If you haven’t given Hexatrack a spin, it’s worth your time to take a good look at what they offer. They have a limited free version and upgrades to paid versions ($97 buy-in+$47/mo.) The major advantage of using HexaTrack is that it can track ppc clicks and keywords right to your landing page. It will also shows competitor activity and will show up click fraud where the same site keeps hitting one of your ads.

You can get more information at HexaTrack.com.

Here’s a video that covers ad tracking.

In his first “Super Affiliate’s Guide to PPC Marketing“, Zac Johnson went through the process of setting up a ppc campaign using Google Adwords. Hit his site to find out how to do the same, using Microsoft AdCenter. If you are already advertising on Google Adwords and just relying on them for your traffic, you shouldn’t be. In addition to Google, you should be adding Yahoo and/or MSN to your arsenal. The fact of the matter is, Yahoo and MSN traffic almost always performs better with ppc campaigns… it’s well worth reading… http://zacjohnson.com/the-super-affiliates-guide-to-ppc-marketing-on-microsoft-adcenter

I’ve always wondered about which pay-per-click network actually performed the best. So far, all of my campaigns use Adwords and usually have average to poor results. I don’t blame Adwords, I figure I’m still learning the ins and outs of pay per click. But, it was great to stumble upon successful marketers who had taken the time to run actual tests on the various networks.

Chad Frederiksen at CDF Networks put together a comparison of 10 pay per click networks which looked at volume, click pricing, conversion rate, keyword competition and ease of use. He took a campaign that was performing well on Adwords and ran it across the other networks. His results and conclusions surprised me!

Chad ran additional comparisons in January and September of 2007. You can check out the results at http://www.cdfnetworks.com/category/ppc-smackdown/

If I read this right, you can now target advertiser ads to particular pages or individual ad units.

Sounds like an improvement to me!

From the Inside Adsense Team:

We wanted to let you know about two recent changes to oursite targeting feature.

As you may know, site targeting allowsadvertisers to select specific publisher sites on which to run their ads. Advertisers can target your site if they’ve determined a match between their offerings and the interests of visitors to your site.

The first change isthat we’ve renamed ’site targeting’ to ‘placement targeting’ to better reflect
the variety of targeting options we offer. Advertisers can still target theirads to an entire site, but they can now also target your individual ad units orgroups of pages based on how you’ve set up ad placements using custom channels.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be updating references to ’sitetargeting’ in your account and in our Help Center.The second change is thatadvertisers can bid on placement-targeted ads (formerly known as site-targetedads) on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

Previously, advertisers could onlybid on these targeted ads on a cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Just as withcontextually targeted CPC ads, you’ll generate earnings for valid clicks on placement-targeted CPC ads.

While you can also add the URLs of specificCPC placement-targeted ads to your filter list, please keep in mind that allplacement-targeted ads will participate in the ad auction with contextually
targeted ads. Allowing more ads into the auction will help increase competition and ultimately your revenue.

Finally, we’d like to leave you with a few reminders to help you maximize your revenue potential with placement targeting:

• placements will allow you to highlight specific sections of your site that may
  appeal to advertisers.
• Enable text and image ads for your ad units. By opting in to different ad types on your site, you’ll increase the competition in the ad auction, which can lead to additional revenue for your account over time.
  
• Use the 300×250 Medium Rectangle. This ad format is one of our best-performing ad units, and many advertisers use it when creating rich media (image and video) campaigns. Again, you’ll benefit from the increased competition for your ad space.

Turn your custom channels into ad placements. These ad

By Arlene Lee and Katie Mandel - AdSense Publisher
Support/Product Marketing
Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense
at 11/12/2007 05:40:00 PM