How do you track Goto clicks to sales?

Is there any way to...

[phillypleez]

I advertise key words on Goto and I heard there is a way to track which words lead to sales. This would be incredibly helpful to see which words are working and how to price them. I have no idea how to do this and how much it would cost. Any input will be much appreciated.

Note: I use "Miva Merchant" shopping cart

[simon_c]

I use a system which creates specific urls generated by our bid management systems for each bid change. Each url points to the appropriate page on the clients site for that keyword, but is coded with keyword and click price data so we can identify the info no matter which partner or PPC affiliate the click comes from.

We then record the details onto a cookie which we read back when the visitor reaches an action page on site, eg a thanks for buying or signup page.

Add in the sales value and do a little juggling with the numbers and you get a cost per sale for individual keywords across different engines. This gives us accurate figures for maximum bid values, which are the keywords with the best returns and comparative figures for different PPC engines.

[phillypleez]

Yeah, someone was telling me about a method like the one you described. Currently I don't have tracking software that can track where actual sales are coming from. Can you refer me to any third party company or software?

[simon_c]

I had the same problem and wasn't able to find anything commercially which did what I wanted, so we wrote our own. 'Fraid we're still putting the finishing touches to it though, pretty graphs and stuff.

[phillypleez]

Did you have to dramatically alter your e commerce software or did you walk around it?

[simon_c]

No, we don't bid ourselves, but manage bids for clients who use all sorts of systems.

[mattb]

If you are using Miva Merchant you might want to look into the e-urchin logs. You can use these to track referers and revenue per search engine, etc. It's $199, and your host has to have the ability to turn the logs on. Our doesn't and that is one reason we are switching to another host.

Hope this helps.

[phillypleez]

do you know if this is a one time fee or monthly? So with this software i will know where the sales are coming from? My main concern is the goto sales...so i will know how high to bid on certain keywords.

Anyways Thanks for your input, I will look further into your referral