Do you know which two actions are fundamental for the activity of AdSense publishers? Probably you do: testing and tracking. Is it necessary to talk about the chief importance of tracking your AdSense activity? Guess not, for it would be as if trying to prove that the quality of life is better if you see than if you can't see!

We've talked about using google channel to track your performance. Checking the reports in your AdSense account is the easiest way to track your Google AdSense stats. Thus you have data on: impressions, number of clicks, CTR, eCPM and earnings. Data is available in the aggregate or per channel -- channels can be set on a whole site, on one or more pages, on one ad unit or on a certain type of ad units (criteria varying from position to all types of formats). Now, these are basic data that will help you make steps to improve your CTR, your content based on the performance registered for certain parts of and will allow you test various formats, styles and colors for your ads in order to find out which perform better.

Yet, many AdSense users feel the need for more information than they can get through the AdSense portal. Using supplementary tracking tools can help you complete the image of your AdSense ads performance. What do these trackers offer you that Google's channels don't?

• Allow you to manage the sources of traffic -- tracking where visitors come from (referrer domain) and comparing performance for various traffic sources. Thus you can make improvements to increase traffic from the effective sources. For example, if you get a better CTR from visitors coming to your page through Yahoo SE than from those from Google, then you'll focus on SE optimizations for Yahoo. (Jonathan Leger's AdSense Tracker)
• Let you know what keywords were searched for if the visitor found your page via a search engine. (Jonathan Leger's AdSense Tracker)
• Allow you to track an unlimited number of domains and pages. (AdSense Tracker by Dan Grossman).
• Some tracking tools (Jonathan Leger's AdSense Tracker) permit you to monitor activity on each ad (channels don't offer that, they just register clicks per ad unit).

AdSense trackers

Several lines on AdSense Tracker by Dan Grossman and AdSense Tracker by Jonathan Leger:

• These AdSense trackers are Javascript and PHP scripts that track the events on iFrames and store them into MySQL database.
• The functioning principle goes like this: the script adds an onfocus handler to all iFrames containing the AdSense ads on a page, tracking events of any iFrame, such as clicks on ads. Then it registers the events.
• Unfortunately, they also record as clicks other actions that aren't clicks -- such as right-clicking or dragging without releasing the mouse button. You'll get an inaccurate, greater number of clicks.
• These trackers cannot run with Mozilla/Netscape, because of the fact that these browsers have onfocus on the iFrame but it won't be triggered by any movement inside the iFrame, but only by clicks on the outer edge of the frame.

asRep by Mehmet Oner:

• asRep is based on a script using Javascript code inserted at the bottom of your page.
• The functioning principle differs from the one of the AdSense Trackers: it is based on a heuristic algorithm that monitors and analyzes a series of events (such as mouse positioning over an iFrame followed shortly by browser's loading of a new page) to come indirectly to the conclusion that a click was performed.
• Unfortunately, it cannot track performance at individual ad level. It goes to the level of ad units.
• It detects whether an ad unit displays an AdSense ad or an alternate ad.