Referral tracking is something Linktrack does really well, but we get a lot of questions about it. In this post, I’m going to try and answer the top 3 most frequently asked questions for referral tracking.

1. What is the referrer field?

Any time you visit a web site (any web site) your browser passes a little bit of information about your request to the web site you’re visiting. This information includes things like your IP address, the browser you’re using, and your referrer information.

The referrer field contains information about the web site you just came from if it’s available. At Linktrack, we gobble up this data so you can view it and get an idea of where your traffic is coming from.

2. Why is the field blank sometimes?

When you visit a web site, you don’t have to include referrer information in your request, and a lot of times you don’t have any information to include even if you wanted to!

The most common reasons for a blank referrer field include:

• the address was typed in manually,
• the visitor clicked a link from their email program (like Microsoft Outlook),
• or the visitor is coming from a secured web page.

3. Why should I care about the referrer field?

If you’re using Linktrack, you probably want to know everything there is to know about the people clicking your tracking links. One of the most valuable bits of information is where they came from!

If you know that, then you can see which sources are sending you the most traffic and where you’re having the most success. You can use this information to narrow down your best referral sources, improve the efficiency of your marketing, etc.

Earlier today, I was asked to “Tell me a little bit about why your company stands out.” That’s a pretty standard question, but not one that we’ve addressed on the site. I hate to waste good content, so here’s my response:

Linktrack stands out because we offer a highly competitive analytics product with an easy to use user-interface. In addition to standard features (like vanity links, custom domains, etc.) we offer unique features like:

• Password protected links,
• Links that expire when you want them to,
• Email alerts when your links are clicked,
• Our unique Plus+ tracking feature,
• Public tracking pages
• and more

Our pricing philosophy is “unlimited everything” where you only pay for access to premium features. We don’t restrict you by number of links, how much you can track, etc. We offer an extremely versatile tool and give you the freedom to implement it however you choose.

We’ve been monitoring the update to v2.1 over the last few weeks, and it’s time to declare it an overwhelming success. Not only did we improve the user experience and add some highly anticipated features, but we achieved our primary goal of reducing the CPU utilization on our heavy lifting servers.

Here’s a snapshot showing the before and after CPU usage on one of our database servers:

The end result is a snappier response which is great for our users. It also means we’ve effectively increased our capacity without incurring any new costs (which as an owner is great for me).

For our Professional account holders, we’re adding the click2go.me custom domain name to our list of alternative domain names.

Alternative domain names let you use the Linktrack tracking service without using the linktrack.info domain name. This especially useful if you don’t want other people to know you’re using a tracking service.

Alternative domains are available to all Professional account holders when you make a link. Just look for the “Address” box and pick the one you want to use.

We recently expanded our API to assign passwords and keys for individual user accounts. What that means is that you can now make changes in your own account via our API without having to log in or even visit our site.

This comes in response to users who were interested in integrating our service with another program (TweetDeck for example).

To generate your own API key and see some example uses, log in to your account, click on the “Account” link and look for the API options.

We plan on expanding the API functionality very soon, so if you have any feature suggestions or feedback please let us know.

At Linktrack, a portion of our advertising dollars are spent on Google AdWords.  I’ve personally been an AdWords customer since they first started the program (for this and other projects) and have generally been satisfied with their product.

Recently, my account was placed in a mysterious “under review” status that resulted in a complete freeze of my entire AdWords account (no impressions, clicks, etc.) and no notification via email or status message that anything was wrong.  My only indication was a complete stop of all account activity on otherwise healthy and active campaigns.

After searching the internet for cases similar to mine, I discovered the “under review” scenario that a few other advertisers have experienced.  After reading several horror stories of accounts under indefinite review, I was worried that my account would never be re-activated and that AdWords would no longer be an advertising option.  I’ve since resolved the issue and am documenting my communication with Google to help other advertisers in a similar situation.

Since there was no indication from Google that something was wrong, I had to contact them.  Phone support for my account was unavailable, so I took the email route.  Here is the first response, received approximately 12-24 hours after my request:

Hello Keeton,

Thank you for your email. I understand you’re concerned about your AdWords account not working. It appears your account is under review, which may be the reason for this issue. We periodically review accounts for security purposes and to verify billing information. I’ll consult a specialist team regarding the status of the review and will provide you with an update shortly. I sincerely appreciate your patience.

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/, where you’ll find answers to many frequently asked questions. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

Sricharan
The Google AdWords Team

This form response didn’t provide any helpful information, so I was resigned to wait.  I used the time to clone my pay per click campaigns to Microsoft Adcenter for display on the Bing.com search engine.  24 hours after the initial email, I received the following:

Hello Keeton,

Thank you for your patience.  As mentioned in my previous email, your AdWords account has stopped running as your account was under review. Our AdWords specialists have confirmed that our system is having difficulty processing your credit card.

Our AdWords Specialists and engineers have worked to resolve this issue. Please re-submit your credit card number or enter another credit card number to process your charge. Your ads will start running as soon as our system successfully processes your payment, usually within the 24 hours following your credit card re-submission.

To edit your credit card information and re-enable your account:

1. Sign in to your account at https://adwords.google.com
2. Click the “Billing” tab.
3. Click “Billing Preferences.”
4. Click “Edit” next to the Primary Payment Details section.
5. Fill in all fields on this page, including your credit card number.
6. Click “Save Changes” when you’re finished.

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/, where you’ll find answers to many frequently asked questions. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

Sricharan
The Google AdWords Team

This answer was far more helpful and reminded me that I had recently updated my credit card information on the account.  Why I didn’t receive an email that there was a problem with the billing, I will never know.  After updating my credit card information, my account started working after four or five hours.

If you’re investigating your own “under review” account, I hope you find this information helpful.

Hello Keeton,

Thank you for your email. I understand you’re concerned about your AdWords account not working. It appears your account is under review, which may be the reason for this issue. We periodically review accounts for security purposes and to verify billing information. I’ll consult a specialist team regarding the status of the review and will provide you with an update shortly. I sincerely appreciate your patience.

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/, where you'll find answers to many frequently asked questions. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,  

Sricharan
The Google AdWords Team