I'm really having a hard time grasping how conversion tracking works. I'm in my Google Adwords account right now and I click on a campaign that I have running. I then click Conversion Tracking on the top and it takes me through a wizard to generate a piece of code. So with that code, I put it on the merchants' thank you page right? Also, how do I check which keywords are converting? Do I have to create separate adgroups for each keyword and make the destination the tracking url? (i.e. affiliatelink.co m/trackingid#1) ? Please help me clarify this. Thanks!
Yes, place that conversion code on the "thank you" page. You're done. No, you don't have to make separate ad groups for each keyword. Google will keep track of which keywords are converting.
Okay, sounds easy enough. Will this work on the content network though? I'm planning on running several CPA offers through the content network and if they convert, I would create a landing page and everything and run it on the search network. Also, I would imagine the content network is a bit more tricky to know which keywords convert right? So how does Google measure which keywords resulted in a conversion? Thanks!
As far as I know, their reports won't show which keyword lead to the conversion on the content network. However, it will show which site or URL sent the conversion. Through search, it's easy for them to figure out which keywords led to the click because you've specified when you want your keywords to show. However through the content network, because it involves a content matching algorithm based on the publisher's page, it'll be harder to poinpoint which keyword(s) triggered the ad.