Need to track conversions from a banner link... help please

[internetguy]

Hi, great forum.

I have been advertising for my ecommerce site on Google and Overture and that is working nicely.

But now I am jumping into banner ads and I need to know which ones are working. I figure I can give the sites that I am advertising on a banner and a unique link to a page on my site that will redirect the websurfer to my index page.

So I just need a script or a cookie that will track the customer from the unique redirect page to the order confirmation page on my shopping cart and just tell me simply how many hits I got on the redirect page and how many of those went through with the purchase. Sounds easy but I haven't been able to find what I am looking for. Can anyone here help me with this? thanks!

[brian.mark]

What are you using for website stats?

Most of the better page tagging and logfile analysis tools can track conversions based upon referrer, so you don't have to do anything other than look in your stats to see the conversions from that referrer as well as look at the number of referrals to your site from that source so you can calculate a conversion rate. Many do it automatically.

Brian.

[internetguy]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

I have cpanel x with webalizer built in. It does show the hits I am getting from other sites, but does not tell me where these people are going (ie, click trails)once they reach my site as far as I can tell.

I should add that my shopping cart is a subscribtion based service that is located on a different server than the website, but google and overture conversion tracking software work with that setup no problem.

I am willing to pay for this software if needed but I would rather pay a one time fee than get another subscription. I am surprised I can't find a simple piece of javascript that will do this..

[brian.mark]

We use IndexTools.com's web stats to do this. If you're under 50,000 pageviews monthly, it's pretty reasonable. I think we're paying in the neighborhood of $500 or $600/month for those stats now. Worth every penny, though. It really shows us what works and what doesn't. It also shows us where in the sales process things break down.

I know there are some less expensive ones and some that you don't have to pay monthly for. NetTracker, HitBox, Webtrends, and ClickTracks are some of the biggest names. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, but they're all pretty good if you take the time to set them up properly.

If you want reviews of any of them, just ask. I've done a lot of trials and I've got a pretty good idea of how each of them work.

Brian.

[internetguy]

We use IndexTools.com's web stats to do this. If you're under 50,000 pageviews monthly, it's pretty reasonable. I think we're paying in the neighborhood of $500 or $600/month for those stats now. Worth every penny, though. It really shows us what works and what doesn't. It also shows us where in the sales process things break down.

I know there are some less expensive ones and some that you don't have to pay monthly for. NetTracker, HitBox, Webtrends, and ClickTracks are some of the biggest names. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, but they're all pretty good if you take the time to set them up properly.

If you want reviews of any of them, just ask. I've done a lot of trials and I've got a pretty good idea of how each of them work.

Brian.

My site only takes in about 10,000 page views a month. I am not looking for something that expensive now but I will take a look at it and your other links, thanks.

Have you ever tried Yahoo Small Business? They have click trails for everyone who visits your site and it's only $100 a month. It used to be $50 a month a couple years ago. Right now I am trying to spend as little as possible ($7.95 a month web hosting and $10 a month for shopping cart). I spend about $1500 a month on search engines and I just spent $800 for a banner ad that will run 1 month. I want to buy advertising and product right now, not spend a lot on the site. I am still growing. This will be a temporary solution hopefully.

http://www.toolbarn.com/product/makita/6991DWDE/

This drill on your site kicks butt by the way!

[internetguy]

OK, I just found statcounter.com. It's free with supposedly no strings attached. I will try this and report later in case someone else needs the same service. Thanks for the help!

[brian.mark]

My site only takes in about 10,000 page views a month. I am not looking for something that expensive now but I will take a look at it and your other links, thanks.

In the 10,000 pageview range, IndexTools was only $19.95. Seemed pretty reasonable to me.

Have you ever tried Yahoo Small Business? They have click trails for everyone who visits your site and it's only $100 a month. It used to be $50 a month a couple years ago. Right now I am trying to spend as little as possible ($7.95 a month web hosting and $10 a month for shopping cart).

Haven't tried Yahoo Small Business. We're currently hosting our site on custom built private servers in a $70M data center across town from us. Hosting is running us well over 100x what you're paying.

I spend about $1500 a month on search engines and I just spent $800 for a banner ad that will run 1 month. I want to buy advertising and product right now, not spend a lot on the site. I am still growing. This will be a temporary solution hopefully.

I haven't ever bought a banner ad, but we're spending considerably more on PPC than that.

http://www.toolbarn.com/product/makita/6991DWDE/

This drill on your site kicks butt by the way!

I like the 9.6v, but the 14.4v is the one we use around here most often.

Brian.

[brian.mark]

Ignore my previous post, as I missed that the $19.95 version didn't include conversion tracking. That starts at $49.95. We're looking at upgrading to their Enterprise edition so we can handle both websites.

Brian.

[internetguy]

Yeah, $19.95 seems to be what statcounter.com will run me for 10,000 views a month too. Statcounter is available for free but the catch is it only tracks the last 100 visits unless you upgrade.

It's a great site though, suites my needs just fine for now. Hopefully my site will get big enough to where I need something more powerful. When that happens I will take a look at Indextools.

The stats do make owning a website much more fun.

[Rational Beaver]

I also use statcounter and have been very pleased with the service. It's a very impressive little system (so impressive that they've gotten themselves a PR 10).

Someday soon I'll be upgrading my account to track more visits and that means, as internetguy noted, that I'll need to allocate more time to looking at my stats. ;)