How to best track sales from PPC campaigns

[ed146]

Hey guys,

What methods or ways are the best way to track sales from ppc campaigns if you are involved in affiliate marketings?

Say if I have 1000 keywords related to my niche and I would like to track which keywords are being productive and which ones are not.

I do not wish to create a tracking code for each keywords. Should I do a group of 10 or 15 and monitor them?

Please throw some good opinions my way.

Dan

 

[JoeZ]

The easiest way would be to just pass the keywords through subids. It'll allow you to track everything about the keywords and it is dynamic in the sense that you don't really have to set much up to do it.

Some networks also let you go three subids deep, so you can list keyword as one subid, search engine as another, and even if you want to split test an LP you can put that in the 3rd.

 

[vcm]

Easiest way, I think, would be to setup your PPC campaign with your landing page URL like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?keyword={keyword}

Using {keyword}, Google should include the keyword that the user searched for. You can now pass this onto your Affiliate links using the correct keyword tracking for the aff network you are using.

I would personally do it the long way, and setup codes for each keyword. I don't know of a shortcut here, but I wouldn't want all of my best performing keywords being passed to the network and/or merchant.