Butch Hughes   Kincheloe Cam
Ad trackers, or tracking technology, allow you to know precisely how many hits you get from a particular ad.

Let's say you run an ad in someone else's newsletter. If you want to know exactly how many hits you got from that ad, you simply use an ad tracker instead of your normal URL.



But, too many people are using ad trackers the wrong way.

As an avid traffic exchange user, I personally know what works and what doesn't, and using an ad tracker on traffic exchanges is a huge mistake.

Time is of the essence, and when you use an ad tracker on a traffic exchange, there is a delay of a few precious seconds that could cost you clicks, subscribers, and sales.

Ad trackers use a redirect to count your clicks. That means that when a person clicks on your ad tracker URL, they actually go to the ad tracking site first (invisibly) and then get redirected to the site of your choice.

The problem with this is that it takes too long to do the redirect. Every second on a traffic exchange is precious. Just the three to five seconds you miss could kill your conversion rate.



The Solution


This is really an obvious solution. Virtually every traffic exchange already provides its own statistics. Just use the statistics provided by the exchange. There is no point in losing money just because the stats provided by the exchange may not be perfect.

You know, ad trackers only show you who visited the ad tracker site, anyway. If someone closes the browser or clicks to another site before the redirect, they may have never even seen your site.

So, while it is fine to use a tracker for email campaigns, it's just a bad idea to use them on traffic exchanges. Maximize your traffic now by getting it to your target page as quickly as possible.


www.butchhughes.com/adtracking.htm
May 31st 2007 11:54