After the Google AdWords Interview I did with Lynn Terry a couple of days ago, the tracking issue came up. So, I decided to ask Matt Levenhagen, my AdWords mentor to explain how AdWords tracking really works.

I asked Matt 4 questions:

• 1. What is the difference between campaign, ad group, text and keyword tracking?
• 2. Are they all necessary?
• 3. How does tracking help you make more  money?
• 4. Any tools you recommend to make it easier to track?

And, of course, Matt didn’t disappoint: his answers are very thorough, and give great information. He actually wrote an entire report, an I decided to split it into multiple posts here, as to give you the opportunity to digest it in small, bite-sized chunks and ask any questions you may have.

1. What is the difference between campaign, ad group, text and keyword tracking?

It depends on what you control on each level as to what you track on those levels. And there are different tools or sources you’ll use to determine how you collect and act on that data.

Campaign Level – You’ll track things like…

• Locations, Languages, and Demographics
• Networks, Partners
• Ad Scheduling related

Those 3 things for example are controlled only on a campaign level. If you want differences, you need to split up your campaign into multiple ones. For example, if you determine you want to target multiple countries in different ways, you’ll need to create more campaigns.

Some of this information is simply gathered from your Affiliate Program and/or Network reports. You sometimes are given the information as to where the purchase came from, when they bought the items etc… And you can take those trends and change your geo targeting or ad scheduling to improve your profit situation.

There are also 3rd party scripts that help you collect that data. I have scripts that collect where conversions have come from; so even though I don’t get that in that affiliate programs reports, I can collect that data myself by intercepting that traffic before it gets to the merchant’s site.

I can also determine if I’m just getting the sales from Google or their search partner. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve determined that search partners didn’t convert at all, but was where most of my spend was coming from.

These are definitely things that can save you a lot in terms of costs and increase profits.

There you have it: Campaign Level Tracking!

Thank you Matt: excellent info about campaign level tracking. I especially want to thank you for the tip about Google search partners: we definitely wouldn’t want to leave a huge leak in our campaigns.

You can learn more from Matt at his Campaign Blasts Forum, where he teaches everything you need to start building an incredible, Profit Pulling Affiliate Marketing Business. He not only answers questions there every day, but shows his members how to go from keyword research to campaign expansion, and even holds campaign blasting challenges, which is how I found my PPC success.

Next, look for Ad Group Level Tracking.