It's true! Repeatedly experienced marketers have learned that using a tracking link lowers the click through rate of any ad. If you think about it this does make sense. How often do you click through on a link that reads like a line of gibberish?
First and foremost, the internet is about trust. If you do not offer a link that at least appears "trustworthy" then many people aren't going to click. And ask yourself the hard question? Does a link filled with an odd sequence of letters and numbers appear trustworthy to you?
Another drawback to using a tracking url is that ezine ads often have a very long life -- often much longer than that of any tracking url or program. You don't want to lose out on the potential of a long-term link or future visitors because of your tracking url.
If you are able to use your main web site address or a subpage then it just appears so much more trustworthy. Plus you are more likely to catch people in the future who lost your original ad but NOW want to visit your site. They will never remember a complicated tracking url but may remember BoatsRus.com etc.
No matter how much you want to be able to promote your web site directly there is still that tricky question of being able to track click throughs. Well there is actually a simple (and free) way to do both.
You create a redirect page.
This way you can promote your main url and have a unique page to track clicks. In fact, you can even name your page something to make it even more clickworthy, such as boatsrus.com/classicboats.php .
You can create unique landing pages for any number of advertisements but this might be time consuming. It is far simpler to code that page with a redirect script that loads whatever sales landing page you choose.
Now you can track your clicks without worrying about losing customers due to unfriendly tracking urls. You will always have full control over the url so you can change the redirect destination at any time and if you ever choose to take it down the visitor will still land on your site. It is the perfect tracking system! It also works great for affiliate links.
