This is another common sense tip, but I've honestly worked for a couple of huge $100 million dollar corporations that didn't have a clue about ad tracking, they would just place millions of dollars in ads and look at the bottom line (overall sales).  They made great money but what if half of the ad campaigns were bombs?  They could be losing millions of dollars without even knowing it.  Actually we found out they were after we started tracking the ad campaigns.

 

Here are ways you can track ad campaigns:

 

1.) Coupon Code

A coupon code is placed in an advertisement or on a catalog/flyer.  When someone calls with this code or enters it into their shopping cart on your website, you track exactly what ad the code came from.  Instead of using a random number like 2425, make it descriptive like US2138.  This tells me the name of the ad, US weekly, and the date it ran, 2/13/08.     

 

2.) Pay Per Click Tracking Code

Both Google and Yahoo allow you to put a tracking code on your final checkout sales page that registers every time a sale is made.  From the Google or Yahoo website, you can view all sales amounts using which keywords, etc.

 

3.) Traffic Referral Tracking Program

This is a program that requires you to put a tracking code on all of your web pages and on your final checkout sales page.  Now when someone visits your website from another website or search engine and makes a purchase, this software tells you where they came from, what search term they used (if any), and how much money the customer spent.  This way, if you're advertising with a website, you can see the number of visitors and total sales in dollar amounts.  I used to use hitslink.com for this type of tracking.

 

4.) Unique Phone Number

The phone company assigns you several different phone numbers then you place these numbers in different ads.  When someone calls one of the numbers, you know the corresponding ad from which came.

 

5.) Unique Web Address

You can either buy different web domains or put front or back end extensions on your existing domain, then use like #4- Unique Phone Number, above.

 

6.) How Did You Hear About Us

The person answering the phone asks where they heard about your business, or this question is on the member sign-up page on your website.  The problem with this last method is this, almost all callers will say "a magazine," or "on a website."  If you're in multiple magazines or websites, you'll never know which one.  And many people say, "I don't know."  That won't help you at all.  The same happens when people sign-up online.  Many say they just don't know where they heard about you, so this is the least reliable way to track an ad.