Jump Page To Track “RSS Subscription Goal” Via Google Analytics

By Vlad Zablotskyy September 13, 2007

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

After writing yesterday’s article about Somoney post, I found myself playing around in implementing some tracking suggested by Jeremy. I do not particularly spend much money on promoting this blogs. But if I like the numbers, I maybe “knocking on your door” to talk with you about advertising, if your website is sending my way some traffic that is.

Before reading Jeremy’s post I did not put much thought into comparing the income on this or other blogs along side of the number of RSS subscriptions.

In his post Jeremy came short of posting the exact code of what he calls the “jump page”, so I have attempted to create one of my own which you can see at the end of this post. I would highly recommend to follow his blog, since in the comments he indicated of posting the code sometime next week. I am sure he will post more sophisticated solution.

Anyway, if you pay close attention, my big RSS button along with the “feed counter” image are linked to http://sageblogger.com/subscribe.html – the jump page which sends visitors to this blog’s feed over at FeedBurner while collecting some info via Google Analytics. Feel free to use it for yourself, just remember to replace “YOURFEEDSURL” with the actual url for your feed and use your own code from Google Analytics.

In the code below the “CONTENT” has two parameters. One is telling the browser to refresh the page after certain amount of time, the second is the url where the visitor will be taken to, in this case it is the feed’s URL. I have set the time value to 0(zero) so that visitor does not actually see the “jump page”, increasing this number will mean that your visitor may be able to see the page so it may be a good idea to put some content there. It can be just simple explanation that they are being redirected to another page.

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=YOURFEEDSURL" />
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" />
</head>
<body>
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "XX-XXXXXX-X";
urchinTracker();
</script>
</body>
</html>

Of ourse if you have a better solution please let me know.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing

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19 Comments

By 45n5, September 25, 2007 @ 6:53 pm

any update on this one? can you track where the people come from that are subscribing here now?
By 45n5, September 25, 2007 @ 7:53 pm

any update on this one? can you track where the people come from that are subscribing here now?
By Vlad, September 25, 2007 @ 8:16 pm

Mark,

I think it will take about a month to collect some reasonable data. As of this week I can spend .05 on 45n5 top 100 list and still make money

However the goal $2 (same as Shomoney) wen above what this blog is earning, way above. So may numbers are very deceiving at the moment. I will however adjust them accordingly.
By Vlad, September 25, 2007 @ 8:18 pm

5 cents per click that is
By 45n5, September 25, 2007 @ 9:02 pm

cool, I'm not sure I want to set up a jump page but may look into that “on click” tracking mentioned in the first few comments.
By Vlad, September 25, 2007 @ 9:14 pm

I thought about doing that as well but the only code I found was a javascript, while it may not be as it use to but there are still enough of visitors that are not allowing javascripts to be served in their browser.

To be honest I was always suspicious of Google Analytics, good enough that they know what I am spending. I am not sure if I am completely ok with letting them nkow what I am making, but their statistics do kick some behind big time.

Good luck man.
By Vlad, September 25, 2007 @ 9:16 pm

Mark,

I think it will take about a month to collect some reasonable data. As of this week I can spend .05 on 45n5 top 100 list and still make money

However the goal $2 (same as Shomoney) wen above what this blog is earning, way above. So may numbers are very deceiving at the moment. I will however adjust them accordingly.
By Vlad, September 25, 2007 @ 9:18 pm

5 cents per click that is
By 45n5, September 25, 2007 @ 10:02 pm

cool, I’m not sure I want to set up a jump page but may look into that “on click” tracking mentioned in the first few comments.
By Vlad, September 25, 2007 @ 10:14 pm

I thought about doing that as well but the only code I found was a javascript, while it may not be as it use to but there are still enough of visitors that are not allowing javascripts to be served in their browser.

To be honest I was always suspicious of Google Analytics, good enough that they know what I am spending. I am not sure if I am completely ok with letting them nkow what I am making, but their statistics do kick some behind big time.

Good luck man.
By 45n5, September 26, 2007 @ 6:37 pm

I've got nothing to hide from google analytics

what about email subscriptions, are you tracking the goal with them anyway?
By Vlad, September 26, 2007 @ 6:54 pm

It's not Analitycs alone that i ma concerned with. AdWords+Analytics if you have a “goal” set up and the page that you maybe pushing with PPC falls into the “funnel” it clearly gives them a hint of my profits- that is my concern. Fortunately I have no PPC for this blog on my other websites I do not have analytics….

As to the email subscriptions I am not tracking them yet. Jeremy, answering my comment, said he would be writing about it soon. So I am waiting……….
By 45n5, September 26, 2007 @ 6:58 pm

cool, i think what I'm going to do is just create a few banners that lead to my subscribe page (for email and rss). then anybody that lands on the subscribe page is considered a goal winner

I can track this super easy with openads. Of course it won't tell me if they actually pull the trigger and subscribe, but neither will the jump page solution.
By Vlad, September 26, 2007 @ 7:05 pm

I think what I am doing now, as well as Shoemoney himself, is still sort of guessing game. As you just said just because they came through and click the button does not mean they definitely subscribed .
By 45n5, September 26, 2007 @ 7:37 pm

I’ve got nothing to hide from google analytics

what about email subscriptions, are you tracking the goal with them anyway?
By Vlad, September 26, 2007 @ 7:54 pm

It’s not Analitycs alone that i ma concerned with. AdWords+Analytics if you have a “goal” set up and the page that you maybe pushing with PPC falls into the “funnel” it clearly gives them a hint of my profits- that is my concern. Fortunately I have no PPC for this blog on my other websites I do not have analytics….

As to the email subscriptions I am not tracking them yet. Jeremy, answering my comment, said he would be writing about it soon. So I am waiting……….
By 45n5, September 26, 2007 @ 7:58 pm

cool, i think what I’m going to do is just create a few banners that lead to my subscribe page (for email and rss). then anybody that lands on the subscribe page is considered a goal winner

I can track this super easy with openads. Of course it won’t tell me if they actually pull the trigger and subscribe, but neither will the jump page solution.
By Vlad, September 26, 2007 @ 8:05 pm

I think what I am doing now, as well as Shoemoney himself, is still sort of guessing game. As you just said just because they came through and click the button does not mean they definitely subscribed .