Archive for November 2006
November 13, 2006 | 
Author Free Ad Tracking Using a PHP Redirect Script
Free Ad Tracking is possible and it has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages or disadvantages depend on the free ad tracking method you use. This post will discuss using a PHP URL redirect script. Let’s first state what PHP is. PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. This confuses many people because the first word of the acronym is the acronym. This type of acronym is called a recursive acronym. PHP is becoming the future of scripting languages for many webmasters because it is both fast and stable. The PHP script we will be using to redirect our URL is:
- Create a folder called Recommends or something similar on your hard drive.
- Create another folder with a short but descriptive name within recommends that describes what you are directing to but doesn’t make it obvious enough for the visitor to guess the destination. I’ll use phpadtrack in this example.
- Copy the above script into Notepad or some other text editor and replace http://www.adtrackingwebsite.com/adtracking/index.html with your URL.
- Save the file in the /Recommends/phpadtrack/ folder making sure it is named index.php.
- Upload the Recommends folder and its contents to your server using your favorite FTP Client or the File Manager built into cpanel.
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The URL you give out in your newsletter, ads or other promotions would look something like http://www.adtrackingwebsite.com/Recommends/phpadtrack/index.php or http://www.adtrackingwebsite.com/Recommends/phpadtrack/. As you can see from the URL, I have my domain name being branded, I let my prospects know I recommend this and it is impossible to guess the destination URL. You will be able to see how many hits this link gets by checking the stats in cpanel of your hosting account for your site. These stats will be the raw total and not unique visitors but it will give you some idea of how effective your promotion is without spending any extra cash. There are other ways to do your ad tracking for free but I’ll cover some of them in other posts.
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Free Ad Tracking is possible and it has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages or disadvantages depend on the free ad tracking method you use. This post will discuss the meta refresh method. Meta tags have been used for a number of things by webmasters for quite some time. Each meta tag serves a separate function with some being: page title, author, language, keywords, descriptions and directing robots. The meta tag shown below tells the page to refresh immediately and to redirect to http://www.adtrackingwebsite.com/adtracking/index.html when it does. To use the above script to track visitors to the above URL, you need to do something like the following steps:
- Create a folder called Recommends or something similar on your hard drive.
- Create another folder with a short but descriptive name within recommends that describes what you are directing to but doesn’t make it obvious enough for the visitor to guess the destination. I’ll use adtrack in this example.
- Copy the above script into Notepad or some other text editor and replace http://www.adtrackingwebsite.com/adtracking/index.html with your URL.
- Save the file in the /Recommends/adtrack/ folder. (Be sure to name the folder a word that is likely to entice your prospect.)
- Upload the Recommends folder and its contents to your server using your favorite FTP Client or the File Manager built into cpanel.
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The URL you give out in your newsletter, ads or other promotions would look something like http://www.adtrackingwebsite.com/Recommends/adtrack/index.html. As you can see from the URL, I have my domain name being branded, I let my prospects know I recommend this and it is impossible to guess the destination URL. You will be able to see how many hits this link gets by checking the stats in cpanel of your hosting account for your site. These stats will be the raw total and not unique visitors but it will give you some idea of how effective your promotion is without spending any extra cash. There are other ways to do your ad tracking for free but I’ll cover some of them in other posts.
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Advert Tracker Ad Tracking Software Review
Advert Tracker is an affordable ad tracking software script that tells you how effective your advertising is.
You can guess at the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns or you can use this software or something similar to know how effective your ads are. There are a lot of different software programs that will help you track your ads as well as other methods we’ll discuss in future posts. This message is about my experiences with the Advert Tracker script.
The Advert Tracker software is a CGI script that must be installed on the server of your domain by you or someone you hire to do it for you. I have limited experience installing scripts and it took me quite awhile to figure this one out but only because I didn’t understand that the path I needed to enter was to go all the way to the root of the server. Once I figured this out, modifying the files as stated in the instructions was straight forward and went well.
Uploading the files and modifying the permissions was easy.
Initial access went well and the creation of the test file was easy and intuitive. Note: The ID you give new campaigns is limited in length and should be descriptive.
Instructions on how to log in are included in the setup instructions that come with the advert tracking script.
Creating new ad campaign trackers is a straight forward process that doesn’t need explained.
After and ID is created, you are shown a page that says: ˜The requested account has been added to the system.’ instead of being shown the URL that you need to use which looks like http://www.itsaboutcash.biz/cgi-bin/tracker.cgi?adtracking. The phrase after the ? mark is the ID you gave your campaign.
To return to the Advert Tracker Admin page, you need to press the back button on your browser twice.Not having the created URL displayed so it can be tested and then an easy way to return to the admin area is a minor quirk that can be lived with in this very affordable ad tracking software.    Â
When an ad tracking campaign has been completed, you can delete the ad tracker you created but you will need to use the browser’s back button to return to the admin area.
After returning to the admin area using the browser’s back button, you need to do a screen refresh before you’ll see any changes.
You must test the ad tracking URL you created to ensure it works and to have a stats file for that ad tracker created.
You can reset the stats after testing and the empty stats file will remain in place. Â
The bottom line is this $25 piece of ad tracking software is well worth the effort required to install it on your server so you can brand your domain by using an advertising link with it in it even if you are promoting an affiliate site. You can find out more about the software by clicking this advert tracking link. http://www.itsaboutcash.biz/cgi-bin/tracker.cgi?adtracking
Ad tracking systems
Ad tracking systems are an important part of any successful business. We may call them ad trackers or advertising campaign trackers but the bottom line is we are using ad tracking software that is a script on a web server to see how many times our ad is being responded to by a visit to our web page. There are other methods we can employ to track the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns but the vast majority of experienced marketers use some type of script or software to track their ads because of its speed, convenience and accuracy. During your marketing career, you will test and use multiple tracking methods. Some will be scripts you’ve installed on your server, scripts you’ve paid to have installed, free ad tracking services you’ve used, paid ad tracking services, redirect scripts embedded in web pages or email tracking. Your business depends on the success of your marketing efforts and the effectiveness of your advertising cannot be accurately measured without a good ad tracking system.
Welcome to my ad tracking blog. Here is where you will learn about and discuss ad tracking.