Advertising is the key to surviving and growing any successful business these days. Whether or not you write your own copy, or pay for somebody else's' skills, how do you know how much you should spend, or whether your adverts, google ads, articles written, are doing you any good?

Are you like an archer who fires his arrow somewhere in the right direction of the target, and doesn't check where it went before he fires off the next one?

Or are you like the archer firing silver tipped arrows, making every shot count?

Unlike 'off-line' advertising, its so easy to measure your work virtually instantly, not wait for a month before a magazine hits the bookstores. or even worse, wait for the next annual issue of Yellow Pages.

Advertising is very much like this. So many people, especially proprietors of small businesses, concoct an advertising budget, and then spend the money 'where everybody else does'. They have absolutely no idea where their business is coming from, so how on earth can they fine tune this, and make sure that every penny spent on advertising 'Hits The Target' or very close to it?

The answer is simple - Tracking.

Advertising is the mantra for a successful business today. You spend so many dollars on advertisings. How would you know that a particular advertisement is working for you or not? The process to track the performance of an advertisement is known as ad tracking.

By ad tracking you get to know the revenues earned via particular advertisement campaign in the business. Advertising is not just confined to a display ad in a magazine. It encompasses all on-line and off-line activities including articles, email campaigns, banner ads, pay per click adverts, and so forth. Every one of which need tracking.

Advertising is not just confined to a display ad in a magazine. It encompasses all on-line and off-line activities including articles, email campaigns, banner ads, pay per click adverts, and so forth. Every one of which need tracking. Mostly your advertisements are in the form of click and buy banners. You post your links to your own websites and sell your product. Another form of advertisement is email marketing.

Also, writing your own articles, or getting them written is a massive and low cost way to get leads.

Yes - low cost.

Articles can be produced for next to nothing - and are proven to be highly effective. Ad tracking will enable you to make out how many emails you send were actually opened and read. It will also enable you to see where your article responses are coming from.

It is important for you to track your advertisements for further research and studies. If your advertisement or link is not popular, you will come to know about it through ad tracking. After knowing the performance and effectiveness of your advertisement you can re-plan your strategy for advertising.

Ad tracking really must be done for every sort of advertisement. You can develop an ad tracking system for email marketing, site links, pay per click ads, articles, banner ads and surveys.

You will come to know how many people are taking part in your survey through a proper ad tracking system. It is also possible to recognize the exact number of people reading your articles on a website.

Too many people just can not be bothered. They consider ad tracking as a waste of their time, but then they continue to spend their time and money writing adverts or articles, or paying to get them created and published.

To me that is akin to pouring hard-earned money down the drain. Listen - Glug Glug Glug - What a waste!

I suppose that I am spoilt, because I have learned how to create effective adverts, powerful headlines, and have taught myself how to write excellent articles on virtually any topic. I actually publish a whole range of copyrighting services for other companies.

(I take it I'm not boring you so far? )

Nothing pleases me much more ( apart from counting the money) than to publish an article ( which is just an advert in disguise) and then finding that it has been picked up in a whole range of ezines and search engines.

And how can I find that out if I don't track all of my work? There are only so many hours in a day, and I would rather concentrate what I do on what I know makes me money - so I track it.

You can hire an ad tracking agency for this purpose. Such agencies provide you an ad tracking service for a particular amount of monthly or yearly payments. However, you can not rely completely on services of these agencies.

Experts have advised that you must have an ad tracking system of your own. You can develop the system by using ad tracking software. The software is installed and connected to all your advertisement links. It tracks even the smallest activity related to your ad.

Have an ad tracking system to keep a track of the sources of business generated from your advertising revenues. Once you start doing it you will wonder why you didn't start tracking earlier - and when you get the call from a magazine for a special rate or special placement, you can look at your records, and make the right decision based on what you have achieved in the past.