Adwords referral URL - tracking incoming keywords

tracking individual incoming keywords

[Opie1Canopie]

Hi All -

I'm sure this question has been posted before so I apologize, but I need help!

The site analysis software that we use doesn't seem to be able to track our PPC traffic down to the keyword usage. The company says they've tried to work with Google's URL structure (and Overture's) to parse out the keyword/phrase, but it's not working. We implement tracking codes on all of our URLs so that we can track down to conversion so we have excellent click-thru/behavior data, but we can't tie it with individual keywords yet.

Have others had this problem? Do you have any recommendations on how to fix? Does this ever work for the syndicated sites?

Thanks for your help,
Opie1Canopie (pseudo newbie)

[UpDown]

Have you considered using a different tracking code for every keyword? You can set this up using the 'powerposting' facilities in AdWords, allowing you to have a different URL, and bid if you wish, for every keyword.

UpDown

[roitracker]

The company says they've tried to work with Google's URL structure (and Overture's) to parse out the keyword/phrase, but it's not working

Very easy to do for Google - it's simply a case of parsing the Google referer string. For Overture, you'll have varying referer strings depending on the search partner (Yahoo, MSN, etc) - each needs to be treated separately.

Even if they can't parse it out (although I don't see why not), you should still be able to view the keyword phrases by looking at the referer log. Perhaps you need another solution?

[Opie1Canopie]

Tagging every keyword would make our process too cumbersome I think? We currently have over 200 keywords we manage in-house and it is about to double.

And because the system we use has been implemented company-wide in numerous divisions, there is no way to get something else in place. It is not a log based system because our sites are located across too many servers.

I just think there has to be a way for our vendor to look at the packet of information sent through the browser and sort out the keywords.

[webdiversity]

We have implemented this with tracking URL's per keyword, and as was suggested Powerposting would be the best way to create them.

From arriving at the keywords to having per keyword URL's might take all of 5 minutes for however many keywords you have, it really is not that complicated..... once you know what to do.