Track & Test

How to Track Different Advertising Campaigns

Give each campaign—and ideally each important creative or placement—its own labelled link. A simple naming convention makes later comparison far easier.

Start with the diagnosis

Measurement reduces guesswork, but no report is perfect. Use consistent definitions and combine several signals rather than worshipping one number.

Before changing the page or campaign, separate what you know from what you are assuming. Check the source, the promise, the destination and the desired action in that order. This prevents a visible symptom from being mistaken for the cause.

What to do next

  1. Use names such as channel-campaign-creative.
  2. Record launch dates, spend and destination.
  3. Test every redirect before the campaign starts.

How to judge the result

Write down what you expect before the test so the result cannot quietly redefine success. Compare like with like and give the test enough time to reveal a useful pattern. Keep the original version as a reference rather than changing everything at once.

Watch out: Changing labels halfway through makes comparisons harder.

A simple working checklist