As a business concern, have you spent sleepless nights wondering how well are your Internet advertising campaigns are performing ? Not uncommon, we say… In the past, many sites did not offer suitable methods of tracking clicks, views, and conversions leaving you in dark on the effectiveness of your campaigns.
The good news is, this is changing.. Most of the sites these days have employed tracking programs which offer you the ability to view how many impressions your ad has received, as well as how many clicks your ad has earned.
A few handy tips on this would be…
The legitimacy of the conversion ratio reports you get from your advertising company can be checked through a simple tracking method. By using redirects or a link program, you can assign specific links to the different sites where your ads are appearing and each time a customer clicks on your ad, you will be able to see the info in your Web site’s log files or through reports generated by a link program.
Asking your customers how they found your website can be a low-tech option to track effectiveness, by placing a simple referral box in your site’s shopping cart before customers finish placing their order.
The referral box can be pretty helpful if you have to find out which sites are providing you with the best impression to click ratio or the best click to buy ratio as well.
If the ratio of impressions to clicks is low, it’s a clear indication that your ad is not able to connect to your target audience. Time to redesign your campaigns !
Always test waters by starting small in the beginning.. This way, you will have feelers about your new campaign’s effectiveness even before its launched.
Tracking which of your ads convert browsers to buyers will tell you which approaches work best. This way, you can fine tune your advertising spend on the campaign through tested data .
Advertising on the major search engines gives you access to relatively sophisticated tracking systems. Something as simple as a tracking code on the URL submitted to each unique campaign can provide gross level information by looking at your the traffic data in your ISP log files.
For more sophisticated solutions, you might want to try traffic monitoring (aka “Web analytics”) tools like Clicktracks or OneStat. Tools like this will give you more data than you will initially know what to with; however, as your business grows, so will your need for information.
A successful online advertising campaign will come with pro activeness of the advertiser and his grip on the facts and figures. Have them correct and you will be able to exploit your advertising budgets to the fullest and get the best out of it. Good Luck !
