Most people who participate in PPC (pay per click) advertising campaigns, monitor their progress quite well. Every PPC article I have ever read has spoke about monitoring your successes etc but seldom do they tell you specifically, what you should actually be monitoring. There is so much data to be collected and reviewed when running any PPC campaign that it is often tough to know what to collect and most importantly, what to look for within the results.
The easiest way I have found to track my PPC campaigns is to use a paid search monitor or any general ppc monitoring application. These tools will provide you with all the information you could ever need to know about your campaigns. The information that these tool monitor can then be used to tweak and optimise your own campaign with a view of getting one over on your competition.
For the most part, the general goal of ppc monitoring applications is to spy on your competition. These tools allow you to see what phrases your competitors are bidding on and how much they’re paying. This is extremely valuable information as it will allow you to price your clicks and campaigns more competitively.