Adwords Remote Conversion Tracking
Do you use Adwords to make money online from CPA based affiliate networks like like Commission Junction or ClickBank, AffiliateFuel etc.? If yes, then you need remote conversion tracking (a new term I just thought) to optimize your campaigns. So what is this remove conversion tracking? Read on…
Do you optimize your campaigns? How do you do that? Do you keep high CTR keywords and delete low CTR keywords? If you are doing this you may be doing one of the biggest mistakes in the PPC world. Remember that high CTR does not mean more money to you, it just means more money to Google. There is a very high probability that high CTR keyword is one of the biggest money drainer for your campaign. How do you find it out and correct it? For that you need to do remote conversion tracking of campaigns.
What is Remote Conversion Tracking
In simple example, it will tell you what keywords from your Adwords campaign made that sale in your Commission Junction account. Not just Commission Junction, but it can be used with any of the CPA or sale based affiliate programs.
If you are running an in-house affiliate program or selling something in-house, it is easier to track the conversion. But how to do that for advertising networks like Commission Junction, ClickBank and AffiliateFuel? This is where this remove conversion tracking is required.
In simple terms this is what you need to do if you have a landing page. I will just explain each of them in detail.
- Pass the keyword for which the person clicked on your ad, to your page through a query string variable in your Adwords’ URL.
- Get that variable on the page and append it into the SID or TID of advertising network’s referral link.
- Check your account on advertising network to see the keywords which actually converted.
- Now optimize your campaign based on these results, and not just CTR results
So, this is actually the process of passing the query the user made at Google search engine, to the page, and from there to the advertising network.
This is how it is to be done. Let say, in your Adwords campaign your destination URL is set to:
http://www.yoursite.com/landingpage.php
And, this is the page where you are selling some product from Commission Junction. You need to use a feature of Adwords called “dynamic keyword insertion” to change your destination URL to:
http://www.yoursite.com/landingpage.php?q={keyword}
Lets say the search engine user searches for “hot widgets” in the search engine and click on your page, the url with become
http://www.yoursite.com/landingpage.php?q=hot%20widgets
Now the next task is to put this keyword into your affiliate link ( Here lets say Commission Junction link ). You can use following php script to do so.
<?php
$keyword = $_GET[’q'];
if(!strcmp($keyword, “”))
{
echo ‘<a href=”http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2412142-10482525?sid=Default”>Anchor</a>’;
} else {
echo ‘<a href=”http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2412142-10482525?sid=’ . $keyword . ‘>Anchor</a>’;
}
?>
In Commission Junction, you can use “sid” in the url to track it. Similaryly in ClickBank you can use “tid” to track it.
<?php
$keyword = $_GET[’q'];
if(!strcmp($keyword, “”))
{
echo ‘<a href=”http://jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/tid=Default”>ClickBank</a>’;
} else {
echo ‘<a href=”http://jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=’ . $keyword . ‘>ClickBank</a>’;
}
?>
Are you using wordpress and worried about how to put that php code in the post or the page? No problem. There is a solution to it as well. You can use a wordpress plugin called phpexec. After installing the plugin just embed the above code into into <phpcode> and </phpcode>. For Example:
<phpcode>
<?php
$keyword = $_GET[’q'];
if(!strcmp($keyword, “”))
{
echo ‘<a href=”http://jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/tid=Default”>ClickBank</a>’;
} else {
echo ‘<a href=”http://jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=’ . $keyword . ‘>ClickBank</a>’;
}
?>
</phpcode>
Now you can just see which keywords in your Adwords campaigns are doing wonders for you and which are not. So optimize your campaigns based on these results and make some more money online.
Welcome back!
Jim Karter on December 13th 2007 in Advertising Networks, General, Internet Marketing, PPC
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11 Responses to “Adwords Remote Conversion Tracking”
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Ricardo responded on 13 Dec 2007 at 2:11 pm #
Hi Jim,
this is exactly what I needed - but… I have sometimes over 50 kw’s per campaign and I dont want to generate subids for each one of it. Isnt there any open source software out there that offers the same things that adwords does?
My problem is I’m using msn, adsense and yahoo.. and I can only include 1 tracking code in my landingpages at neverblueads…
Brent responded on 13 Dec 2007 at 2:30 pm #
I find also to be a good idea to use an ID in your SID, etc rather than sending the plain text keyword to the affiliate network. Just keep a table with two columns, ID and Keyword and use the ID. That way only you know what keywords are working for you and no one else. Who knows who/how many eyeballs get to see your best converting keywords otherwise.
Vinay responded on 13 Dec 2007 at 5:31 pm #
Jim! I ain’t in Internet or Affiliate Marketing but this guide is definitely worth a lot for people who are into this!
3 Cheers for sharing this guide
Cheers!
jimkarter responded on 13 Dec 2007 at 9:57 pm #
Ricardo, if you are using various networks you can just append the a small network id like part with the keyword to know where it is coming from:
Ex:
yoursite.com/landingpage.php?q=ADW-{keyword}
yoursite.com/landingpage.php?q=MSN-{keyword}
yoursite.com/landingpage.php?q=YSM-{keyword}
This will convert in SIDs as:
jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=ADW-$keyword
jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=MSN-$keyword
jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=YSM-$keyword
This way, it will serve the purpose as well as you will also know where it is coming from.
Amit Bhawani responded on 16 Dec 2007 at 10:59 pm #
I thought this would be a ready made 3rd party tool.
jimkarter responded on 16 Dec 2007 at 11:56 pm #
I actually searched for some 3rd party tool which can do that. But didn’t find any. Do lemme know if you find one.
jeevan responded on 10 Jan 2008 at 2:43 pm #
I read the same article here..hope he got prmission from u before CnP.
http://zoulstips.com/adwords-remote-conversion-tracking/
jimkarter responded on 11 Jan 2008 at 6:10 am #
No, he didn’t get the perms but it is ok as he/she is atleast linking to this post of mine.
Pradeep responded on 12 Jan 2008 at 12:52 pm #
Do i need to add this section
ClickBank’;
} else {
echo ‘ClickBank’;
}
?>
to every place i put my aff link or its enough if i just insert it once n use other affliate links like this http://jimkarter.reseller.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=
Aditya responded on 14 Jan 2008 at 6:27 pm #
Any idea of how to do this with neverblue ads ?
Shariq responded on 04 Feb 2008 at 9:24 am #
You can do the same with XCONVERSIONS. Good thing is it’ll replace the kw with a random id so the affiliate network or clickbank won’t find out your best converting kws.
Then you just generate a report at clickbank (very easy).. and upload it at xconversions. And it’ll match all the ids with the respective kws and you’ll see all your best converting kws at a glance.
I use it daily. Pretty handy and easy to use.