Using 3rd Party Tracking Software with Adwords

Trying to track data about Adwords using a 3rd party program

[gav240z]

Hi everyone,

I am having a hard time finding data about how to track Google Adwords using 3rd party software.

We would like to track data about our Adwords campaigns, such as:
- Cost Per Click
- Which Creative was clicked (A/B)
- Campaign where click came from
- Adsense or Adwords ( In terms of Adsense, where the click came from
ie: what website?).

The best information on this I have been able to find is if you Google:
Adwords-dynamic-parameters-in-links from ewhisper.

but I am looking for some official documentation from Google and perhaps even some tutorials?

Thanks.
Gavin.

[tomasvdb]

you won't be able to track CPC using third-party software. in fact, Adwords itself doesn't show you that information on a per click basis, as they average it out.

for the other variables you mentioned, you can track all those if you use Google's dynamic parameters in your adwords destination URLs.

Depending on the scale of your needs, you could just run a simple analyzer on your weblogs to give you that information. Cause Google can send you what you need, you just need a way to present it in useable format as far as i see.

[gav240z]

I was under the impression you could track the cost information at a keyword level.

Alternatively I guess I can do this at an adgroup level and make it a static value, but I was hoping to use a dynamic method to save headaches when bid values change.

Here is what I have so far:

http://www.example.com/index.aspx?ns_campaign=campaign_name&ns_mchannel=ppc&ns_source=Google&ns_linkname={keyword}&ns_fee=0.05

From this the only data that is dynamically passed is {keyword}

We are not using the content network at this stage so we don't need to track that.

Where can I find more info about what can be passed out in destination url's from Google?

[tomasvdb]

i never found any official documentation on this topic, but this forum gives a fairly good explanation:

[groups.google.com...]

[eWhisper]

You're probably looking for valuetrack. Here's a couple of threads on it:
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[gav240z]

Hi Brad,
Thanks for that. I am wondering if I change my destination URL's to include the additional tagging information, will this reset the quality score?

Or is Google smart enough to realise that these parameters are only parameters and not different pages?

If I had to guess, I'd say it will affect the quality score.

Cheers,

[KVeil]

What I have tried in AdWords is to set up unique URLs for each keyword and also for each ad as follows:

www.example.com/LandingPage.htm#AW-<my_Keyword_ID>-<My_Ad_ID>

Strangely, I never saw impressions of these URLs in my server logs, which track every visitor. However, after setting up the ads with these unique URLs, I saw one impression of each URL originating from Google offices in Mountain View or New York (I presume this is part of the ad validation process). I also see impressions as expected in my server logs if I click on my own ads!

I also tried:

www.example.com/LandingPage.htm?AW-<my_Keyword_ID>-<My_Ad_ID>

eg. the query format. Same result: no identifiable impressions logged.

Finally, I set up a special landing page for one of my ad-groups. This works! I don't get impressions in the above format, but get impressions such as:

www.example.com/SpecialLandingPage.htm?gclid=<some_unique_character_sequence>

So, as an AdWords newbie, I have at least been able to track that my money is indeed getting impressions from the ad group :)

Has anybody else tried anything similar?

KV

[eWhisper]

If you change the ad copy in anyway, unfortunately Google treats it like a new ad.

It would be nice if they would recognize nothing changed in the ad except some tracking parameters and keep the old ad as is. I've been asking for that change for years.

[KVeil]

All,

In another WebmasterWorld thread I found this link that seems to answer all or most of the above questions:

[ewhisper.net...]

So I built a custom URL that I have put into all my keywords:

www.example.com.au/LandingPage.htm?AW:WidgetCampaign&KW={keyword}&Nw={ifContent:C}{ifSearch:S}&Ad={creative}

My server logs show each impression (= ad click-through) like this:

www.example.com.au/LandingPage.htm?AW:WidgetCampaign&KW=blue%30widget&Nw=S&Ad=12345678&gclid=Chy6ggt6ewhhhsds99dd

Works wonderfully! Tracks every paid click! :)

KV