pixels? for tracking keywords

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Yeah, Crispin's got the basic core process down right. Just tracking your keywords by subid is wasting a ton of information. What you should do is assign each clickthrough a unique transaction id and then attach all other pertinent information to that transaction record. That way you can go back later and true up the revenue data with the exact transaction instead of just with a general keyword. But since you also save the keyword (and the network id, campaign id, adrgoup id and whatever else) you can tie everything back together and get a lot more data out. There's a lot more you can do, but that's the basics.

Generally speaking, people get too hung up on what networks do for them by default - "subids" and "google analytics" and the like which are imperfect and by definition outside of your control - because they either don't have the time to build the internal technology, don't understand the value of the internal technology or are too small to warrant building the internal technology to support their marketing efforts. These are all perfectly valid reasons for using a random cobbling together of disparate, aftermarket tools. But if you're going to have a ton of transactions and you need your own accounting systems or business intelligence systems then, instead of spending your days copying and pasting reports from five different networks into Excel and doing data sorts, you should begin by thinking not about what data you must gather, but the entirety of what data it is possible to gather and how to gather it (and believe me there's plenty of data that isn't available by default). That way, once you figure out later that there's another two data points, you can combine to figure out a useful metric (and you will) you'll already have the data in your database. Then you can begin cross-channel targeting and all kinds of other neat things.

If you plan to record things, then it's a minimal investment up front to record all kinds of stuff, you just have to figure out how to do it and what's available. And, no, no one thing (or five things) off the shelf can do all this for you, though if you just want to work between one common channel and another common channel, there are OS or off the shelf apps out there to help with that. As soon as you want to add a third channel, though, you're generally back to square one.
 


I'm kinda lost as to what you stated since I don't understand php, I just have basic html skills. I don't have a problem generating the sub-id's since I just put them in excel and I can just drag-down;, and it automatically increases the sub-id number and I just match them when I get traffic.

The problem is editing them in my PPC campaigns, I have to go through individually to each keyword, edit the default url and then replace it with the sub-id. It's so much of a hassle, I'm only doing that with keywords that I *think* might have converted. Example: I'm always monitoring my stats, so if I see that I just now got a sale, I'll go into my account and copy all the keywords that just got traffic and create sub-ids. Although this method isn't working, I keep getting new keywords that are converting.

I'm going to speak to my AM and see if I can add my google analytics code to their webpage. If not, would you be willing to sell your script? If it wouldn't be complicated for me to setup. I'm suprised there aren't easier methods to track keywords through affiliate networks or that the networks themselves don't have a better tracking method, considering how important this is not only for us, but for the merchants and affiliate networks as well. If we get more sales, they benefit just as well.

That software that was mentioned above sounds good, but at this time if I could just see which keyword converted that would be enough, and it's the same problem with that software that I'm having, they require you to put their code on the "thank you" page.



ubaidabcd,

well, I have each affiilate network link as a generic template and I populate it on the fly using php.

So I write the click into the mysql database, grab the id
from mysql then grab the URL template.

and str_replace() in the id into the template to add the subid. (I also replace in the product/offer id, etc as needed).

The ppc network can be set up to append the keyword or you can use the "raw" search term from the referer (or both). You store those in the db as well.

Then you can match the subid to the keyword.

It's not that tricky for a decent programmer. (took me ages!).

If you wanted to stick with one id per keyword you could (although you lose information).

1) get access from ppc engine - URL is something like yoursite.com/landingpage?kwd=keyword

2) look up in your database table of keyword. (if it's not there add it). Grab the id that corresponds to your keyword.

3) populate the links with the id as subid dynamically.
(I'm adding a level of cloaking here so my links look like they are to my site until you click them)

4) once they click and buy you have the id for the keyword and can match it to your db table.

Crispin
 
You can do some fairly neat things with the adwords editor and excel.

If you have a subid next to a keyword then you should be able to generate a column with the URL (including subid)
just joining/concating strings in excel.

You end up with: (roughly )

adgroup,keyword,bid, customURL,

and you can paste that into aweditor and away you go...
(check the format).

For other ppc sites its more of a pain. msn has excel upload capability.

I actually generate thousands of bids, etc at a specified ROI and paste them into aw editor. So for every keyword where I have enough data I can get the ROI I want.

Crispin
 
Ok, I sent my AM my Yahoo Pixel. It's been 48+ hrs., and my conversions aren't showing up in Yahoo's reports. I spoke to my AM he confirmed the pixel is installed on the "thank you" page, and I'm sure they do this all the time with other affiliates, I'm on azoogle.

I spoke to Yahoo they said that they've never had a problem with their pixels not working, it's as simple as a copy/paste. They want the source code to the "thank you" page, and I doubt azoogle will send that to me due to security reasons. I e-mailed them anyway, but it's the weekend.

Any suggestions?
 
don't use subids - you are giving your affiliate company info you should be keeping private

Since he is sending traffic direct to the merchant, I doubt it will matter since they will see what keyword is being used in their own analytic reports anyways.
 
So, nobody knows what the problem could be?
Without seeing or receiving details of your exact setup, no one is going to be able to help you much. Your AM is right. Pixel tracking basically (and this skips some of the script detail that's common) says to the web server receiving the request "Hey, I got requested on the conversion page, count me as a conversion for the account id contained in my shizzle." If you've got the pixel on the conversion page then it should be registering conversions, if there are any.
 
well, my am says everything is fine on their end and yahoo says everything is fine on their end. All I did was copy/paste the code, it's just a small code and I clicked on "activate", but my yahoo account isn't recording conversions. Yahoo wants the url of the "thank you" page or source code for further testing, I don't think my AM will give me that information, I asked him once and he ignored me, I asked again I'll see if he responds.

I really need to find out how track my keywords, I have no way to track them and I'm missing out on making money and wasting money on clicks that aren't converting. I can't use that sub-id method since I have about thousands of keywords in one of my campaigns. I'll need a script and I don't know how to code, unless somebody wants to sell me a script.
 
I'm planning on getting keyword radar, I just don't have any extra money. I'm trying to get another job, I have many important purchases I need to make. In the mean time I could be improving my campaigns and testing new campaigns, it's supposed to be really simple it's just a code you copy/paste, don't understand the problem.
 
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