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If you are using an analytic program, you have likely encountered the power of tracking your paid advertising efforts by utilizing tracking tags on your URLs.  But can tracking tags actually do more harm than good?  Are you using the right tracking methodology to measure your campaigns effectiveness?

I was recently asked these questions from a colleague of mine who was wondering what the best way to track a text link from another website with IndexTools Analytics.   In short, I advised that the easiest way was to set up the campaign in the analytics to track visitors from the referring parent domain URL versus using a tracking tag because it would avoid duplicate content and also pass link juice to the website.  However, when tracking PPC visitors, its best to track from the landing page URL with a unique tag.  Clear as mud right?  Allow me to elaborate…

If you set up your analytics to track a referring or entry page URL such as www.url.com/?source=websitelink that’s published on another website, the good news is that it will track the visitor in the right bucket.  However, the bad news is that you run the risk that a search engine will crawl that URL and treat it as a unique page which unfortunately looks like an exact replica of www.url.com/ thus potentially diluting your PageRank.  To correct this, a better methodology would be to set your analytics to look for the referring parent URL (like www.url.com) if the link appears on more than one page of the same website or set it to track the exact referring URL such as www.url.com/page-that-your-link-appears-on if its on a single page.  By doing so, you will avoid the duplicate content issue and also receive link credit.

When tracking PPC campaigns, this is usually not possible because most PPC vendors like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. place your ads on more than just one site and also would be confused with your organic search visitors.  To remedy this, setting your analytics to look for a unique landing page entry URL such as www.url.com/?source=adwords will allow your analytics to count all the visitors that was delivered by that advertising network regardless from where they arrived from.

If you are currently using tracking tags on your advertising campaigns, don’t panic. You only need to begin worrying about websites that provide a direct link to your website and many don’t for internal tracking purposes.   In addition, your analytics solution likely has all of your campaigns located in a central place where you can begin your search for websites that you are currently tracking.  With a little investigation, you should be able to locate campaigns and revise them with ease.

For more information on how to deal with tracking tags and other tips, please visit Google, duplicate content caused by URL parameters, and you

Web analytics may not seem like a hot topic to some. But the use of web analytics in my opinion has gained much popularity since the introduction of free tools like Google analytics. I think that this is great because it shifts general focus from the state of promotion, to user behavior of a website. Ultimately those that are able to understand their web users are in line to win the game in the long term. Why? Anyone can purchase advertising, but getting your target demographic do what you want them to do is real art.

One fundamental question that your business must ask when choosing web analytics is whether you need a free or paid service. What seems like a no-brainer kind of question, is really not all that simple. First, there are literally some companies that believe that because they have the most expensive solution that it’s the best for their needs. Oh yeah, except of course when you ask them how they use it, only to find out that not even the IT guy knows how to interpret a simple report. Then there are companies that run multi-million dollar businesses that use free solutions because the sheer cost of a paid solution appears too high to incur.

Believe me when i say that there is no perfect or magic solution that fits all. Foremost, the solution that you choose should match to your overall experience with web tracking along with your business goals. In the senarios above, i would say that purchasing a solution that you wont utilize is probably the worst followed by a free solution that is out of its league when it comes to business goals. Which leads to a fundamental question:

Which web analytics program is right for by business?
In my opinion, there are three key components that web analytic programs offer:

1. Traffic- knowing where your visitors come from, whether you paid for them or not, and where they go when they get there.
2. Trending- basically identifying site wide user behavior & identifying what actions visitors are taking.
3. Automation- using statistical programs to aid in making purchasing decisions.

The first two components believe it or not, can be handled by most free analytic programs like Google, StatCounter, and soon to be released Yahoo! Analytics (formerly, IndexTools.) As a general rule of thumb, if you have over 50K unique visitors a month and use your website for lead generation or e-commerce, I would recommend using a paid solution.

The last component relates to automating the tough task of monitoring your paid advertising programs as well as user behavior. This comes in very useful in managing very difficult campaigns that require the aid of electronic automation to anticipate user behavior. For example, if your website garners 100’s of purchases or leads per day, a bid automation plugin would significantly help reduce waste expenditures as your watchful eyes likely cannot micro manage 1000’s of keywords. If you find yourself in this predicament, a professional solution like that is offered by Omniture or Coremetrics is a wise investment.

As i stated above, choosing the right solution is not an easy task. If your new to the whole tracking game, you might consider free analytical package is best while you learn the ropes. However, if you expect your startup to become a multi-million dollar web property overnight, perhaps a paid solution will have a better pay-off in the long run as you gain more familiarity with the program. Lastly, if you are not sure whats best for your business, ask a company that has experience with web tracking or choose a web analytic supplier that has live support/training. Regardless, staying on top of your web analysis is a wise decision no matter how you slice it. Its just a matter of how you interpret it.