Review: ConversionRuler

ConversionRuler.com
http://www.wilsonweb.com/afd/conversionruler.htm

Timberline Interactive, Inc.
P.O. Box 992
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-9731

$19.99 per month for up to 2,000 click-throughs

If you're serious about web marketing, then you need to be doing some kind of ad tracking -- even if you don't use paid ads. Ad tracking software lets you determine the effectiveness of all of your marketing efforts -- e-mail, print, banners, PPC, etc.

The Anatomy of a URL

To explain how ConversionRuler works, I first need to explain the concept of a URL followed by tracking codes. The typical URL (with several exceptions -- I'm oversimplifying) ends in either .com or .htm. Your customer's web browser reads that URL and sends him to the right website. If you place a question mark (?) in that URL, everything following the question mark is ignored by your customer's web browser. Though ignored by the browser, items following the question mark are noted by your web server, server logs, and any programs running on your server -- like an ad tracking program.

An easy way to track ads, even without an ad-tracking program, is to give each of the URLs in your campaign (for example, an e-mail newsletter) a query string to tell you where the customer came from. This then shows up in the traffic log analysis for your website.

Above you can see an extract from my traffic log analysis for wilsonweb.com that shows 363 requests for the main URL, which include traffic containing various query strings along with that URL (identified in red). The ampersands (&) between each code enable me to include several parameters if I want to. The trick is to be able to analyze this data this clearly and easily.

ConversionRuler's Tracking Codes

That's where ConversionRuler comes in. ConversionRuler is an ASP hosted ad tracking program that enables you to track up to three variables in the query string. How you use them is up to you. Here's a sample landing page URL coded for an Overture PPC campaign for the keyphrase "web marketing." I've differentiated the fields by color so you can see them more clearly.

• The "category" (c1) field might be used to designate ad type -- e-mail, PPC, banner ad, etc. -- or perhaps the group of ads you are tracking.
• The "campaign" (source) field is the only variable that must occur in a query string tracked by ConversionRuler. If you were setting up your system to track PPC ads, "campaign" could be used to designate the source of the ad (Overture, Google, FindWhat, etc.) or the group of ads that you are tracking. I use this field to track the type of product.
• The "segment" (kw) field is the fine detail. For PPC ads you'd include the actual keyword or keyphrase in this field, inserting a hyphen or underscore to indicate a space.

The beauty of this system is that you don't have to set up any additional accounts in ConversionRuler prior to use. Whatever you code into a URL query string will be recorded in ConversionRuler when the customer clicks-through to your landing page. The system is extremely flexible and allows you to add new categories, campaigns, and keywords any time you want. The only limitation is that it doesn't allow you to track links from your own domain to a landing page on your domain.

Since ConversionRuler doesn't use a "count and redirect" approach like most ad tracking systems and affiliate management programs; all the ad URLs point to your own website.

How to Set Up ConversionRuler

Setting up ConversionRuler involves three main steps, not necessarily in this order:

1. Code the query strings of the URLs you track so they conform to ConversionRuler's specifications (described above).
2. Paste some code on the landing page(s) where you will direct traffic from your ads or e-mails so that ConversionRuler is notified whenever someone clicks-through with one of its coded URLs. A few lines of JavaScript on the landing page call a program on ConversionRuler's website and transfer the tracking data whenever a query string with "source=" comes to one of these landing pages.
3. Program the Thank You page in your ordering system so the sales total is captured and transmitted to ConversionRuler's site, where the ad tracking data is being stored. Programming your Thank You page to read and transmit the sales total is the trickiest part of the set-up. Frankly, you'll probably need someone with programming skills to do this for you. To be fair, however, ConversionRuler is no harder to install on your Thank You page than any other tracking program. All ad tracking programs -- and affiliate programs, for that matter -- require this kind of specialized set-up to gather sales data. Fortunately, the pain of setting it up yields wonderful information about what is working or not working in your marketing system.

As I mentioned, the first two items are easy -- only the third is tricky. As soon as you have coded your URLs and put JavaScript on your landing page -- even before you program the Thank You page -- you'll begin to accumulate click-through data.

But click-through data isn't enough. Click-throughs tell you which ads or links are attracting attention, but not which are producing sales. Combining ad click-through data with actual sales data provides the magic you need to determine conversion rates and the all-important cost per sale. When you know your cost per sale, you are now prepared to recognize what is really producing sales and what's not. Now you can focus your efforts where they are doing the most good.

How ConversionRuler Records Data

Here's how ConversionRuler would track a typical ad click-through:

1. A potential customer clicks on an Overture PPC ad on AOL search.
2. The URL takes him to your landing page.
3. If the URL contains a coded query string, JavaScript on your landing page does two things: (a) puts a ConversionRuler.com cookie on your customer's web browser identifying him and the ad he clicked on; and (b) records data about the click-through in ConversionRuler's database.
4. Now the customer can go merrily on his way through your site without being tracked further. If, however, he purchases a product, that fact is recorded. When he gets to your Thank You page, JavaScript on that page causes the cookie on his web browser to be read, associates the sale amount with the original click-through data, and records the sale in ConversionRuler's database.

These cookies aren't the malicious or obtrusive ones that record your customer's every move and identify him by name. They just help you keep track of ad effectiveness. To tell the truth, without cookies the Internet wouldn't run nearly so well, nor be able to serve customers so effectively.

These cookies are non-expiring, but you can track sales by the original cookie date, if you like. If someone clicks on a second ConversionRuler link from your site, the cookie will be written over with new information.

Once ConversionRuler has collected data from your site, let's look at what's been happening behind the scenes.

Reports and Data Analysis

ConversionRuler supplies you with two kinds of reports for whatever time period you choose: (1) a summary report, or (2) CSV (comma separated variable) files that you can easily import into a desktop database or spreadsheet program for detailed analysis. If you're willing to do the analytical number-crunching, the data is all there for you to work with -- very powerful and nicely organized data, at that.

Recently, Google began displaying ads on content publishers' websites as part of their Google AdSense program. Since ConversionRuler collects data on the referrer URL and IP address for every click-through (except some e-mail URLs), you'll be able to differentiate the effectiveness of Google ads, for example, that (1) appear on the Google search engine, (2) ad feeds to other search engines, and (3) ads that appear on content publishers' websites. This way you can select only the most productive ad locations for your campaigns. Currently this information is only available in downloadable CSV files -- but ConversionRuler does allow you to accumulate vital data to guide your ad buying decisions.

Though CSV data can be downloaded and analyzed to your hearts content, the summary report is rather limited. I've provided an example of some data from my site so you can see how it organizes and displays the information (http://www.wilsonweb.com/reviews/conversionruler_report.htm).

The columns display data for: category (c1), campaign (source), segment (kw), click-throughs, catalogs, newsletters, orders, and orders purchase total. Rows are organized by category. Under each category are listed each of its campaigns, with the various segments (or keywords) listed under each campaign. Within minutes of launching a campaign, you can, at a glance, begin to gain a great deal of information about how it is going.

Summary Report Weaknesses

However, the summary report only allows selection by time period. It doesn't allow you to set up filters that exclude some data, sort by columns, or organize the data in different ways than the single standard report.

For example, I was advertising my Doctor Ebiz Internet Marketing Web Seminar in various kinds of media which I tracked using the "category" field (c1) -- three different newsletters and various banners, graphics, and links. There is no easy way to show sales sorted by source (campaign) or segment (keyword).

Furthermore, ConversionRuler doesn't tell you the conversion rate for any particular ad -- you have to figure it out for yourself. It's an easy calculation -- number of orders divided by number of click-throughs -- but you have to do the math. Instead of having a quick way to determine the relative effectiveness of each ad or campaign, you have to pull it into a spreadsheet and calculate it yourself. Only the absolute order total amount is shown in the Summary Report -- helpful, but not helpful enough.

Another weakness is the slim FAQ which doesn't do a really adequate job of explaining all the ins and outs of the program.

Currently, ConversionRuler doesn't allow you to track banners, graphics, and links that appear on your own website, severely limiting the program's potential to learn what's working in your website marketing and what isn't. I think the developers are concerned that site links will write over or corrupt previously set cookies, but it would be nice to give users the choice of whether to allow on-site links to be tracked.

To their credit, ConversionRuler staff members readily acknowledge the inadequacies of their summary report and help system. They're listening to customers to see what kinds of reports and functions are most useful and are working to improve them "real soon now." I have little doubt that within a few months the reporting system will be much more useful. Incidentally, telephone customer support is excellent.

Program Strengths

In spite of its weaknesses, there's a lot to like with ConversionRuler. It's extremely flexible, since all the ad coding takes place in the ad query string, not in the program backend. Most other ad tracking systems only allow you to track a single variable plus the order amount; ConversionRuler allows you to track up to three variables. I'm already getting a pretty good idea of what isn't working for me -- which is just as important as identifying the kinds of ads that are working. ConversionRuler enables me to track each individual URL to my site in each e-mail newsletter I send!

The Bottom Line

I see ConversionRuler as the most flexible ad tracking system on the market -- especially for PPC ad campaigns -- and the price seems quite affordable for small business budgets.

The company is currently offering a 30-day free trial. If you decide to use the program for your PPC ads but don't want all the dirty work of changing the URL query string for each keyphrase, ConversionRuler currently offers to re-code all your ad URLs on any single PPC account for $75 -- no matter how many. http://www.wilsonweb.com/afd/conversionruler.htm