Is Your Ad Tracking Data Accurate? Tips to Ensure Quality Metrics

If you are running paid ad campaigns, collecting and assessing advertisement metrics is of utmost importance. Without tracking and collecting ad tracking data, you are running your campaigns with blinders on. Google generated approximately $55 billion in advertising revenue during Q3 2022. 

The average Click-Through Rate (CTR) for Google Ads is 2%. Getting started with effective tracking of ads can be a bit challenging at the first. The number of metrics to select from can be daunting. As a knowledgeable digital marketer, you just can’t set up ads and leave them.

Digital ads need to be evaluated, monitored, and optimized periodically. From analyzing advertising cookies to tracking URLs, every marketer should be aware of the right metrics. With more than 63% of people clicking on Google ads, it is more crucial than ever to track ad data. Here are some tips to help you ensure quality metrics while tracking ad data.

Why is Ad Tracking Data Important?

The end game of every brand in this competitive marketplace is to harness growth. For digital marketers, this implies that their advertising ROI should generate positive results. Do you know that the ad revenue of Facebook is all set to increase to $76 billion in 2024?

Analyzing your Google and Facebook ad metrics is a suitable start. You should be aware of each metric to measure, evaluate, and compare your campaigns. Paid search ads can increase the awareness of a brand by almost 80%.

Therefore, ad tracking should be an integral part of your marketing operations. Ad tracking refers to the process of collecting user insights and data related to your brand’s online advertisement campaigns. The sheer amount of data from a mobile device can be challenging to assess. That’s why deciding on the essential KPIs will help make reporting straightforward.

The Significance of Technical Tracking Tools

When the context is about tracking the ad data, technical tools are pretty essential. With technical tools, you will be tracking URLs and cookies. Tracking pixel becomes easier with technical tools. Let’s explore each tool comprehensively.

Tracking Pixels

The ad spending in banner advertising is expected to rise to $172.6 billion in 2023. That’s why using tracking pixels is necessary. This tool is a 1px by 1px picture, which you can place in a banner or email ad.

When the tool starts, it transmits a signal to the publisher. The signal tells you that the user is initiating specific types of actions on the page. With tracking pixels, you can also collect third-party data about the user’s activity. Tracking pixels are pretty useful in assessing the success of Google Ads and banner ads.

Tracking URLs

A tracking URL refers to the URL of a normal page from your website with a tracking token attached. When a user clicks on the URL integrated with UTM parameters, it transmits a signal to your ad tracking tool.

Tracking URLs make it easy for you to assess the accuracy of ad data while running the same campaigns on two websites. Tracking URLs are a great tool to measure the number of visits, conversions, and leads in PPC campaigns.

Advertising Cookies

Almost 73% of marketers report they’re not well-prepared for the deprecation of third-party cookies. But that shouldn’t mean you can’t track cookies. Cookies can assist you in getting insights into user behavior and optimizing advertising revenue. It also helps with the assessment of behavioral advertising.

After getting consent from users, you can use cookies to customize the user experience. The first-party cookies can also help you gather information about the browser configuration of users. You should be using cookies for retargeting your users with advertisements for specific products users have searched.

Social and Search Ad Tracking Tools- What should you Know?

You can boost your efforts associated with ad tracking data with social and search ad tracking solutions. Do you know that ads posted on social platforms like Facebook reach 34% of the global population? Moreover, 60% of people with smartphones have contacted a business through search platforms.

In other words, you should be leveraging social and search ads to streamline your company’s visibility online. Here are some of the social and search ad tracking platforms to use for ensuring ad data accuracy.

Facebook Pixel

Facebook advertisers can use an array of ad tracking strategies to optimize and analyze data. To track mobile and desktop ads, you can use Facebook pixel. When the user initiates some action on the page integrated with tracking pixel, it will transmit the information to you.

The information will be transmitted to your events manager account on Facebook. You can use the information from pixel to develop custom ads for audiences in future campaigns. Moreover, Instagram is a part of Facebook. You can use Facebook pixel in Instagram and Facebook for tracking ad data.

DoubleClick Ad Tracking and its Efficacy

Modern-day marketers are using DoubleClick ad tracking to ensure quality metrics. It became a part of Google in 2008. DoubleClick is an ad serving and management platform. With DoubleClick, you can track, manage, and operate ad campaigns.

More than 12 million websites operate ad campaigns as a part of Google’s AdSense network. Digital ad publishers leverage DoubleClick to rent space for advertisements on websites. Google analyzes first-party cookies and third-party cookies to help online publishers track ad data.

To track ads with Google, you need to open a Google Marketing Platform account. An average business will spend $10,000 to $30,000 per month for Google Ads in 2023. Therefore, integrating DoubleClick ad tracking is the best strategy for tracking and data.

Tracking Total Website Traffic

To fine-tune tracking of ad data, you should be analyzing the total traffic of your website. The total website traffic is the number of unique visitors that arrive at your website after clicking on ads. The total website traffic comprises the following components.

• Referral: It refers to those visitors who find your website by clicking a link through another website. 
• Organic: Visitors who find your website through organic search listings. 
• Social: Visitors who come from social networks.
• Paid Search Ads: Visitors who come to your website by clicking on ads at the top or bottom of the search engines. 

Get Quality Metrics with Accurate Advertisement Tracking Data

Without monitoring your advertisement metrics, you can’t recognize which ads to pause or run. With the right metrics and quantifiable data, you can streamline your advertisement ROI. Competitive tracking of ads will help you analyze the efficacy of campaigns.

You can explore how the visitors are interacting with your brand in the digital space with cookie and pixel tracking. You can now generate maximum results from your digital ads with accurate ad tracking data. Leverage the features of the ad tracking tools mentioned above to get the best out of your ad campaigns.