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Track a Special Entry Page
Christine Burke - Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

Q: I’m using special landing pages to track certain campaigns.  However, I am having trouble getting my tracker to recognize the campaign visitors.  How can I fix that?

A: I assume that you want to use a special entry page because the campaign visitors cannot be recognized by their referring domains.  They may come in from a variety of different referrers, or, the referrer from which they arrive is not unique to a single campaign.  Pay-per-click campaigns are a typical example of campaigns that can only be recognized by their entry pages.

What are the ways to define a campaign by entry page?  The most common way that we use at Blizzard is to append a special code to the home page URL.  The visitor is landing on your usual home page, but with a special code tacked on to the address.  Example: “www.myeleganthotel.com?source=yahoosearch”.  To make this work, you must 1) use this exact link syntax in your advertising resource, so that the visitor will click on it, and 2) set up your tracker to recognize this campaign.

If this approach meets your needs, that’s great.  However, people do try more complicated approaches in order to enhance their marketing intelligence.  For an intriguing example, read on!

When online visitors convert to phone reservations

What about your paid search visitors who decide to call instead of booking online?  They provide revenue, but from the web site’s perspective, they have simply exited and not converted to customers.  One of the more sophisticated ad tracking efforts that I have seen uses different toll-free phone numbers to track telephone reservations from four major campaign categories.  For example, when a visitor clicks on a paid listing from Yahoo Search, he will land on an entry page that is unique to that campaign.  It is not the home page, but instead it’s a new page that was created specially for this purpose.  Next, he is immediately re-directed to the home page, but with a twist.  The home page is generated dynamically, showing a toll-free phone number that is unique to the campaign.

This adds a new dimension to your conversion analysis for each campaign.  You can use Blizzard Tracker to analyze the online conversions and revenues from each paid search or banner campaign.  Then, you can use the different toll-free numbers to track the results that come in over the phone.

The problem with redirects

Unfortunately, the picture is not all rosy.  It’s very important for the tracking script to execute on the initial landing page.  If the redirect is too fast, the script won’t run.  The tracker will only receive data after your visitor arrives on the home page.  Then, it will record the home page as the entry page.  Your special entry page data will be lost!

Similarly, important data about the referring domain will not be captured.  The special landing page, because it is not tracked, will appear to be the referrer.  Your Referring Domains report will show lots of referrals from your own site, and fewer than expected from the search engines.

So, to answer the initial question, you will need to make sure that the landing page a) has a tracking script and b) doesn’t redirect too fast.  You will need to test the page to make sure that it tracks.  If it redirects before you can even see it, it’s too fast!

Optimization concerns

You should check with your Blizzard Promotion Specialist or Account Manager before creating lots of different landing pages.  (By “landing page”, I mean real pages, rather than your home page with a special tracking URL.)  There may be issues that could affect your rankings in the search engines.

For more information about Blizzard Tracker, please visit www.blizzardtracker.com or call toll-free 888-840-5893.

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