First track your ads.
This is an easy way to find out which ads are working and which aren’t. By placing a tracking code at the end of your destination URL, you will know the location of the ad and which ad to track for each ad, whether paid or free. Banners, pay per click ads, solo and even free classified ads.
What are tracking codes?
It’s a code that you place at the end of your ad’s destination URL that identifies that particular ad and where it was placed.
How do you use them?
If, for example, you placed an ad or banner on yahoo on Home Business. The tracking code could be /?t=yahoohb. The code is added after .com or .net. You can be as specific as you need with the code. To keep track of all your code, you can keep track of it in places like Excel or Google Docs. You can also track the number of clicks on each ad, leads generated, and sales. This will help you calculate your conversion rates.
How do they help?
Tracking codes give you valuable information. They tell you where your leads are coming from. If you advertise on many different ad networks or blogs with no tracking, you have no idea which ad is generating leads. You certainly need to know which ads to extend and which to stop.
What will I learn from them?
You will know which campaigns are the most successful. The best return on investment (ROI). You will also be able to identify any problems in your funnel. For example, your ad or banner gets a lot of clicks but no leads. The problem is most likely with your landing page. It can be as simple as a mismatch between your ad message and landing page.
What else can you track?
conversion measures. Depending on what you are interested in, the number of clicks for leads or leads for sales.
Second test of your ad copy
You want to test your ad or banner copy. This is when split testing becomes important. You place two ads at the same time that are nearly identical except for one word in the ad text. It could be just changing one word in your title. Run them at the same time and see which outperforms the other. Test your ad text until you get the desired conversion rate that you’re happy with. You can use Google’s website optimization tool, which is free for split testing.
Tracking lets you see a problem with your ad or landing page, and split testing gives you the solution to the problem.
Some tracking tools you can use are:
- eggcrazy
- ClickTale
Tracking and testing is an important component in any form of advertising you do. As a business owner, you need to know what works and what doesn’t in your advertising. You need to know your conversion rate and your return on investment.