Tracking adwords converions when there are other sources of sales.

Semi-newbie question.

[Perfection]

So I have a site. On this site I occasionally buy a product, use it for a certain amount of time, then write up a pretty extensive review of it. Like anyone else, I then link to a place to buy this product and include my affiliate id in the link.

Now, I've been playing around with adwords for the first time ever recently, and I think these types of extensive reviews would perform well.

But, there's a problem that I can't figure out how to get past. See, currently people are getting to these review pages through other methods besides adwords. From other parts of the site, search engines, links, etc..

So, when I check my affiliate account and see a sale was made, I have no way of telling if that sale came via adwords or some other means. So when I spend money on adwords, I'm sorta doing it blindly because I can't tell if the adwords traffic is converting or if it's the other traffic to this page that's converting.

So I guess my question here is, what can I do?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[boomtown123]

Have you added the Adwords conversion code yet? You should check out the reports section. It will break everything down for you: clicks, conversions, etc. The conversion code and the reports you can generate should give you pretty accurate information about what keyword/click led to a conversion and how much each conversion cost you.

Google Analytics also has ways to track "goals". You can set up funnels and track step by step how the user got to your "conversion" webpage. (For example the "Thank You for your order" webpage on your website would be a good conversion webpage.)

I'm pretty new to this stuff too, so maybe someone else would be able to offer more advice.

[Perfection]

Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure if what you mentioned solves my specific issue of being unable to tell if a conversation was made through traffic that came via adwords, or traffic that came via some other source (search engines, other parts of my site, etc.).

[boomtown123]

My bad. I just re-read your post and saw that your not actually selling the product on your site. You're pushing the traffic to an affiliate.