Tracking stats for TGPs/AVS sites

[Top Cat]

OK, going with the theory that the only dumb questions are the ones you don't ask, I'll go ahead and put this out there.

How do you track stats, specifically traffic and conversions, to sponsors on your TGPs and AVS sites. I'd like to be know how many visitors to a TGP, for example, clicked through to a sponsor and then made a purchase.

I could use a sponsor I'm not promoting anywhere else of course. I could sign up for multiple accounts with sponsors for each page or site. I've looked at various programs like StatsRemote but they track your overall conversions and don't seem to track the source.

Is this possible...or maybe tracking results from each AVS or TGP isn't that important.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[Dzinerbear]

You can employ a program like ClickTracks, but I think it's $500-1200 for the tools and that's a lot of money. It might give you some of the kinds of answers you're looking for.

I use WebLogExpert to read my logs. They have a free "lite" version that did an adequate job for me in the beginning. And it still does actually. I don't study my logs as much as I should, but I'm only one guy my resources are spread thin, so something's gotta give.

Some of these stats you should be able to get from your sponsors. And this is why I don't think there is any one "thing" out there that's the answer. Because you have to take this bunch of info here and compare it with this bunch of info over there, and then, don't forget that there's that other odd thing over there that always has an impact.

Webalizer is another program people talk about. I haven't used it. If you have any questions about logs, feel free to AIM me, I might be able to help.

Cheers,
dzinerbear

[Xstr8guy]

Andy, I don't know of any simple solutions. I pretty much rely on the sponsors click tracking when they are available.

[Lee]

It depends on the 'type' of stats you want to accumulate to be honest and, more importantly, how many different types of sites you have.

If you are just wanting to break the traffic/sales down by two or three different types of site, free site, aen, tgp etc than just sign up for more than one account at a sponsor.

If you need more in depth stats then its going to be a third party script you'll need.

You could also check out an application like http://www.statsremote.com

Regards,

Lee

[Top Cat]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Actually my new host (ServerProvider) has AW Stats and they are very cool, so I'm comfortable tracking my incoming traffic. And of course I can check sales and conversion stats through sponsors.

It's strange that no one has created a program or script to totally track incoming traffic, click-throughs and conversions. Maybe that's a business opportunity for some techie. Me, I'm still trying to figure out Notepad.

[Xstr8guy]

I see one major problem trying to track clicks all the way through to a sponsor sale... you would have to be able to integrate that into the sponsors stats. I don't see any chance that a sponsor would give anyone that kind of access.

[Top Cat]

So pretty much unrelated to this post, I decided to install a banner rotation script so I wouldn't have to manually change sponsor banners and links on my sites.

I ended up with a script called phpAdsNew and I'm here to "witness!" It's really great and does a wonderful job of tracking click-throughs too. It's taken a little while to figure out how it all works, especially since the manual is a pdf so it's hard to skim through. But I uploaded banners (and text links), put in the code on my sites, and am very happy with the results.

It would work great with AVS sites and probably tgps too. It's really going to power up a few free redhead sites I'm working on

Did I mention it's open source? ;-)