I am generally not a fan of pay-per-click (see my Perils of PPC article) as it can be a painfully expensive proposition for attorneys due to click fraud. Organic search will always provide a much better ROI for lawyers. However, if its managed correctly, it can be a source of qualified leads. To better manage PPC, you have to be able to track it. Anyone with a FindLaw site can differentiate PPC vs organic traffic as long as you add parameters to your PPC ad links.

Adding Parameters to your PPC ad Links

When the PPC manager writes the ad text, he or she is required to enter a Display URL and a Destination URL. The Display URL is the web address front end users see, the Destination URL is the actual web page users will land on when they click the add. The cool thing is that the front end users will still land on the correct page if we add the parameters – the main difference is that we’ll be able to track the source of traffic.

Please ask the 3rd Party vendor to generate URLs that include ad info. Here’s how:

1. Go to Google’s URL builder.
http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578&hl=en

2. Enter the URL of the website.
3. Fill in the Campaign Source (such as Google, Yahoo!/Overture), Campaign Medium (such as PPC, bannerad) and the Campaign Name.
4. Click on the Generate URL button.
5. Add the URL to the Destination URL field of the ad management console.
6. Repeat this process for all online paid ads.

The 3rd party vendor could choose to do the above steps manually instead of using this tool, but this tool is good for consistency purposes and compatibility with analytics tools.

It’s also a best practice to keep an Excel sheet of all the URLs generated for the paid ads, so that you can see how many campaigns you have running. This allows you to track the ads more effectively and efficiently. Please ask the 3rd Party vendor to send this to you.

*Special thanks to Lela Phommasouvanh, one of our senior search engine marketing specialists, on providing this information.