When promoting an affiliate product through adwords how do you track individual ads if you can't place the tracking code on the product's "thank you" page?
Sometimes you can get the Adwords pixel placed on the thank you page even if its not your thank you page. You can append your own subid but unless you mask what it is then you are passing that info onto anyone that has access to your ads (think spy tracking software) and subid report (this could be a CPA network, Clickbank etc). The other option is using a 3rd party script which masks the keyword by generating a tracking code. There are a few to choose from: Affiliate Radar - you upload all campaigns into Affiliate Radar and then download them back into your adwords account with tracking numbers. This works with most sites/programs that allow subid tracking. You then download the subid results for any conversions, upload it to Affiliate Radar and then it will tell you which keywords are responsible for your conversions. The downside is that it doesn't line that up against your cost data so you have to manually reconcile the two and that its hosted on their servers not yours. Xtreme Conversions - this is software that you install on your own site. I haven't used this extensively but have heard some good reviews. You can track more effectively on the content network with this tool as it tells you which site your ads are appearing on. It also gives you the exact search terms used - these keywords can be gold. The downside again is that it doesn't reconcile costs and conversions. PPC-Coach - this is a membership site for all things PPC and Coach is about to launch his own tracking software for members. I've had a sneak peak and have to say its VERY impressive. You host it on your own servers, it reconciles costs and conversions, you can get a breakdown by ad, keyword, adgroup, campaign etc and you can run split tests through it. The beta is supposed to be up in the next few days. Jill
Hey Jill, You forgot hlola, You can google it and check it also, That's a solution for the excat problem you raise here. Good Luck!