There are many good tracking programs out there; many of them inexpensive or free.  However, if you’re new and don’t feel technically adept enough to install such a program or script on your web host yourself, or just don’t have enough visitors yet to justify the cost, you can still track exactly which ad got your visitors there.

It’s easy.  In each different ad that you want to track, place a special code that you create at the end of your URL.  This can be done on any URL without affecting the site or the visitor at all.  All you have to do is add a question mark at the end of the URL followed by your code.  For example, suppose you advertise a site with this URL with several different ad placements:

http://www.yoursite.com/trackingtips.html

You decide to send letters to two different safelists, and you place one classified ad.  Of course, your ad campaigns are probably much bigger, but for this example, you might code your URL for each ad placement like this:

http://www.yoursite.com/trackingtips.html?s1

http://www.yoursite.com/trackingtips.html?s2

http://www.yoursite.com/trackingtips.html?ca1

Your codes can be more extensive and explicit, telling you which specific letter, ad, date, placement; virtually anything you want to track.  No matter which of these links a reader clicks, he or she will always end up at http://www.yoursite.com/trackingtips.html.

All you have to do is use one of the web tracking logs associated with your hosting account to determine where your visitors got the link to get to your site.  If you don’t know how to do this your web host will be happy to assist you.

There’s no reason you can’t start tracking all your ads now.  Even small amounts of traffic can show patterns.  This will give you the ability to see them and put them to good use!