ADxAD & Keitaro. How to choose a tracker for affiliate marketing.

In order to optimise traffic work and minimise the cost of advertising campaigns, advertisers need to use special tools that help automate processes that are almost impossible to manage manually (especially when it comes to large amounts of traffic). Trackers should be used to quickly find ineffective ads, traffic sources, websites and commercials.

What are trackers?

A tracker is a special software that can be used to customise traffic flows and automate the collection and analysis of traffic data for all your advertising campaigns.

What are trackers used for?

Tracker is a necessary tool for working with traffic. It is used by arbitrageurs, marketers, advertisers and many other professionals.

The tracker solves several important tasks:

• Analysing the effectiveness of campaigns;
• Splitting and redirecting traffic according to certain parameters;
• Generating reports on campaigns;
• Ensuring bindings and landing pages;
• Performing A/B tests to determine the most effective settings.

Tracker functionality allows you to lower the cost of buying ads, which helps you quickly change bids and ad themes to drive more conversions. And, most importantly, trackers help hide statistics from other networks by creating templates for landing pages, etc.

To choose the right tracker, you first need to learn about the different types of trackers.

What are trackers used for?

• Server-based
• Cloud

Server-based trackers.

They work on the intermediaries' own servers.

They have their own advantages:

• Full data control by the server and the ability to customise traffic protection;
• Unlimited traffic;
• All data is stored by the intermediary, which ensures complete privacy.

But there are also disadvantages:

• You have to have a server (your own or rented) and know how to work with the server;
• The server is tied to the place where it is located. So, if you work with different GEOs, the responsiveness of the software can drop a lot.

To work with such a tracker, you need to purchase a licence. Due to the data center lock-in, if you work with different GEOs, you need to buy more than one licence and open trackers on servers in two continents — America and Asia.

Cloud trackers.

Cloud trackers are online services where all data is stored in the cloud and the advertiser only needs to set up the tracker itself. A cloud solution covers any GEO, so there are no problems with the speed of the software.

Advantages of such a tracker:

• Automatic server selection according to GEO;
• High response speed;
• Quick startup and setup of the software;
• No need to delve into technical details.

The disadvantage of such a tracker is its high cost. Usually, cloud trackers form tariffs based on the number of actions per month.

How trackers work: how to choose the best one?

To understand how to choose the best tracker for you, you need to clarify some important questions:

• Understand what budget you can allocate for a tracker;
• What type of tracker do you need: server-based or cloud-based? Check out GEO, which you will be working with to make a decision;
• Find out about the tracker market, choose your top trackers and compare their price with the amount you can afford;
• Test a few trackers to find out which one suits you best;
• And start working with the most effective tracker.

The ADxAD team recommends testing the following trackers:

Keitaro

Our personal favourite and the best quality tracker is the self-hosted Keitaro tracker. Keitaro is cheaper than a cloud tracker — prices start at €49 per month and a server can be connected along with Keitaro support. The tracker has the best possible settings, a simple and clear interface and supports literally any website. The platform offers more than a hundred affiliate templates for a faster connection. Moreover, Keitaro allows you to create multi-level reports, split traffic by parameters, protect landing pages from bots, set up cloaking and freely moderate ad networks

In the tracker you have access to:

• A/B testing for landing pages;
• More than 30 metrics to generate reports;
• Philtres by GEO, device, provider, etc;
• Grouping by specific parameters;
• And many more features.

Keitaro has prepared a nice bonus for all ADxAD advertisers! We will tell you about it at the end of the article.

Binom

A cloud-based tracker with an intuitive interface. One of the main advantages is the high speed of the platform, which generates traffic reports with a large number of set parameters in a very short time. In addition, the platform is characterized by a high user support response speed and competent help.

Voluum

Another cloud-based tracker that integrates with multiple advertising platforms and links all elements of an advertising campaign.

It quickly collects detailed data about visitors and conversions and helps discover the most profitable combinations of traffic, ads, landing pages and offers.

OctoTracker

Tracker with cloud and server-side technologies. OctoTracker also has advanced analytics: reports, filters, traffic analysis, financial statistics. Features flexible TDS, easy integration, full lead status support and multi-currency capability.

Bonus of Keitaro Tracker for all ADxAD customers!

Together with our friends from Keitaro we are giving away 3 Expert licenses for one month! To participate in the raffle, subscribe to our LinkedIn page and leave a comment "I want a Keitaro Tracker" under this post. We will announce the results on 23 March!