MMM -- How to Track Your Opt Ins, Leads and Sales (Advanced Issue)
Published: Sat, 07/21/12
July 21, 2012
Memo From: Marlon Sanders
Memo To:
Re: How to track opt ins, leads and sales -- a bit of
an advanced training crash course in the subtleties of
ad tracking -- and a dash of Geek talk...oh well.
Hello,
Marlon here.
Today's ezine issue is text vs. PDF, since the computer
I'm typing this on today doesn't have a PDF print in
Microsoft Word. Yeah, it's true.
So anyway, lemme first remind you that we have a
weekend special offer going.
http://www.marlonsanders.com/graphicsolution
Lisa and I brainstormed how to do a number of important
graphics tasks using the freebie programs you can use
online or download.
This is very useful if you don't use Photoshop or Photoshop
Elements, or even if you do. Photoshop is a big program
and sometimes you just need to remove a background on a
photo you bought or bang out something quick.
It's much easier to do it with a lightweight program.
But then, when Lisa dug into this, she uncovered a LOT of
really neat secrets.
Like did you know you can download ALREADY done "PSD's"
that you just add your text to a -- and you got a great
graphic.
And these don't cost you one red cent? And you do NOT
need Phothoshop to do this. It's very cool stuff. I'm
proud to offer this on a weekend special for $17 and plan
to raise the price after the weekend when I get round
tuit.
WINNER:
I held an ibdissapointed contest a few weeks ago
announced in my Saturday ezine.
We had some awesome entries.
http://ibdissapointed.com/?p=20
All entries on or before July 10 will be having
a product added to your account compliments of me.
Lorraine should have already added these to your
account, so you should see it when you log in.
I have picked Nadine Huegel as the winner based
on originality, sales potential and credibility
created with potential buyers.
======================================
How to Track Leads, Opt Ins and Sales
======================================
First of all, if you're a newbie, I don't even know if
you should read today's issue. It's kinda Geeky or maybe
a lot Geeky.
And I don't have any ez, clearcut answers today. The
topic just doesn't lend itself to that if I address it in
a truthful manner, which I most certainly will.
You'd THINK that since this is the freaking heart and
soul of direct response online marketing, it would be
easy as pie to do.
Heck no!
But it's extremely important to know when you run an
ad, place a banner, send emails, or do a Facebook status
update, how many opt-ins or leads you generate and how
many sales result.
Here's why:
1. It's all about getting the most return from the
time or money you spend.
If you don't have a way to measure it, then how do you
know your return?
2. Some things work, some don't.
Unless you track, you just don't know.
3. Minimum, you need a 3x return on time or money you
spend. Not immediately but over say 30 days or 60 days.
You can't know ANY of those things unless you can track
opt ins and sales.
4. The greatest secret of huilding an online business is
to be able to acquire new customers at zero cost.
That's why affiliate programs are so powerful. There is a
cost but it's after a sales is generated.
Here's why it's not the easiest thing in the world:
You don't just have your initial sale. You have one time
offers, upsells, banners on your download page, and so
forth.
What Are Your Ad Tracking Options?
1. You have services like budurl.com
I like these for tracking clicks on links. Some of
them allow you to track more. But usually you can't
track more than one action or sale.
So you typically can't track a CHAIN of events.
2. Online services specifically made for tracking
like hypertrcker, linktrackr and others.
These are good and can track back end sales. The main
thing to know is it's a pain to place tracking pixels.
These are 1 pixel x 1 pixel gif images. Basically, they're
invisible. But every time that pixel loads, it'll create
a tickmark in the tracking program.
So if you place one on the first page someone goes to
AFTER they subscribe to your email list, then everytime
someone hits that page, it records an action or sale.
But this doesn't tell you the sale amount. So programs
let you type that in manually. Things can get a little
messy when you have tracking pixels all over the place,
you update or move or clone pages and so forth.
That's why these programs have "dynamic" variables that
will insert the product name and price automatically for
you.
However, not all shopping carts enable this data to be
passed to the program, although many do. For some reason,
the shopping cart I currently use which is Infusionsoft
doesn't pass through these variables to the address bar.
I'm going to give you the Geeky details behind how this
works. Even a cursory understanding of what I explain here
will help you over the long run.
Let me explain:
The way these tracking programs work is they add the
data that is being tracked to the address bar, usually
like this: variable=value
The variable could be name, email or price.
So name=_______
Or email=_____
In your address bar you would literally see data after
a sale like this: blah,blah,blah.com/blahblah?name=
Johnny&Sale.
That's called a STRING 'cause it's a string of stuff.
I'm typing this in a hurry and didn't take time to look
up the exact string. But basically, that's how it works.
The ? signifies the beginning of the special code. Between
variables or chunks of data you have the & sign.
Well get this: Some programs like Infusionsoft only
write a contact id and order id to the address bar. So
THEN another program has to go look up the order, grab
the product name, price, email and so forth and pass that
data back, kind of like the hand off of a baton in a race.
For security reasons, programmers don't like to pass
sensitive data through the address bar, so they write
php code to do it behind the scenes.
All About GET and ECHO Statements!
Now, we'll get into stuff a tad technical. Whatever. It's
just how this thing works.
So let's say you have a program that passes data to the
address bar and up there after an order you see:
?name=Johnny&Jones&email=johnny@jones.com
So you got that data available. The next thing you
can do is PRINT THAT to a web page or form field using a
thing called an ECHO statement.
Echo = print
Same thing.
So you can grab the email from the address bar and echo
or print it to your aweber or getresponse form or even
stick it in the headline of a page.
I'm not going to give you the echo code here. I don't want
to Geek this out that much.
But if you understand the above, you know more than most
people. And I probably didn't explain it all 100%
accurate technically. I'm not a programmer, I'm a marketer.
I know enough of the tech stuff to get by.
Anyway, all of the above leads us to this:
Option 3: Software the installs on your website
There is adtrackz. That's the one I've used in the past.
But currently, I can't pass my variables to it dynamically
unless I hire a programmer to write what's called an API
in order to take the contact id and order id, look up
the data like product name and price and send it to
adtrackz.
Now, api programmers don't just grow on trees. I'm
actually trying to con my brother into writing this for
me!
Well, con is an exagerration. But when he heard that api
programmers who can do stuff in Infusionsoft get $300
an hour, his ears perked up.
I mean, he manages security for 40,000 computers for a LOT
less than $300 an hour.
The downside of adtrackz is the program hasn't had real
features updates in years.
But everyone uses it because the other options are pretty
pitiful. If you're one of the other options, I hope I
didn't just offend you.
Truth is, for as advanced as Internet marketing is, it's
downright embarrassing the state of tracking programs.
I love Simon. He's like a brother. I first met him when
he was age 19 and had coded the first version of
Getresponse HIMSELF. At age 19 or 20 he was making
$50,000 a month USD in Poland, if you can imagine.
But Simon has some incredible new projects in the works
like his pimp new webinar software. And hypertracker I
don't think has had a real significant features update
in years.
All the creative thinking in ad trackers is on the cpa
side with things like cpvlab. Justin Brooke is someone
I've known a long time. He came out with pixeltrakk.com
which is very cool.
Unfortunately, it still only allows you to place 7 or 8
pixels. My back end email sequence is 48. That means
just to track follow up emails in a sequence, I need 48
pixels.
Not to mention exit pops, popups, upsells, product versions
and otos.
Can you imagine placing all those pixels? Now, with
cpvlab, you not only place the pixels, you ALSO have to
change all outbound links on pages to redirect links.
It gets really nasty really fast!
Whew.
Which is maybe an argument for having 1 big ticket webinar
and just driving a truckload of traffic to it.
No pixels, no otos, no mess or fuss.
Some of my friends and people I know in the biz like
Russ Brunson, Mike Dillard, Rich Schefren (who kinda
started the whole trend) and Kirt Christensen have all
gone this route.
So Where In The Crying Out Loud
Does This Mess Leave You and Me?
It leaves me needing a refill on coffee. And I don't have
jack here where I'm writing this. I just had one of
those Starbucks instant packs.
Better than nothing. But not exactly Duncan Donuts Original
Blend.
Which reminds me of the time I instantly connected with a
very well known and successful marketer named Brian Sacks
when we were at a Dan Kennedy conference and the coffee
tasted like water.
So I walked 3 blocks to a Starbucks and brought goodies
back and handed them out. Brian got one of 'em and come
to find out he's a Duncan Donuts drinker too.
So we became instant friends.
But back to tracking....
I've probably presented more problems this issue than I
have solutions.
At the same time, I BET you know quite a bit more about
tracking than you did when you started, even if some of
the talk about pixels, echo, strings and whatnot soared
over your head like a hot air balloon.
You know, I have a choice to dumb things down and say,
"Well, bubba, you gotta track."
Or, I can treat you like a peer and talk about real
substance, even though if you're a newbie, it's a bit too
much.
I'd rather know the truth than have someone just glaze
over it.
Here are the take aways:
1. Adtrackz is a good solution because it installs on
YOUR server which means no monthly fees.
If you have a shopping cart that can pass the variables
to it dynamically, it works good. It still won't track
a full funnel on an aggregated basis (that is, you
get separate numbers for your exit pops, upsells, otos and
emails, and not something consolidated).
Anyway, this is what I used in the past and it got the
job done. I may hire that api programmer and go back to it.
2. Automateyourwebsite.com
Has built in tracking that actually solves this mess for
you. That's one outstanding feature of it.
3. pixeltrakk.com
Justin, I love your program. But bro, 7 pixels?
Really? Man. That's tough. I got more upsells and otos
than that, not to mention the 48 email sequence.
Still, this is a really awesome program and if you have
a simple funnel, check it out. Pretty darned cool.
4. Online programs
My friend Daegan has a service called EZ track or something
like that. I just slaughtered the name and don't have time
to go look it up.
My dad had surgery and I'm rushing to try to go see what
the doc has to say.
But you got other services like hypertracker, linktrackr
and so forth. Compared to modern needs, they all have
gaping holes in my opinion.
They could be about 1000x better. Honestly, they could.
Or that's my opinion. Still, they DO get the basic job
done, and there aren't a lot of alternatives. The good
news is the monthly fees are LOW. Extremely resaonasble
on the price.
But let's see you try to track END-TO-END from an ad
TO the offer, upsells, OTO's, download page ads, exit
pops, entrance pops, subscriptions and email sequences
from those, TO emails to non-buyers who opted in to emails
to BUYERS.
And you're telling me YOUR program can do that? And do
it dynamically instead of requiring 79 accurately placed
tracking pixels and 160 redirect links?
Yeah, freaking right.
5. Power tools like cpv lab
I get a headache thinking about trying to get my
staff to use this correctly without mucking up the
tracking.
But it's the only real power tool I know of that can track
a whole funnel.
Amazing tool. But dang, you got more tracking pixels than
a hospital has patients ringing their nurse button.
Whew. Every thing you're tracking has I believe a redirect
link plus a code snippet to track direct traffic plus
a pixel to use to track the sale. And that has to be done
for otos, upsells, exit and entrance pops, download page
ads, all customer emails and prospect emails.
That' a full time job is what that is.
And there is no way to have it all done automatically with
dynamic variables.
6. Affiliate Links
This is a HORRIBLE option.
Yet I BET this is what many marketers do. They create an
affiliate link that does GOOD tracking AND tracks back
end sales -- AND OVERWITES their resellers and associates
cookies and steals sales from them.
This is a TERRIBLE option. But it's about the ONLY
tracking that accurately tracks back end sales without
placing pixels and stuff.
7. Google Analytics
First of all, they just installed a limit of 100 accounts
on their system. Or maybe this has been in place awhile.
Second, creating tracking links in it sucks.
Third, Google already knows the text of your voice mails
what you search for online, what your emails say, and
where you go via your Android phone. Do you ALSO want them
to know your ad results?
Really?
That way they can charge you even more for the clicks you
don't get 'cause they banned you from adwords and youtube
ads anyway. But I mean, if they hadn't, you COULD
theoretically then pay more!
Here's the TRUTH: There is virtually NO end-to-end
tracking in Internet marketing today. Wrapping up this
wacked out ezine issue.
Before you fall into the deeps of despair, change your
political persuasion, become a monk or isolate
yourself forever in an Amish community without computers
or cars, here's a bit of sanity.
Adtrackz is good enough as are hypertracker, linktraker
(I ain't spelling that right).
All of 'em are halfway good.
None pretty much track end to end, although I'm sure some
solutions like 1shopping or others that are closed systems
can do that.
I think that is the big selling point (at a big price tag)
for systems like Hubspot and others on the high end.
For us down-and-dirty online marketers, tracking a whole
funnel isn't a walk in the park.
So you kinda cobble together your systems and make due.
What I'm saying is hypertracker, adtrackz, easy tracker
pro, cpvlab, prosper202 -- they ALL can somewhat get the
job done but none are perfect by any stretch of the
imagination (or any other part of your anatomy).
Still, ANY TRACKING is better than no tracking. And
that's the big lesson here.
And whatever time you spend to learn how cookies work,
how those little strings in the address bar work and some
of this techy stuff -- yeah, it isn't a cakewalk BUT
imho it's time well spent.
Either that, or create a big ticket webinar, buy traffic
and go drink your caffeine free coke by the pool (but
with an umbrella) stacking your paper.
Really, the choice is yours.
For my two cents, I'll probably end back up on adtrackz
after I con my brother into learning the Infusion api,
or I fork over a 1/2 a G or a G to some API dude to fix
it all up for me.
Oh, one last thing. To be fair to Infusion, only the
shopping cart has the problem I do. Their order forms DO
pass data. But I don't use them.
Go figure.
Have a happy weekend. And remember to grab our 17 buck
killer graphics tricks and secrets product. Lisa spent
2 1/2 weeks researching it and creating it.
And I dare say there are some goodies in it you'll 100%
use if you do ANY online marketing at ALL.
http://www.marlonsanders.com/graphicsolution
Best wishes,
Marlon