Hi, I was just wondering if there is a tracking module for Pay Per Click. This would be very helpful, we use google adwords and yahoo's overture. This would be very helpful to see what ppc keywords they are using to get to your site, and where they go. We do have a few great tracking modules that let you know what keywords were being searched for in google / yahoo to get to your site, but it isn't for pay per click. Thank you in advance for your help!

Hmm - have you tried using Google Analytics - it tracks keywords? Not quite what you are looking for perhaps...

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Rodney

Google Annalytics works pretty good if you are trying to track adsense clicks on your site. I wish it was updated more frequently, but it works.

The way I would try to accomplish what I think is being asked for here is through the affilate feature in DotNetNuke. If you set up each of your campaigns with a specific affilate link then you will be able to utilize the site log to see which Adwords links are getting you traffic and make sure you are being charged correctly. Which is why I assume you want to know this.

 

hth

Bruce

 

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DynamicVB.Net

bhopkins:

Google Annalytics works pretty good if you are trying to track adsense clicks on your site. I wish it was updated more frequently, but it works.

The way I would try to accomplish what I think is being asked for here is through the affilate feature in DotNetNuke. If you set up each of your campaigns with a specific affilate link then you will be able to utilize the site log to see which Adwords links are getting you traffic and make sure you are being charged correctly. Which is why I assume you want to know this.

hth

Bruce

I am not to familiar with the affiliate feature. Would I need to add a new vendor for each keyword. (We have one campaign with many keywords). If so what would I put for the url? Does it need to be set up under admin or host? Or is it totally seperate from creating a new vendor. Thank you so much for your reply! - Stephanie

Hi Stephanie

Yes, this is a very useful (and undocumented/unmentioned) feature - it's easiest to demonstrate; lets say I wanted to track all hits that come from a particular site or vendor (e.g. Google adverts).

Add a vendor to your website (e.g on Smart-Thinker.com I add Google as a Vendor). Near the bottom of the Vendor details (you need to select it again) - there is an Affiliate section. Add an affiliate (the interface is a little strange - I just set it up from today for the next few years - I assume it only tracks it if it is valid. Note that there is an option to "Send notification" - this will send an email to the vendor email - it's worth setting up a test vendor to yourself and clicking this (don't send it to Google ;).

You will get an email with your domain and an AffiliateID with the Vendor ID at the end. This is what you want to give out to the people linking to you (or Google). You can work it out by looking at the VendorID and changing the AffiliateID in the link.

Put this into your Google Adwords campaign and test it with a click. When you view your sitelogs, your Affiliate Referels will list by Vendor ID.

Does that make sense?

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Rodney

Thank you for your help. This is what I have done so far, I am really trying to understand this. I have created a vendor under admin settings with the name of google and I put my campaign name as first name and actual keyword as last name. Then I added an affiliate with a start date and end date (far in the future). I emailed myself the verification. Now, I am getting a little confused on what to do next. Do I change the url: www.mydomain.com/default.aspx/AffiliateId=1 to www.mydomain.com/default.aspx/AffiliateId=MyKeywordHere? Then do I set up a goal or something to track this in google? Is there a different syntax in the url when a person clicks on a payper click url in google & yahoo than a natural link? Could I just find out what the url would be and then enter it as the affiliate link? Thanks again!

Unfortunately this will only track entry links by vendor, not by keyword (but this is where Google Analytics can help you if you have a Analytics module on each page).

So, in your example: www.mydomain.com/default.aspx/AffiliateId=1

You want to give the URL that relates to the Vendor to that particular vendor (or in this case you want to paste the URL into your Google Ad on Adwords). So if your Google Vendor is ID 1 then the string above is the link that you want all Google incoming calls to use. DNN will then increment and attribute each hit to Vendor 1 (Google) - so you can tell at a glance how many of the incoming referrals were related to each Vendor by Vendor ID.

It's a bit of a messy URL, but there is a display URL in Google Ads and a target URL so use this for the target only. Is that a bit clearer? I'm in the process of writing an article on this with screenshots to make it easier to understand and use.

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Rodney

Thank you very much for explaining this, now I understand a little bit more about affiliates and tracking

For the record, I have blogged about DotNetNuke Vendor Affiliate Reporting here... 

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Rodney