Tracking URLs are an effective free tool that you can use to track your results. They are easy to activate and are designed to provide detailed information to advertisers who analyse their web server logs or third-party tracking solutions

A tracking URL is extra text at the end of the normal URL that indicates where the visitor came from. For example:

• Using tracking URLs is one of the most common techniques to associate where visitors came from with what they do on your site.
• Tracking URLs can be typed in manually, or you can use Yahoo! Search Marketing’s tracking URLs feature, which provides URLs dynamically generated by the Yahoo! Search Marketing system.
• Setting up tracking URLs alone will not enable you to track behavior and actions; you must also configure your tracking system to monitor and report on these URLs.

Benefits

Implementing tracking URLs and understanding your source of traffic will allow you to:

• Better allocate your budget.
• Improve your advertising results.
• Understand where your expenditure is being spent.

How it works

To enable tracking URLs:

1. Log into your account.
2. From the Administration tab, select “Tracking URLs.”
3. Clicking the “Tracking URLs On” button.
4. Your URLs will be appended with information that allows you to determine traffic by keyword, match type and raw search query.
• Source tracking: The mere presence of a tracking URL signifies that the visitor came as a result of your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign.
• Raw search query tracking: The first element of the tracking URL denotes the raw search query, i.e., exactly what the user typed in the search box. The %20 characters signify a space between the words around the %20; for example, “buy plasma television” will look as follows: “buy%20plasma%20television.”
• Keyword tracking: The second element of the tracking URL denotes the bidded keyword associated with the raw search query.
• Product and match type tracking: The third element of the tracking URL denotes the match type of the listing that was clicked on by the searcher. This enables you to understand how many visitors are coming from the Standard and Advanced match types, as well as Content Match for any given keyword.

Tracking URLs may not work for the following reasons:

• Conflict with existing URLs: Your URL may already contain one of the default parametre labels we use.
• URL length: Adding tracking URLs to your existing URLs may exceed the URL length your system can handle.
• Formatting: Your URL may require non-standard formatting to work with your system. For example, your system may require a “#” instead of a “?” to indicate the start of the search query string.