What is Ad Tracking Really? Part 3
In What is Ad Tracking Really? Part 2 we went over the basics of ad tracking with PPC using Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) with Big G Adwords as the example. If you haven’t read the first two parts, What is Ad Tracking Really? and What is Ad Tracking Really? Part 2, you should do so now… This article builds upon the basics that we went over in the first two.
Were going dive a little deeper into how Prosper202 works to track your affiliate offers.
Let’s go over the basics real quick…
There are 7 steps to setting up your ad tracking in Prosper202. We’ll cover each one real quick and then get into how Prosper202 works it’s magic.
In step #1 you simply add your PPC / PPV / CPV / FaceBook (you get the idea) networks into the system. You’ll want to make sure you add an account username to each network.
Even if you don’t really use separate accounts, just enter your first name or something, it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. This is so you get the little network icon like Big G, Yahoo, or MSN for example in your spy view and when your analyze your data. It’s nice to know at a glance where your visitors are coming from and which PPC networks are actually working for you.
What’s cool is Masterless Samurai has come up with a way you can add all the icons you want.
You can checkout his Prosper202 favicon pack, (opens in a new window).
In step #2 simply add all the affiliate networks your working with.
You do it now because when you build out the rest of your campaigns you need this for each ad tracking link you create. It makes creating tracking links later much easier. You also need it for most of the other steps too.
Step #3 is one of the more difficult for many to understand because you need to deal with the subids. It’s not all that difficult, but can be hard to grasp if you don’t understand how Prosper202 works on the backend.
For the campaign you just need to enter something that makes sense to you… You do this for later when your analyzing your data. When you have a bunch of campaigns, naming them so you know what’s what is very helpful.
The most important thing to remember is that each affiliate network has a different way of doing subid tracking. Rather than try to explain that here, check out Subids202 (opens in a new window) for a pretty thorough explanation of how subids work.
My favorite part of ad tracking with Prosper202 is how it handles the subids on the server side backend instead of in the tracking links like most solutions. While it is a little difficult to get a handle on at first, once you understand how it works and become proficient at it, you’ll appreciate the capability.
Everything else is pretty self explanatory.
Step #4 is optional, you don’t have to use landing pages, but once you get better at marketing, it is in your best interest to build out websites and create some real assets for later. When you have a website that makes money, you have an asset that you can sell or just enjoy the income.
The landing page nickname is just for you when you’re analyzing your data, don’t make it difficult, just something you’ll recognize at a glance when you analyze your data.
Make sure you use the full URL for your landing page. example: http://yourdomain.com/yourlandingpage.php
Step #5 Text Ads
This is an optional step as well. The upside is you can track which ads are actually working for you…
The downside is that you’ll need a link for each ad you track which becomes a management nightmare. Also you’ll need to create or copy and paste each of your ads for proper ad tracking. It takes a lot of time to get this setup, especially for larger campaigns.
It’s definitely a good thing to track each ad and which ones are working best, but you’ll need to decide if it’s worth the time to you or if you can find an easier and faster way to track each ad.
Most just skip this step.
Step#6 Landing Page code…
Another of the more difficult and misunderstood steps. The directions on this page are pretty good, if your read and follow them, you should be good to go.
You can always ask either ad tracking questions (opens in new window) or Prosper202 Questions (opens in new window) if you need more specific help.
Step #7 Get Links, this is where you create your ad tracking links.
This is where everything you’ve done so far pays off.
All the data you have entered is now used to create your tracking links.
Again if you follow the directions on this page, they’re actually pretty good, you should be good to go.
This is all that’s necessary to get started. You can optionally automate your tracking with step #8. We’ll go over the automation in a separate article.
Now those are the basics of setting up Prosper202…
Let’s go into the backend server side magic a little bit.
Step #3 and Step #5 are where most of the magic comes from. The way this system works is you put your affiliate link in step #3 with the subid= as the last part of your link. We’ll use Clickbank as an example: http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=
‘?tid=’ is how you add the subid to a Clickbank URL. Now where the magic happens is Prosper202 will automagically add a number as your subid to your affiliate link… that number will increment with every click, so you’ll be able to track every visitor you get to your affiliate offer.
I love how the server does this for us… It’s much different then most tracking solutions available today. It really simplifies tracking our affiliate offers. When you can automate your ad tracking it’s a good thing, even if it takes a little getting used to how it works.
Now to the second part of the magic of Prosper202…
Step #5 the landing page code.
It’s pretty simple to setup with copy and paste code provided. Putting the Java Script on your landing page really automates some the of the backend processes.
I love this, it offers redirect code to keep your links very clean looking instead of using an ugly affiliate URL. The super cool part is when you use either the ugly link they provide or the PHP redirect code, you’ll get Landing Page CTR as well.
Now this is a killer feature, not only can you get clean pretty links that visitors will click on, but you know how many visitors actually click through too.
This is ad tracking at it’s finest. It’s pretty hard to find a perfect all in one solution when your looking for ad tracking software.
But these are some killer features for a FREE software, at the very least it’s a great place to learn about ad tracking and get started.
While Prosper202 is not the simplest to understand, once you dive in and get your feet wet, it’s not all that difficult to get started.
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Tagged with: Ad Tracking • Affiliate Marketing • Prosper202
Filed under: Ad Tracking
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Hello, great site, where did you come up with the info? Im happy I found it though, I will be checking back soon to see what other articles you have.
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!