by: Laura Kneiss
You don’t have to spend money to track your ads effectively. There is a free alternative that I have found to be very successful.
If you are working on the Internet, but don't have a lot of extra funds available, you can save some money by using a free adtracker instead of paying to download one or even paying a monthly fee like some services require.
One free ad tracking option is BusinessWorldList.com
The site is actually a safelist that you can subscribe to. Once you subscribe, you have access to the member’s area. From there, you can click on the tracking link and it will allow you to enter two different urls that you want to track.
The great thing about BusinessWorldList is that you don’t need to have your own website. If you are a member of an affiliate program, you can enter your affiliate url. It will automatically create a new link for you to use. For example, the url that I wanted to track was: http://www.workinathome.50megs.com and it created this tracking link: http://businessworldlist.com/cgi-bin/ads.cgi/workinathome1000 This is the link that I would now use when promoting my site.
One problem that I have found, however, is that the tracking link is rather lengthy, so I like to use a service like tinyurl.com. With tinyurl you simply enter the long url and it will create it into something shorter. For example, I entered my businessworldlist tracking link : http://businessworldlist.com/cgi-bin/ads.cgi/workinathome1000 and it shortened it to: http://tinyurl.com/lyue
The good thing about using tinyurl to shorten your businessworldlist tracking link is that your original url will show up in the browser. In my case, the browser will show my original website: http://www.workinathome.50megs.com.
No one will know that you are using an ad tracker to track your ads, and it elimates the problem of a long and hard to remember url.
BusinessWorldList is a great tool because it shows the websites where your visitors are coming from, not just the number of clicks your site receives.
It also shows other pertinent information such as: the browser the referrer used, their operating system, and their IP address. In addition, you can also see the number of unique clicks your site receives. This has helped me to get a better idea of how many unique visitors I get a day versus the total number of hits to my site.
Whether you are just starting out, or if you have years of experience working on the Internet, a free ad tracker is a great alternative that can help you effectively track your ads and increase your success.