In this guide, you will learn how to configure PPC tracking in Affelios using Google Tag Manager (GTM). Pay-per-click (PPC) tracking is a critical aspect of digital marketing strategies that focus on paid advertising campaigns, by integrating Affelios with GTM, marketers can seamlessly track affiliate conversions, attribute them to specific PPC campaigns, and optimize their overall marketing strategy.
The importance of PPC tracking can be understood through several key points:
Performance Measurement: It allows for the real-time tracking of metrics like clicks, impressions, and conversions, crucial for assessing the return on investment (ROI).
Campaign Optimization: Insights from tracking enable advertisers to optimize ads, keywords, and budgets for better performance.
Budget Efficiency: Effective tracking helps allocate budgets more efficiently, directing resources to high-performing ads and reducing spend on underperformers.
Audience Insights: It provides valuable data on audience behavior, helping tailor future campaigns to meet target preferences.
Competitive Edge: Continuous optimization based on tracking data can provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Keyword and Content Insights: Understanding which keywords and ad content drive conversions informs strategy refinement.
ROI and Profitability: By comparing ad costs against revenue from conversions, PPC tracking ensures campaigns contribute positively to financial goals.
Configuring Google Tag Manager
This guide assumes that Google Tag Manager has already been integrated with your site.
To start tracking PPC with Google Tag Manager, you'll first need to enable parallel tracking for your brand in Affelios. You can do this by first clicking on brands, then selecting "Edit Brand" under the actions menu.
The next step is to scroll down, and enable parallel tracking.
You will need the code snippet from above, so go ahead and copy the code snippet to your clipboard.
The next step is to create a new tag within Google Tag Manager, so begin by clicking "Add a new Tag" from the Tag Manager dashboard.
You'll want to first give your new tag a name, we've decided to name it "Affelios Tracker" in this example. The next step is to click on the Tag Configuration box, at which point you will be presented with an option menu on the right hand side of the screen, from here you'll want to select "Custom HTML Tag."
With this next step, you're going to need to paste the parallel tracking code snippet for your brand that was copied from earlier in this process.
Once you've finished copying over the code, you can save and continue. The next step is to select a trigger. This trigger will tell Google Tag Manager when to trigger the script above, the recommended approach is to select the "All Pages" trigger.
After completing the steps above, click the "Save" button to the top right of the page to save your new Tag.
Reminder: You'll need to submit and publish your new Tag for any of the changes to take effect.
That's it, you're done configuring Google Tag Manager, the next step is to ensure that the tracking URLs are setup correctly.
Configuring the Tracking URLs
You can configure a tracking URL for parallel tracking by ensuring the tracking template used is set to "Parallel" when retrieving a link for a specific tracker.
By default, the google URL template is selected. You may also select "custom" which will provide you with an input field to type in your own custom value if the provided URL templates do not fit your use-case.