In my 8 years consulting with small businesses on Internet marketing the tracking of the various programs has advanced substantially. In the early years, I talked to small businesses about the number of clicks that they had received from their Internet marketing programs. The response from many was, “I had 200 clicks last month but I have no idea how many of those clicks turned into sales." My response used to be, “tracking past the click is your responsibility - you can look at your website traffic and ask customers when they call or walk-in how they found you." In some cases I would create handy forms for the business which allowed them to capture that information in a more formal fashion and then it was the business owner’s responsibility to compile that information and measure which marketing programs were performing.

Well, that was then and this is now. The technology has advanced through the years and now we are able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. We can measure from the click to the visit to the contact (phone call or email) and most importantly to the sale. This allows you, the business owner, to focus on taking care of clients and growing your business instead of filling out forms and bothering your clients with by asking “where did you hear of us?" Now there is no need to ask that question since the phone calls can be recorded and you can simply listen to them to know what source is generating you new clients. In addition, with advanced search engine marketing programs the technology behind the scenes adapts to continually generate more contacts and better contacts so that the return on the investment improves over time. 

The Internet marketing industry has made significant improvements to tracking so make sure that you are taking full advantage of the technology available. Don't settle for clicks, take your program to the next level and reap the rewards with increased sales!