If you are in lead generation business, then you must be spending significant amount of money on online advertisements through Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search media. Ad Tracking is critical in such situations. It helps you to weed out non-performing campaigns, improve campaigns with average performance, and extend great campaigns in order to maximize the return on investment (ROI) in marketing and leadgen activities.

Ad Tracking Software

There are several ad tracking software tools available in the market. Tracking202 is one of the leading software tools used by several online advertisers. It is available as an open source, self-installable software as well as a free, hosted software. Obviously, if you are a Pro, you should consider using the Tracking 202 Pro version, which is based on monthly subscription pricing model. The following picture shows some of the other tracking software products available in the marketplace. I would suggest using a hosted solution, so that you can get going immediately without the hassles of installation, hosting setup and maintenance.

Ad Tracking helps you to easily monitor your PPC campaigns through Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Some of the tools provide Click Fraud tracking protection too.

Lead Distribution Software

Please do not assume that if you are using a Lead Distribution Solution (such as LeadPro247), you can do the ad tracking using that software. Generally, lead capture, distribution and sale tracking software does not include ad tracking function, as online ad tracking is a totally different domain.

If you are using Ad Networks referred to as CPA / CPM networks  (other than Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) and bulk media buying strategies, then your ad tracking requirements may be significantly different. You may be needing ad tracking at Ad Publisher level. And note that each network may be different in serving your ads through their publishers and how they code and track the URLs. Let us reserve the discussion on handling and tracking the ads served through the networks for a future post. You may also start with basic tracking and then grow as your advertisement reach increases.