"Counting Conversions with Yahoo's Search Marketing Tool"

By Merle http://www.PayPerClickResearch.com

Ever wondered how well your Yahoo Search Marketing advertising
is converting? If you're spending money on any type of pay-
per-click marketing, it just makes sense to track how many of
your visitors are turning into customers. If you don't know,
you're just throwing good money away.

So, how are you supposed to know what's working and what's not
with your ad campaigns. Well, Yahoo has their own search
marketing tool you can use to measure those conversions
called "Conversion Counter". The tool is free to use
as part of your Yahoo Search Marketing account.

With Conversion Counter, you can track how successful your
ad campaigns really are. This tool will show you how many
clicks it takes for someone to convert.

So what is a conversion? A conversion happens when someone
clicks on your ad, visits your website and performs the "wanted
action". That "action" can range from just registering to use
your site, making a purchase, signing up for your newsletter,
or downloading something. Conversion is the wanted response
from your ad campaigns. Some type of action is performed
after clicking through to your website.

You'll find Conversion Counter under the administration tab
in your Yahoo marketing account. It can track results from
"Sponsored Search", and their "Content Match" programs. Don't
click the activate button until you have pasted the necessary
code onto your "conversion page". The conversion page of your
site is usually the confirmation page or thank you page that
appears after someone purchases or signs up at your site.

By using what's called "event tags", you can track different
conversion events such as tracking a newsletter sign up, a
download, or an actual purchase. It can even record "assists"
which will tell you the number of times a particular keyword
or phrase in your pay-per-click campaign assisted in a
conversion.

You can also assign a revenue value to be associated with each
conversion. This will tell you how profitable your campaign
keywords really are. There are two options:

1) Constant Average Value: You specify a specific dollar
amount to be used with each conversion.

2) Dynamic Value: The dollar amount is dynamically updated.
This is a good choice if you sell multiple products at
different prices.

Conversion Counter also tracks the type of visitor that converts:

1) New - (1st time visitor)
2) Returning - (Someone who's been there before)
3) Customer - (At least one conversion before)
4) Repeat Customer - (2 or more conversions in past)
5) Cookies Off - (Those with cookies off)

Having access to this sort of information is invaluable to
any marketing campaign.

The code on your page is invisible to those using your website.
The information being tracked will appear under the "reports
and campaigns" section of your Yahoo account.

If you use Yahoo Search Marketing and haven't been tracking
your conversions, now that you know how easy it is you have
no excuse not to implement it. Knowing how well your site
is converting browsers into customers, and which keywords
are performing best, can help you to make more informed
decisions when it comes to your next marketing campaign.
And that's information you can literally bank on.

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By Merle- The pay-per-click Authority when it comes
to using paid search engine advertising. With helpful
articles, how-to's and tips that will help you make
the most from your advertising investment. Download
a FREE "How To" ebook at....
http://www.PayPerClickResearch.com