Remember last Sunday when I wrote about the Perfect Keyword Tracker? Well, I still haven't found the perfect tracker but the latest release from Tracking202TM just might be the closest thing to it. Where other tracking sites have failed to set the bar all that high, this site seems to rise above. Oh, and did I mention it's free? Yeah, that's right. Free.

Normally, I'd rant and rave about how other keyword trackers are lacking, but I feel I did enough of that in the Perfect Keyword Tracker post. So I'll just jump straight into the good stuff.

Tracking202

Keep It Simple, Stupid

As you probably know already if you follow the blog, I don't like keyword trackers in general. Not only is it difficult to implement, but it's hard to find tutorials on how to implement the stupid code. Well, Tracking202.com currently offers seven videos to get you started, not just with using Tracking202 but on how to track keywords in general and even how to get started with affiliate marketing altogether.

I've watched a few of them and they're pretty good. Definitely give them a view (click here).

Setting It Up

As the video tutorials will show you, it's not difficult to set up your campaigns, ads, etc. for easy tracking. It's broken down into six easy steps-

  1. PPC Accounts - These are your search engines like Adword, YSM and Adcenter.
  2. Affiliate Networks- These are your affiliate networks like Azoogle, Commission Junction, Neverblue, etc.
  3. Affiliate Campaigns - This is the particular offer you are pushing and you can give it any name you like, as long as you know what it's referring to.
  4. Text Ads - These are your actual ads you're running, text and all.
  5. Landing Pages - Step five is optional and allows you to track your actual landing page statistics.
  6. Get Trackers - This is the page that gives you detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to implement code for each campaign you're running. This means you should pay close attention to every word on the page as it will affect your tracking.

Obviously you can skip over some of these steps as you start adding tracking code to additional campaigns, but I just wanted to express how simple these guys have made the initial setup, which is key to keeping customers.

The Overview Tab

As you can see in this screen cap, right away you can see a visual indicator of how much you're spending, earning and keeping. All very important things to see when you're trying to maintain a certain level of profit. Of course, you can filter by date and display by hour, day, month, etc. All of this graphing is done with flash, so it's very smooth.

The Analyze & Visitors Tabs

On these screens, you can analyze your keywords, your ads, referers, IP addresses, etc. All very useful when trying to determine which ads work the best and which keywords actually convert. Many times, your main problem is a high CTR on a keyword so you want to keep it, but a low conversion rate. With this feature, you can see what the actual conversion rate is and therefore, make a quick decision as to whether or not to keep the ad or keyword. Not to mention, you can easily tell which search engine is pulling in the most traffic or which search engine is flat-out killing your profit margin.

The Spy Tab

Now here's an interesting twist on a feature I'd imagine was inspired directly by the Digg Spy feature. It's a live AJAX view of your incoming traffic for the last 24 hours. It's currently my favorite feature because I just like to see people coming in, but I have to watch the access logs to do so. This interface is a nice, clean view of helpful information.

RSS Feeds

Again, a really cool feature. You can use your RSS reader to view your Account Summary, Visitors, Keywords and Referers, which is really cool for not just keeping track of all of that info but importing it elsewhere via XML. Here's where I'm concerned about this feature. If anyone decided to do a sweep of the alphanumeric code (which is randomly generated but I'm guessing is a standard length), then they could probably view tons of peoples' vital information easily and permanently. To combat this, I would suggest not just an SSL connection but perhaps a long-term cookie that gets set so that only specific people can view the feeds. That's just off the top of my head. Aside from the risks, this is obviously a winning feature.

The Update Tab

This is where you import your SubID dumps and actual Cost Per Click for your campaigns. This is easy for even the newest of the new, as they just have to copy and paste the information straight into do a SubID dump and just update their actual average cost per click to get accurate data. Very straight forward and useful.

Extras

Tracking202 offers a forum to get help from other users as well as administrators. They also offer a blog for updates and information on affiliate marketing in general. All the way to the right, you'll notice the Videos tab as I previously mentioned. If you've read my past posts, you know I think videos should be included in any application like this, just to explain how everything is supposed to be done, not just how one might intuitively do it (what, intuition can be wrong?).

Conclusion

Although some people might be bothered by the fact that this software is free, the authors are doing everything possible to ensure that your data is protected. I've been chatting back and forth with one of the authors for a couple of weeks now; he's a nice guy and listens when I make suggestions. I made a suggestion to him about the RSS hole and he's going to bring it up at their next meeting.

As far as features go, it's not too feature heavy but what it does have is really impressive. I've seen much more expensive software that might be shiny, but it's very clunky to use and easy to screw up on. Also, these guys are just starting out and will begin to build onto the platform as they go along.

Overall, I think these guys have done the affiliate marketing world a great favor by releasing this software as free. I know, for some people, the word 'free' in an application like this might set off a red flag. I'm aware of this. The developer is aware of this. They know that if Google were to release something like this, there would be no issue but since it's the little guy, there's going to be a lot of hesitation as there seems to be a lack of accountability and past performance to base trust on. I think the early joiners will be happy with the application and will inspire the skeptical to jump aboard as well.

If you're at the least bit worried about this being a legitimate company, feel free to view their registration information with USPTO as well as their corporation information. I've also been notified that they'll soon implement Verisign RSS as well as HackerSafe, TRUSTe certifications. And they'll be implementing a BBB (Better Business Bureau) certification when possible. These guys mean business, ladies and gents.

After all, it's hard to beat free. Go give Tracking202 a try and let me know what you think!

Scott

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Strategy, Keyword Trimming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.