500 dollar adwords tip

[affhelper]

Today I learned something new!

Anyway, this is what happened...

I set up an adwords campaign today and had a little
redirect for my destination url where I was rotating urls
for some of my salespages.

it looked something like this: http://mydomain.com/rd/

I tested it in the browser and it worked fine. It wasn't
a regular redirect though. It was through a script that
I installed to track the clicks.

Anyway, I activated my campaign and started getting clicks
After about $500 spent I logged in to my statcounter account
to see how the traffic was acting on the site.

I didn't see any of the visitors that Google has sent me according
to the campaign stats! What the heck?!

I couldn't figure it out what was happening until I logged in to
my server to see the actual server stats.

Well, I noticed that Google adds this to each url clicked from their
search results and network: /?gclid=and some numbers here

Then I added that line to my redirect and found the reason why
I didn't see any visits. The damn redirect wouldn't work if that
code was added at the end of the url!!!! The only thing the visitors
saw was my login page to the script .... LOL

So I lost $500 and learned that from now on I will always click
my own ad after setting up the campaign to see if it works.

[affiliateppc]

Affhelper,

That hurts :-) But listen to this:

When I started with affiliate marketing and PPC, I spent close to $2000 and made no sales. Nothing new for a noob. But I finally figured out why I had no sales

I was linking directly to the merchant without my affiliate link!

I did not know any better.

So we learn.

AffiliatePPC

[affhelper]

Originally Posted by affiliateppc

[B]I was linking directly to the merchant without my affiliate link!

LOL ... I have never heard of that before

[Avery Berman]

Originally Posted by affiliateppc

Affhelper,

That hurts :-) But listen to this:

When I started with affiliate marketing and PPC, I spent close to $2000 and made no sales. Nothing new for a noob. But I finally figured out why I had no sales

I was linking directly to the merchant without my affiliate link!

I did not know any better.

So we learn.

AffiliatePPC

OUCH! Now that's a bad one! Never thought anyone could be so... newbish (Just kidding )

[Mike Shain]

Wow that's inconvenient...

Yeah you always gotta test whether you are doing PPC or adding a page to your site.

An expensive lesson, but one I think will help someone somewhere when they read this.

- Netpiddler

[LivingCovers]

Couldn't help not asking guys,
does google still accept direct linking?
Is it still allowed?
Thanks.

[KirkMcD]

Originally Posted by affhelper

Well, I noticed that Google adds this to each url clicked from their
search results and network: /?gclid=and some numbers here

That is the Analytics tracking code. You can turn off that feature, but it will affect all of your campaigns.

Originally Posted by LivingCovers

does google still accept direct linking?

It has never NOT been allowed.

[Chri5123]

Yes I always test my ads on Adwords by clicking the example ad in each ad group.

My first experiences of adwords were not good but not as bad as some.

I bought a "data entry job make millions" product from Clickbank years ago and it told me that I could make millions of dollars every week just writing Google Adwords.

Funny enough it suggested starting with their product so I did and realized I would not be on the first page until I spent 30p per click about $0.60.

So I left it for a few hours and went back and realized i had spent £50 without a sale.

That is when I realized things are never THAT easy!

Glad you got it sorted, expensive lessons!

All the best

Chris