Tips and Tools

Tips for Monitoring Your Traffic
How Do I Install Conversion Tracking?
How Do I Enable Tracking URLs?
How Do I Interpret My Tracking URLs?
How Do I Opt-In To Receive Traffic From Other Continents?

Tips for Monitoring Your Traffic

As an online advertiser, you're probably concerned about traffic quality issues such as surges in clicks. Our sophisticated Click Protection System is your first line of defense to catch click fraud. But it's also a good idea to monitor your own traffic, which you can do with Yahoo's tools. Here are some tips to help your efforts:

Review Your Web Server Logs to Identify Click Patterns
Use Tracking URLs to Identify Traffic Sources
Use Third-Party Software or Tools to Help Analyse Your Web Server Logs
Calculate Key Metrics to Ensure Traffic Quality
Submit a Click Inquiry

Review Your Web Server Logs to Identify Click Patterns
You have information on your web server logs that can help you detect irregular click patterns. Web server logs are files created by a web server that record click activities from all visitors, including those from your Yahoo! Sponsored Search campaigns. Some information that web logs contain includes the site a user came from, the amount of time a user spends on your site, and the pages users visit within your site. This information, combined with click data, can help you recognise when user behavior doesn't follow typical patterns.
Use Tracking URLs to Identify Traffic Sources
A tracking URL is extra text added to the end of the normal web address that tells you what site a visitor comes from. To help you identify invalid clicks or click fraud when you review your web server logs, we recommend that you have a tracking URL specific to your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns.
Use Third-Party Software to Analyse Your Traffic
Many companies use third-party software programs to analyse the data from their server logs and classify their overall traffic quality. Yahoo!'s Application Program Interface (API) allows specially programmed tools and third-party software to work directly with Yahoo's software and systems. For more information, ask your web master or Internet service provider.
Calculate Key Metrics to Ensure Traffic Quality
Look at the average number of clicks you typically receive on a single day, and take notice of substantial increases. Of course, an increase in either impressions or clicks may simply be a result of normal user activity, such as seasonal fluctuations in clicks or your ad's position in search results. We recommend that you monitor click patterns and volume over time to spot irregular click patterns.
Helpful tools for metric calculation are provided in the Traffic Quality Center:
- ROI Calculator for CPC - This calculator measures the ROI (return-on-investment) of a CPC (cost-per-click) campaign.
- ROI Calculator for CPM - This calculator measures the ROI of a CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) campaign.
Submit a Click Investigation
If you have further questions about detecting invalid clicks or click fraud or regarding specific clicks for which you've been billed, please contact the Yahoo! Search Marketing Customer Solutions department using the Support Request Form (a link to it is found on the top right of most pages in your account).
1. In the "Type of Inquiry" pull-down down menu, select "Traffic Quality."
2. Enter the following subject line "Click Investigation Request". In the email please include:
  - The date(s) of the click activity you would like investigated
  - The specific keyword(s) associated with the clicks.
3. Use the "Attachment" tab if you want to upload a screenshot or additional information, including your weblogs.
4. After you've completed the request, click the "Send" button to submit.
A Customer Solutions representative will contact you directly.

If you have an Account Manager, please contact them directly providing the information outlined in the above steps.

How Do I Install Conversion Tracking?

Understand Your Conversions and Traffic
A conversion is a completed transaction event on your site, such as purchasing a product, registering for a trade show, or downloading a document. One key way to measure your "traffic quality" is to monitor your conversions using a product like our Conversion-Only Analytics.

Why use Conversion-Only Analytics?
Our product, Conversion-Only Analytics, is designed to show you how many conversions result from the clicks generated by your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns. This feature is available to all of our advertisers. It's a simple method to both monitor your traffic quality and optimise your budget.

Conversion-Only Analytics:

Captures conversion data at all levels in your account.
Helps track "assists," when a keyword contributes to a conversion that was credited to a different keyword or a different marketing tactic.
Lets you test and evaluate campaign performance.
Establishes baseline conversion rates for your campaigns, which will help you identify unusual traffic. It'll also help you learn which ads may be under-performing and how to better allocate your budget.
Offers data that will help to identify and analyse other metrics such as your revenue, CPA (cost-per-action), and ROAS (return-on-advertising-spend).

How to Install Conversion-Only Analytics

Follow the five steps below to activate Conversion-Only Analytics:

Log into your account.
From the Administration tab, select the Analytics link.
Click the "Enable Analytics" button.
In the Conversion Only panel, select "Constant Average Value" or "Dynamic Value:"
- Constant Average Value: A fixed revenue value to be used with each conversion. For example, if you offer leads only, and a lead is worth £15, you would insert "£15"
- Dynamic Value: Dynamically updates the revenue amount for each transaction completed on your web site. For example, if you are an online retailer and offer a variety of products, the dynamic value will capture the value of each product you sell.
Copy the tag-a small piece of HTML code-and paste it onto the confirmation page on your site.

How Do I Enable Tracking URLs?

How to Enable Tracking URLs Step-by-Step
You can better understand the sources of your traffic and whether you are receiving an unusual amount of traffic by using tracking URLs. Tracking URLs can be typed in manually when you create your ads, or our tracking URLs system can generate them for you.

Also, there are sometimes discrepancies in clicks reported by third-party tracking tools and those reported by Yahoo! Search Marketing. With tracking URLs in place, clicks recorded in your server logs are easier to match with the numbers that we provide.

To enable tracking URLs:

Log into your account.
From the Administration tab, select "Tracking URLs."
Click "Tracking URLs on."
Your URLs will be appended with information that allows you to determine traffic by keyword, match type and raw search query.

Once your tracking URLs are installed, they can provide you with traffic source information.

How Do I Interpret My Tracking URLs?

A tracking URL is extra text at the end of the normal web address that tells you what site a visitor comes from. To help you identify invalid or fraudulent clicks when you review your web server logs, we recommend that you have a tracking URL specific to your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns.

Source Tracking:
The presence of a tracking URL signifies that the visitor arrived at your site as a result of your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign.
http://www.electronics-planet.com/television?OVRAW=buy%20plasma%20television&OVKEY=plasma%20television&OVMTC=advanced
The "%20" characters signify a space between the elements of the tracking URL.
Raw Search Query Tracking:
The first element of the tracking URL (OVRAW) denotes the raw search query, or exactly what the user typed in the search box.
OVRAW=buy%20plasma%20television
The raw query is "buy plasma television."
Keyword Tracking:
The second element of the tracking URL (OVKEY) denotes the keyword associated with the raw search query.
OVKEY=plasma%20television
The results returned to the user were based on the keyword "plasma television."
Match Type & Product Tracking:
The third element of the tracking URL (OVMTC) denotes the match type of the ad that was clicked by the user. This enables you to understand how many visitors come from standard and advanced matches or Content Match for any given keyword.
&OVMTC=advanced
This particular result was served based on Advanced Match.

How Do I Opt in to Intercontinental Traffic?

Blocked Continents
When you opened your UK account or upgraded to the new Sponsored Search platform, the Blocked Continents feature in your account was defaulted to exclude traffic from continents other than Europe. If traffic from other continents is not important to your business, you may find that this capability helps improve your overall conversion rate.

If traffic from other continents is important to your business, you can choose to change your continent blocking settings. To do so:

Log into your upgraded account and click on the "Administration" tab.
Click the edit button within the Account General Information panel
Deselect the check boxes next to continents from which you would like to receive traffic.