Coding your Advertising

Have you ever received an email message that said "Please send more information" and you have no idea at all what information the sender is requesting? Or wondered where a prospect found out about you and your product or service, or how a certain ad is performing for you? Here are some suggestions to help eliminate the "what information are they requesting" questions and to be able to track your ads so you can know what ones are working and what ones aren't.

When using an email address in your advertising you can code the address so you know where the prospect saw your ad. If you have your own domain, you may have unlimited aliases with your email account. If this is the case you can code your email address to reflect where you placed the ad or what information is being requested. For example when I place an ad in another newsletter for my newsletter the subscription address is PIP-News@ourlist.net?subject=ABC_ref.

This tells me that the subscriber came from a referral from ABC newsletter. By putting the ? at the end of the address and subject= the subject line is automatically filled in with whatever comes after it. You need to be sure not to have any spaces and put the mailto: at the beginning of the address.

When you are checking your logs do the majority of your visitors come from No Referrer? What's that? You don't check your logs....that is another article. You should have a good log tracker in order to tell what advertising avenues are working best for you and where your visitors are coming from.

This technique also works with urls. Put a ? with the coding after the web address. When you check your logs you will be able to tell where the visitor has come from. Here is an example of what the coding would look like: http://www.i-m-r-c.com?PIPNews. When I look at my logs I will be able to tell that the visitor has come from a link in PIP News.

Another way of coding is by using various front-end addresses. I can have an article archive and if someone wants to request an article, I can have the articles named Art1, Art2, etc. When I receive an email addressed to Art1@i-m-r-c.com I know the sender of the message is requesting the article I have associated with that address.

If you wish to code offline advertising you can have the address for requests for information using Dept. #s with a different dept. for each place you advertise with. When you receive mail inquiries you will know immediately where the
prospect saw your ad and you can track your responses. You can also do this with phone numbers. Have the prospect ask for a specific department when they call and you will know where they saw your ad by the department number. You will need to keep track of the coding you have used with each place you advertised.

These are only a few suggestions. By implementing these very easy steps into your marketing efforts you will have a better idea of how your ads are pulling for you, where your prospects are coming from, and what information they may be requesting without much effort at all.

About the Author

Pam Jones is the publisher of PIP News and PIP Quick Tips. She specializes in offering informative information and services that will keep you on the right track with your online marketing to help you explode your online profits. Visit the Internet Marketing Resource Center at http://www.i-m-r-c.com or find out about services available at http://www.profitpowerpromo.com





pam@profitpowerpromo.com
http://www.i-m-r-c.com