Re: Tracking and Looksmart (and Yahoo)

From: Mark J. Welch <MarkWelch_at_MarkWelch.com>
Date: Fri 12 Jul 2002 14:38:35 -0500

Robert Day wrote (in part):
> * * * All we want to do is add something typically:
> ?id=LSMRT but they are refusing. They claim
> "technical reasons" * * * Overture actively recommend
> the use of tracking codes. Why can't Looksmart do the
> same? I'm pressing them at the moment but any
> shared experiences would be useful.

Like Yahoo, Looksmart's original model was "pay for
inclusion," or "pay for editorial review." Thus, concerns
about ROI were never considered, and neither system
permits the use of any coded URLs to track results.
Thus, when you pay extra to be a "sponsor" at Yahoo,
you can't differentiate your paid sponsor link from the
regular link (nor from the "most popular" link). That makes
tracking much more difficult (impossible to differentiate
which link was used on a page). Of course, you still
have the referral URL for the majority of your traffic,
so you can track 60% to 90% of transactions that way.
But we all want better tracking, so we can know that
our analysis reflects 95% of activity instead of 75%.

The most typical solution is to create a special URL for
this purpose: http://www.yoursite.com/looksmart.htm
would redirect to http://www.yoursite.com/?id=looksmart
or you could even get another domain name and alias
it to your regular domain: http://www.yoursite2.com/
(or if you own http://www.widgets.com/ you might also
own www.widget.com and www.allwidgets.com and you
might use those for submissions to a specific search
engine.

Alas, even if they'd do what you want, the problems would
not be over, because as soon as you get a coded URL
added to Yahoo or LookSmart or Overture, other search
engines may grab that URL and use it to index your page
or site, and now traffic from Google may show the Overture
tracking code.

The key issue is that we must justify our advertising
expenses in order to continue spending money. I was
recently spending $250 per month on a campaign at
LookSmart, and it appeared that the campaign was a
"close call." That is, it might have been profitable or
it might not have been, but the lack of precise tracking
prevented me from knowing, and so I had to end the
campaign (actuall, drop it back to the free $15 per
month). After ending the campaign, I confirmed that
the URL I was tracking was drawing traffic from other
places (e.g. new-customer sales traced to that tracking
code only dropped by 50%, instead of 90% after the
spending dropped from $250 to $15 per month). Thus,
I confirmed that I was right to cancel the campaign:
continuing to spend money at LookSmart would not
have been profitable for this particular client.

(Please don't misinterpret my statement: my comment
that this particular client would not have profited from
continuing that particular campaign, is not intended to
suggest that nobody can make money by spending
at LookSmart. Every campaign for every client will
be different, and performance will change over time.
Do the math!)



-- Mark J. Welch - Internet Performance Marketing Consultant
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ 925-462-8483 Pleasanton, CA






Received on Fri Jul 12 2002 - 14:38:35 CDT