they are advertisements, whereas users of other search engines are less familiar with AdSense/AdWords.

What do you think?

[loanuniverse]

Regarding the keywords, that would take some time and I haven't really considered. A quick scan of the pages giving me the most clicks confirmed that they are indeed the ones showing the most targeted ads. Even if there is one ad in 4 that is on target when the others aren't. I can see that the one on target is the one getting the clicks. I might do a keyword analysis one of these days.

Regarding the conversion, I think it is not only because of the Google users being very familiar with adwords. I also think it is because some of the users for the other engines are a little less sophisticated. {No offense intended if MSN is still your default internet start page or if you are still using AOL ;)}

Some of the difference in percentage is significant {some of them bring me almost twice the % of clicks}

[ari11210]

It seems to me that all of these tracking scripts use onFocus to check for the click on the iFrame. Doesnt onfocus also get called when the user uses the tab key to the tab through the iframe? Can this be the reason for the multiple clicks people are seeing? This can register a 'hit' in the tracking script although the user never clicked on the iframe. Does this make sense to anyone else? Is there a better way to check for the click on the iframe (onClick, etc)?

Aaron

[loanuniverse]

I don't know about the technical part of the script, but Johnatan's numbers are usually very close to the ones reported by adsense {at the end of the day}. The difference as a percentage of total is single digits.

[jonathanleger]

Tabbing into the iframe wont trigger a click, at least not as long as the script is checking window.status for content (which most of them posted here are). Yes, the log() function gets called, but that function verifies that window.status has text (which it wont if you tabbed into it), and so no click is recorded.

[ari11210]

But when tabbing through the ads in the frame, the window.status does change, or is this not a problem since the onFocus was already called when tabbing to the frame itself, and doesnt get called again?

[jonathanleger]

The window.status changes, but it is not set by javascript, and so the window.status object is not changed. So as far as javascript is concerned, it did not change.

[ari11210]

Thanks for your help. What is the purpose of the window.focus() on the first line of the log() method?
It seems to blur the focus from the iframe and links inside it when tabbing through the page. Wouldnt this cause issues for people who use the keyboard to navigate through the site?
thanks again
aaron

[jonathanleger]

I didn't actually add that line in, but it seems that the purpose is to prevent tabbing into the iframe. It may not be necessary since the window.status line is verified also.