Are Ad Trackers Evil?

[Rudi Vanhaecke]

We've all been told a million times that if we are not tracking our ads we are missing the boat.

 

 

 

Well, that's true and not true.

 

 

 

Did you know that tracking links can actually HURT your sales?

 

 

 

Here's why.

 

 

 

1. People don't like to be 'tracked'.

2. Spam filters penalize you.

3. People do not like to click affiliate links.

 

 

 

I can't for the life of me figure out #3, but I know it's true. I've seen very nice people backspace over the affiliate code part of a link when they surf.

 

 

 

I just don't know why they would do that. They won't pay any more by ordering from an affiliate link, and the affiliate did the job by informing them about the site (and so deserves the commission) ... but still people WILL avoid your affiliate link if you let them.

 

 

 

So we know that people don't respond well to obvious tracking links, yet we want to track our ads so we can determine the return on investment.

 

 

 

How can we do that?

 

 

 

Here are three ways to use a tracking link so that no one knows you are using them, and so no one can steal your affiliate commission.

 

 

 

1. Use An Ad Tracker Installed On Your Domain

 

 

 

The advantage here is obvious. You will be able to track clicks, sales, and actions (like joining your mailing list) and still use your domain name.

 

 

 

In addition, most trackers will show you how many sales you have made per tracking link, which allows you to calculate that all-important return on investment.

 

 

 

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EMAIL MARKETERS: It has become very important that the links in your email come from your own domain if possible. This has become one of the ways that filters identify an email as spam, so be careful here.

 

 

 

The beauty here is that you can make these links say anything, so they never need to look like a tracker!

 

 

 

HOT TIP: If you use this technique, experiment with giving your tracking links interesting names, like www.yourdomain.com/LimitedTimeOffer.php

 

 

 

Using this little trick generally increases response.

 

 

 

The two ad trackers I like are ProAnalyzer and DynaTracker.

 

 

 

www.proanalyzer.com

 

www.dynatracker.com

 

 

 

2. Use A Tracking Link That Makes No Sense

 

 

 

We do this on occasion just to test. Our shopping cart creates really ugly links. The upside is that no one can tell where the link goes, so they can't guess the destination and bypass your affiliate link.

 

 

 

Here's one of our ugly shopping cart links. These get clicked far less than regular links, but can create curiosity and DO protect an affiliate link.

 

 

 

http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=93232

 

 

 

3. My Favorite - Create A Redirect Link

 

 

 

This requires that you have a web hosting account, which you really should have anyway.

 

 

 

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DON'T MISS THE HIDDEN POWER OF THIS IDEA!

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I recommend that everyone use a redirect link of some sort at all times. The reason is that there is a hidden power in using a redirect link, which I'll reveal to you right now.

 

 

 

Let's say that on your site you are promoting an autoresponder. We'll call it autoresponder A.

 

 

 

If you do what most people do, your link will look like this.

 

 

 

www.autoresponderA.com/?12345

 

 

 

That's a typical affiliate link, right?

 

 

 

But WHAT IF that company goes out of business, or lowers your commission, or offers poor customer service?

 

 

 

To begin recommending a new company, you would have to find and replace every link - and that's very hard to do.

 

 

 

BUT ... if you used a redirect, you could simply replace the link once and be done forever!

 

 

 

By using a redirect, you could provide visitors with a link that looks like the following.

 

 

 

www.yoursite.com/autoresponders.php

 

 

 

The beauty here is that you can make your autoresponder link go ANYWHERE you want it to by modifying ONE file!

 

 

 

Here's how to do it.

 

 

 

1. You take the code below and replace the URL with the URL you want to promote.

 

 

 

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=134428">

 

 

 

2. Then, you save the file by a name you like with the html extension. Let's say you choose bubba.php

 

 

 

 

3. Now you upload it to your web server.

 

 

 

 

4. Now you tell people to go to the link you created, and they will be redirected to the link you want to

protect.

 

 

 

Here's an example.

 

When you click on this link http://www.realworldtactics.com/bubba.php

 

you actually go to this page http://www.realworldtactics.com/supercharge.php

 

 

 

I use a program called NoteTab to do this, but Note Pad will work just fine.

 

 

 

There are also programs to cloak links for you. The one I like and use is Jim Edwards Affiliate Link Cloaker.

 

 

 

www.affiliatelinkcloaker.com

 

 

 

No matter how you handle it, be sure to protect your affiliate commissions and begin building YOUR brand by cloaking every link you use. That way, you will get every penny you deserve in affiliate commissions.

 

 

 

And that's a beautiful thing indeed!

 

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