Testing and Tracking Your Online Marketing Efforts

Written by Marty Foley


Most advertisers and marketers, because they don't test and trackrepparttar response of various marketing activities, are flying blindly, with little or no idea of what’s working - and what isn’t.

Proper testing and tracking can give yourepparttar 133624 most accurate and reliable answers to virtually any marketing question that arises. You can then make important marketing decisions based on facts, instead of theory or guesswork.

Online Testing Strategies

In a nutshell, online testing involves keying each different test variable with a unique identifying code (so each desired response can be tracked to its source), runningrepparttar 133625 test campaign, keeping records, and tabulating and comparingrepparttar 133626 results. The winning variable then becomesrepparttar 133627 control, or bench mark, which future ones are measured against. Let’s look at testing in more detail...

Scientific testing involvesrepparttar 133628 following steps:

1) Determining which element(s) of an ad or marketing communication that you want to test. (Tip: It's usually best to test only one variable at a time.)

2) Creatingrepparttar 133629 test ad(s).

3) Keying each ad with a unique tracking code.

4) Keeping good, accurate test records.

5) Runningrepparttar 133630 test campaign.

6) Tracking and comparing results to determine which test variable isrepparttar 133631 winner.

7) Repeatingrepparttar 133632 cycle, constantly attempting to beat your existing control.

Keying ads and tracking responses online can be done in a variety of ways. For accuracy, be sure to use a unique tracking code for each different test variable and keep accurate records. The tracking method used will vary based on your circumstances andrepparttar 133633 type of response you want.

Tracking Web Page Hits

If you have access to your log files or another way to trackrepparttar 133634 number of hits to your site, you can track hits to your web pages by placing a ? afterrepparttar 133635 URL used in each ad, followed by a unique tracking code. For instance:

Ad #1 could be keyed with this tracking code: http://ProfitInfo.com/catalog/v3.htm?1A

Ad #2 could be keyed with this tracking code: http://ProfitInfo.com/catalog/v3.htm?1B

Links withrepparttar 133636 1A and 1B tracking codes inrepparttar 133637 URL don’t adversely affectrepparttar 133638 ability of visitors to access web pages in any way, but will show up inrepparttar 133639 server log files.

To determinerepparttar 133640 exact number of hits that a particular ad generated, look at your log files within several days after running it. (Check with your ISP or web host for access to your log files.)

Making Tracks

Written by Richard Bolduc


Checking your search engine placement progress can be a tedious job, and quite time consuming.

Most articles and information onrepparttar subject will lead you to use a service like position agent at bcentral, or another tool that will take a keyword from you and let you know how your site is doing inrepparttar 133623 top engines under that keyword or keyword phrase. In most cases they only bring back results forrepparttar 133624 top forty pages ofrepparttar 133625 top 7 engines.

This is a common practice by many and often times it leads to search engine frustration and lack of tracking. Many people fail to find their sites in worthy positioning and constantly rework and resubmit. This is very self defeating and can get you thrown out as a spammer.

People give up and move on to other ways of promoting their sites and leave repparttar 133626 hope of Front Page placement behind. Front Page search engine placement to them seems like a waste of time and is often compared to winningrepparttar 133627 lottery.

I track a little differently. It is much more revealing than any ofrepparttar 133628 usually prescribed methods. It is my goal to help you seerepparttar 133629 difference, between where you "can be found" and where you are "being found".

Trying to find out where you *can be* found isrepparttar 133630 needle inthe haystack approach I outlined above. This involves hours of guessing at what you think repparttar 133631 possible keyword combinations are that you may be found under and submitting torepparttar 133632 position agents and waiting for a good results. The more indexes you buildrepparttar 133633 more time you can lose with these methods.

There's even more effort you have to put into inputting keywords to checkrepparttar 133634 progress of your possible placement. If no results yielded yet, then plan on several sessions trying to track down where you can be found. They just don't index themrepparttar 133635 as fast as they used to. This is a major pain and you can miss so many keyword phrases that it is an empty approach to finding out anything about your efforts.

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