AD Tracking The Overlooked
Key To Your Success
2008-02-09 12:39:55
Though often misunderstood, ad tracking is at its core a
process for simply counting how many people respond to a particular
advertisement. Typically this tracking is usually done by
tracking the number of clicks or visitor actions.
Using ad tracking (also known as analytics) on your own site
can be done using via Active Server Pages (ASP), Common Gateway
Interface (CGI) or Personal Home Page (PHP) script - or can
be done through a third party ad tracking service provider,
also known as remotely hosted servers or through a combination
of these. Software of this type ranges from free – as
in the case of Google Analytics (at the time of this publication)
to twenty five thousand dollars a month for the very high
end tracking solutions.
Ad tracking platforms & software vary but all monitor
the traffic coming onto your site and the results or goals
achieved from this traffic, and can mean the difference between
making little to no money on your site, and making a killing.
Ad analytics tracking software relate traffic directly to
marketing activities and then translate those activities into
measured results, giving you the ability to calculate a return
on your advertising dollars spent. Ad tracking also monitors
the clicks that you receive for all your advertizing campaigns,
such as e-mail marketing, banner ads, affiliate programs,
classified advertising, bulletin board, e-zine advertising,
forum, links on other websites, pay-per-click ads, among others.
Some tracking software also offers integration into legacy
systems, sales management, customer profiling, and scheduling.
With most service providers and software.
It is possible to set up an unlimited number of tracking
links or URLs in advertisements, such as on a web page, in
an email, a pay per click ad, etc. Ad tracking helps save
time and maximize results from your marketing expenditure
by giving you access to the following information:
• Number of visits generated by each of your ads
• Number of unique visits generated by all of your ads
• Which ads generate the most visits and the most sales
• Number of sales (or other actions) generated by each
ad
• Cost-per-click, cost-per-sale and click-to-sale ratios
for each ad
• Return on investment for each ad, so as to know which
are profitable
• Organization of the important details about your ad
campaigns Overall, ad tracking is an invaluable tool in understanding
the response to any promotions you run in your messages or
in your website.
But the real hidden advantage of ad tracking is targeted
conversion improvement. Lot's of businesses just don't get
this but if they did, their profits would skyrocket! For example
let's say that your testing indicates that you are running
three news letter ads, in three different newsletters.
If you are tracking your sales, and where they came from
you would have no way of knowing which of these newsletters
pulled better for you and so you'd just keep paying to run
your add in all three.
However, if you track the sales, you might find that newsletter
#1 generated ten sales, newsletter # 2 zero sales, and newsletter
# 3, one sale.
Now if you made a profit of $50 per sale and each newsletter
ad cost $50.00, you're your ad newsletter #1 made you $500,
your ad in newsletter #2 COST you money, and newsletter #3
you broke even on. With this information you can quickly see
where your ad is working and where it's not.
Using the example above you would be better served by taking
the money you spent on newsletter # 2 and advertising elsewhere.
Ad tracking gives you the power to know where your advertising
is working, where you are making money and where it's being
wasted.
This allows you to focus your advertising budget on only
the ad sources that are profitable. Here are some of the better
tracking solutions on the market. The depth of features offered
varies by price, but all will allow you to track your ads
and make more money.
http://analytics.google.com
http://www.clicktracks.com
http://www.onestat.com/
http://www.1automationwiz.com/split-testing-software.htm
http://www.webtrends.com
The bottom line is that if you are not testing and more importantly,
tracking your advertising results, you could be leaving money
on the table. Worse yet, you could be losing money. The take
away here is do not even consider spending a dime on advertising
until you have a tracking mechanism in place.
Are you noticing huge
crises in your traffic sales less searches in advertising
and search results
2009-04-15 20:39:02
The whole world is currently affected due to the crises and
recession in each and every field. I have been noticing a
fall down everywhere in my client's search engine's traffic.
This recession has specially affected US and UK customers
who are feeling this heat. They are avoiding unnecessary expenditures,
fun times, tourism, spending money, keeping money in banks.
Similarly, peoples are avoiding searching or shopping now
a days.
This is only a prediction but when I researched on it, I
found some interesting facts which I am sharing here: Rimm-Kaufman
posted data which is a summary showing people are avoiding
searching for products and services to purchase, leading to
fewer sales, which is also impacting the whole PPC campaigns
and budgets. Yes! This is all related to this global recession.
• Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads
from last year
• Approximately 20% reduction in his costs from search
ads from last year
• The average order value from search ads dropped 10%
from last year
• The conversion rate from search ads seemed to remain
stable from last year
• There may be more competition in the space, but hard
to prove
I know you are a SEO expert or beginner reading this post.
And, of couse, running your own clients. If you are noticing
a fall down in traffic, please take part here and let us know
if less people are searching and clicking on your ads.
Azhar Iqbal Market
Research Analyst at A.I Training and Consultancy
2008-09-10 07:15:59
I have enjoyed being a market research analyst at A.I Training
& Consultancy as it always you backgrounds and fresh basics
when you are in an environment which is your industry.
Feeling those stages again which we have crossed one day,
helping juniors find their way in an appropriate manner…
Interestingly, most of the students when they join know nothing
about “search engine optimization” and now they
are well equipped with knowledge as sometimes I have no answer
to their queries being untouched within the industry for a
while :)
Hmm, so the environment is fantastic… and the procedure
of training is pretty logical. There is so much “seo
stuff” available on the internet, but it goes over with
newbie’s. We train them step by step comprehensively,
a clear cut concept of things involved in the strategy. We
train them think seo like a race game, strategizing the plan,
purpose in front, you have to beat your competitor, follow
right rules, continuous efforts... Alarm!!! Relax!!! Alarm!!!
Relax!!! It’s a whole mind game, one who is out, is
out! Training Overview Summary / Overview SEO Training Pay
per Click Ads Tracking Results Website Credibility Site Monetization
Videos and Audios SEO Tools Marketing Tools Interviews I will
be back with more updates from the academy.
A.I Training & Consultancy
Suite#11, Rafi Mansion, Shahrah-e-Faisal, Near Air Port, Karachi,
Pakistan
+92... , 4594455, 5412088
http://www.aitconsultancy.com
azhar@aitconsultancy.com
Confidence is the key
to tackle recession in Marketing Industry
2009-04-28 21:04:37
Business worldwide is affected with this recession. Marketing
Managers and IT Managers are getting it hard to win the situation.
They are looking for some magic! Their confidence is now on
toes…
“You are “Confident” when you know you
will get positive results with any activity or decision”.
This is a great way to conduct business, of course, but most
of us know that living by these words is a difficult practice.
Confidence is a complex quality that plays tricks on us,
which is why we sometimes lack confidence when we shouldn’t,
or become overconfident at times when we should show some
humility. In short, maintaining confidence takes work.
In good times: Confidence swells. We all know what happens
when the economy hums: A lot of what businesspeople try works.
AIG discovers a profitable market in insuring dicey securities.
General Motors sells lots of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles.
Innovation and entrepreneurial flourish because the odds of
success rise. And confidence climbs higher — often,
as we can now see so clearly, dangerously high. “There’s
evidence that in good times, suddenly everyone thinks that
they’re better than everyone else,” says Don Moore,
an associate professor of organizational behavior and theory
at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.
“On average, that’s just not true.” Our
problem? We can’t easily view our achievements with
anything approaching objectivity. In a study on confidence
published last year, Moore gave participants 18 computer-based
trivia quizzes and then asked them how well they did. Turns
out, most were horrible at assessing their performances —
about 90 percent of the subjects guessed wrong about how they
did. Hubris and delusion, as you might imagine, are a dangerous
combination. When things are going gangbusters, the truth
is we get too full of ourselves. Our confidence has us looking
at our businesses through rose-colored lenses. When business
is OK but unspectacular, we get conservative. We lean on practices
that served us well during the earlier boom. Our confidence
lies in the fact that we know what works, and we stick with
it.
In downturns: Confidence evaporates. Confidence experts say
that in these stressful times, leaders need to be level-headed
and courageous. Be brutally honest with yourself and others,
and get comfortable with making changes and even going against
the grain. Marriott, for instance, recently took what could
be viewed as a leap of faith when it agreed to buy West Virginia’s
iconic and bankrupt Greenbrier resort.
In the long run, the hotel’s estimated $130 million
price tag could very well represent a bargain. “This
is a time to do things even if you don’t want to do
them,” says Marina Gorbis, who runs the Institute for
the Future, a Silicon Valley think tank. “This is a
time for heroic actions.” But that confidence can lead
us astray again, as we adopt the false belief that experience
can replace effort. Veteran cops do this: Moore cites well-known
research in which seasoned policemen frequently erred in determining
whether or not suspects were telling the truth. The related
study, titled “Who Can Catch a Liar,” proves that
few folks really can. Experience, it turns out, counts for
little. “If I teach the same class for 10 years and
start failing to prepare, then my performance suffers,”
Moore says. “You have to find that sweet spot: sufficient
poise to work with what you’ve already got, and sufficient
anxiety to invest time and energy into your work.” In
stable times: Overconfidence dictates You have to look at
the proverbial glass as half-full. “These days, I bet
there are a lot of managers imagining that they’re not
doing well, and that others are doing better,” says
Moore.
“On average? That’s untrue.” Again, Moore
says that confidence — really, the lack thereof —
is misleading, slightly out of whack with reality. Yes, the
national unemployment rate is a sobering 8.5 percent, but
that means the employment rate is still 91.5 percent. Real
estate is cheap, certainly compared with a few years ago,
when those looking for homes bemoaned the sky-high prices.
Weaker businesses are ripe for acquisition. Here’s where
we are now.
The economy has tanked. People are paying off mortgages worth
far more than their homes; folks are out of work. Those still
on the job, including company management, walk around office
hallways with their heads down, in part because they fear
becoming the next casualty.
DON’T START
WITH FEAR OF FAILURE
2008-01-30 12:12:34
Taare Zameen Par! An Amir Khan bollywood movie… It
has got an excellent approach for those who always posses
a fear of failure inside them. The next day when I have finished
the movie i remembered my old days of SEO…
When I was a very newbie and I had huge fear of failure inside
me! Huh.. In the same week I received a call from my trainee
SEO. He was very stressed and tensed with the poor SEO results
he’s had. I thought to research a little and post about
those who have fear of failure inside them before even they
begin. Failure! What do you feel when you think about failure?
Inadequate? Unworthy? Unlovable? It is so sad that you might
have learned to link failure to your value as a person. Most
people who are successful in their work and their relationships
have experienced many failures along their road to success.
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric bulb, is often
quoted regarding failure: "I have not failed. I've just
found 10,000 ways that won't work." "I am not discouraged,
because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."
"Many of life's failures are men who did not realize
how close they were to success when they gave up." "Show
me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure."
If Edison has been afraid of failure, or believed that failure
meant he was inadequate, he would never have invented the
light bulb!
In order to achieve success in any area of your life, you
need to redefine failure. Instead of seeing failure as an
indication of your inadequacy or lack of worth, you need to
see failure as a stepping-stone to success. Some of the most
financially successful people experienced repeated failures.
* Walt Disney was a high school drop out who suffered bankruptcy
and repeated financial and business disasters.
* Milton Hershey, chocolate maker and founder of the famous
Hershey Foods Corp., found success only after filing for bankruptcy
for his first four candy companies.
* Henry Ford filed for bankruptcy for the first car company
he started. He didn't succeed until he started his third company,
Ford Motor Company.
* After P.T. Barnum, American showman, went bankrupt, he
joined forces with circus operator James A. Bailey to found
Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth.
* Quaker Oats went bankrupt three times, as did Wrigley from
Wrigley's Gum. Pepsi-Cola went bankrupt twice. Other famous
companies that also went bankrupt are Birds Eye Frozen Foods,
Borden's,? and Aunt Jemima.
* Albert Einstein did poorly in elementary school, and he
failed his first college entrance exam at Zurich Polytechnic.
* Winston Churchill had a lifetime of defeats and setbacks
before becoming prime minister of England at age 62. All of
his greatest accomplishments and contributions came when he
was a senior citizen.
* Sir Laurence Olivier, one of the greatest actors of the
20th century, tripped over the door sill and fell headfirst
into the floodlights the very first time he had ever set foot
on the professional stage!
* Woody Allen flunked motion picture production at New York
University and the City College of New York and failed English
at N.Y.U.
* Astronaut Ed Gibson flunked first and fourth grades.
* Lucille Ball was once dismissed from drama school for being
too quiet and shy. (From http://www.joesabah.com/dseibert/008.htm)
If these successful people had been afraid of failure, they
would never have offered the world their talents. They were
able to go on to success because they saw failure as a learning
opportunity rather than as an indication of their inadequacy.
Are you ready to change your concept of failure? Are you ready
to let go of worrying about what failure says about you and
just learn from it? Are you ready to free your soul to do
what you really want to do? If the fear of failure is stopping
you from doing what you really want to do, I want to encourage
you to change your concept of failure. I want to encourage
you to let go of your old way of seeing failure and start
to envision failures as learning opportunities on the way
to success. Just as Thomas Edison did, I encourage you to
see every failure as a step forward!
MagNag Launched -
Azhar Iqbal Partners with Rihan Saeed
2008-11-17 07:44:25
SEO Pakistan - Azhar Iqbal partners with Rihan Saeed to launch
a newly based internet marketing platform MAGNAG Technologies
(http://www.magnag.com)
“Azhar Iqbal and Rihan Saeed have been together in
projecting advance SEO techniques to generate maximum sales
for many clients"
“It is such a nice period, we are together to overcome
troubles, problems and issues with our beloved company. It’s
true that Rihan Saeed is a master developer, but he never
looked a helper but an idea generator…
Sometimes I had to re-think about my strategies, how Rihan
bhai takes charge into the project is a lovely experience.
He is tensed every time concerning the tasks he has, he limits
the tasks according to the time and has always helped me calculate
the true way of applying SEO strategies.” Says Azhar
Iqbal
Now, it’s the time when we have all those skills and
experience to implement for more peoples and businessmen.
There is a tremendous amount of businessmen looking for SEOs
in Pakistan, Karachi. And, they always get confused the more
they discuss their projects with other SEOs from Pakistan,
Karachi. I have had many businessmen worrying about their
business, sales and ROI (return on investment).
These are many projects and no one guy can handle and maintain
the real effort to benefit all. Me and Rihan had a meeting
on this issue and decided that now we should get together
and develop a real skilled team to market maximum amount of
businesses.
WWW.MAGNAG.COM Your Chance to Expand Business
At MagNag.com, we are providing:
Internet Marketing
Brand Identity Development
Search Engine Optimization
Online Advertisement
Pay Per Click Management
Online Public Relations
Email Marketing
SMS Marketing
Conversion Services
Web Tracking and Monitoring Services
Multilingual Marketing Pack
Website Maintenance
Website Development
Ecommerce Application Development
Web Enabling Legacy Applications
Software Development
Website Re-designing
Logo Designing
Custom Web Designs
We all are good friends:
MAGNAG TEAM
CEO: (Rihan Saeed) rihan@magnag.com
Digital Media Manager: (Faheem) faheem@magnag.com
Business Manager: (Azhar Iqbal) azhar@magnag.com
Marketing Manager: (UK) (Matt) matt@magnag.com
Sales Manager: (UK) (Rizwan) rizwan@magnag.com
If you are still looking for SEO Pakistan, SEO Karachi or
other individual service provider. This is your chance to
expand business. We have experienced and specialized guys
working on ideas every time…
Please contact MagNag Technologies at more@magnag.com
Make Your Website
a Lead Generating Machine
2009-06-16 05:44:41
Everybody knows one-sided relationships never work. The same
is true with websites. If a website is focused entirely upon
you, you will lose any visitors that may stumble across it.
On the other hand, a website done correctly (one that focuses
on the visitor) can easily become a lead generation machine!
When designing your website, think about these four ideas:
• People are egocentric. Subconsciously they're viewing
your website and thinking, "There's tons of companies
just like you. What are you going to do for me?"
• People love being entertained. If they believe your
website is providing interesting information, you'll have
them hooked.
• People want their opinions valued. This is why most
companies have incorporated a blog or forums-so their customers
can put in their two cents.
• And this is the ticket for generating leads for your
business: visitors want to do something.
Give your visitors something to do. Give them something free
to download. Offer a free report or whitepaper. Ask for their
opinion on a blog entry. Do something, anything, and once
the person responds, you "Require" the following
information: name, address, phone number, and email. Guess
what you just got? A qualified lead. Qualified because they
stayed on your site long enough to take action.
Happy Birthday, Digital
Advertising!
27th October, 2009 17:09 PM
The Banner Campaign that Started a $24 billion Business, and
Got a 78% Click-through Rate
Oct. 27 marks the 15th anniversary of the industry's first
banner display ads, which appeared on Hotwired.com. To the
many of you reading this who weren't in the business back
then, that's not a typo; I'm not referring to www.HotWire.com,
the travel site, but HotWired -- the first commercial digital
magazine on the web and the offshoot of Wired magazine.
Its launch in 1994 was not without debate internally as to
whether the ad units offered to the advertiser community should
be simple text links or graphical ad banner units. Graphical
ad display banners won out and the rest is history. And take
a look at the hilarious come-on AT&T used to generate
a click-through: "Have you ever clicked your mouse right
HERE? You will!"
The reaction ran from enthusiastic to somewhat leery. MCI,
as one would expect, was truly supportive of our proactive
initiative. Their corporate culture encouraged exploration.
Volvo, on the other hand, understood the value of our experimenting
with the new medium, but did not want to push/urge any interaction
with the consumer. They didn't know what to expect, did not
know how to handle responses and was concerned legal implications
were involved. As a result, you see the first Volvo ad banner
was nothing more than the Volvo logo and photo of an auto.
No call to action or direction to click was to be incorporated
into the Volvo banner. In fact, if someone clicked on that
banner in October of 1994, it would take them to a simple
questionnaire that could be emailed by the consumer on what
kind of Volvo they might be interested in.
HotWired was the first commercial web magazine to attract
blue chip corporate sponsorships dollars on the web. The site
launched shortly before Netscape's browser, and the advent
of such other new media such as Pathfinder.com (Time Inc.'s
commercial web content offering) and Cnet.com.
Looking back at the birth of this industry and the first
simple graphical banners, I am still amazed at how much has
been achieved in the first 15 years. That said, I anxiously
await the further advancements coming our way in terms of
new ad technologies, ad forms and ad measurement capabilities
(e.g. attribution modeling). The issues surrounding display
banners and online brand measurement are many and have been
well chronicled (see the recent special eMarketer report entitled
The Online Brand Measurement: Connecting Dots for example).
Research suggests we have a long road ahead in terms of measurement
-- and I don't disagree; however, I'm not convinced we're
that far off. I don't believe there will ever be a "silver
bullet" to solve all of our problems, as our industry
is constantly evolving, becoming more complex and proving
to be a moving target. But all that said, from what we have
learned through the use of fundamental building blocks of
acquired knowledge, industry and case studies, the use of
traditional media metrics, the use of existing best measurement
practices for digital and a quest to continually "test
and learn," we will ultimately be successful.
Has any one item in our industry been encased with so much
debate -- at times even disdain -- as to its true value, role
and contribution to marketing communications from its inception
in 1994 to this day? Yet the display banner is the impetus
to the creation of the online advertising category that will
reach beyond $24 billion in 2009, according to eMarketer.
Perhaps more important, no other development since has advanced
advertising measurement, effectiveness and accountability
than the display banner.
So on Oct. 27, I hope you will join me in toasting the birthday
of the banner display ad -- whether you are a "cup is
half-empty" or "cup is half-full" type of person.
Some days I love the business and others day... well, not
so much... but I have to admit: it's been an unbelievable
15 years.
I leave you with a challenge... Can you guess the two-word
copy from one of the original banner ads that generated 78%
click-through rate? I look forward to your answers.
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