[westgroup]

After years of hit and run advertising and guessing where my sales are coming from, I have finally decided to finally work smart. Do I hear a loud DUH?

Is there a good way to track this type of information? I'm up to any suggestions.

[my2cents]

the easiest what to track visitors is with tracking software... or hosting account logs will provide a wealth of info as well..

as for tracking sales.. thats a bit tougher... because most programs use 3rd party tracking... and some have been accused of using tricks to cheat us out of out commissions...

Joe

[westgroup]

Joe,
Can you suggest a tracking software?

I am into wellness and weight management so while it's slow for me now,I'd like to get ready
for January (my biggest month)

Thanks!

[Rogi]

there's free stuff like AWSTATS

then there's stuff like ClickTracks (few hundred to 1k)

then there's even more expensive stuff (which i haven't even considered yet so i know none of)

Meanwhile... companies like nokia and nissan use ClickTracks. there's a free trial version at clicktracks.com

[westgroup]

Thanks!
My sales are really starting to grow for one particular product and since I don't have a Cpanel or way of viewing my visitors ip's in this one particular account, so I am at a loss as to how to figure out where these sales are coming from.

The weird thing is that I shouldn't see an increase in sales until Jan.

[promosoft]

WebTrends is one option to choose, now they not only have a software-based analysis package but a browser-based option as well.

Some web hosting providers provide WebTrends (although not many that I have found lately) which is designed specifically for their users.

Essentially it allows you to track where the visitor is coming from as well as where they go within your web site, which pages they visit, in what order, which page they entered from, using what search engine, using what keyword, etc.

Depending on your back-end (CC Processing), you may be able to pass something into the order processor to link up referrer into the order information to track the sales.

Also, if you're using PPC there are a few other options, simplest is when you are creating a keyword entry to use a query string to tell you which SE & Keyword the visitor is from.

For example, mysite.com?o.weight_loss (overture: weight loss)

[promosoft]

Never underestimate the early resolvers.

Also depending on any HTML changes to your site, or search engine ranking algorythm changes themselves, you could always find that your sites relevance went higher for an in-demand keyword.

Depending on how adroit you are in cgi, you could make an index.cgi file which you could use to find out referral information as well, and append it to the url. if the visitor comes from a main google search for weight loss pass ?g.weight_loss onto the main page URLs.

You can come up with your own search engine naming system for tracking purposes.

[westgroup]

Thanks! After years of hit and miss, I will finally be able to put my time and efforts where it makes the most sense.

[richardeward]

You may want to look at AXS Visitor Tracking System
a free script.

I just installed it and it works very well.