Best Ad Tracking Software for 2024

Ad tracking is the use of software to monitor the performance of a single advertisement or a wider marketing/advertising campaign. 
Ad tracking (sometimes called ad-effectiveness tracking) can be built into market research software platforms or offered as an external integration, allowing brands to collect information and monitor their ad’s performance in real time through tracking URLs, pixels, or other data points. Performance metrics may include an ad’s viewership, engagement, purchase conversion rate, brand perception, or general consumer attitude metrics around a piece of content.

In this article, we explore how ad tracking is used for various business needs, what to look for in ad tracking solutions, and some top ad tracking platforms to consider. 

Table of Contents: 

• quantilope
• AdRoll 
• RollWorks
• Adstream
• AdsBridge
• Voluum
• RedTrack
• What to look for in an ad tracking software
• Important metrics to track with ad tracking software 
• Why do you need ad tracking software?
• Boost your campaigns with ad tracking

quantilope

quantilope’s Consumer Intelligence Platform can be used for brands to track marketing campaign metrics in real-time. Insights teams can easily set up their ad tracking study on the platform using drag & drop functionality, and track completes in real time as they come in. Further, brands can begin to build their report as soon as the first few completes come in thanks to chart automation which will update metrics in real-time with live data as it's available.

quantilope’s platform rivals other AI powered market research tools by offering the largest suite of advanced methods and a number of automated solutions such as  A/B testing and Segmentation. Brands can leverage these methods and solutions in their ad testing studies to understand certain segments of their target audience and how they respond to ads, or which ad concept performs the best.

quantilope's key features:

• Real-time tracking

• Customizable dashboards

• Advanced methodologies

• Integrated AI features during survey setup, analysis, and reporting 

• Collaborative AI co-pilot for end-to-end research support 

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AdRoll

AdRoll is a software under the NextRoll parent brand specializing in e-commerce advertising tracking. It allows brands to launch advertising campaigns and social media ads, track engagement, monitor traffic distribution, and more. The platform uses AI for data analysis and visualization to analyze customer data from digital profiles and help brands optimize where they place their ad and who sees it. The AI technology can also identify brand new potential customers based on highly active and qualified audiences.

For brands looking to optimize and grow their marketing campaigns, AdRoll is a great service.

AdRoll's key features:

•  AI-driven analytics

• Retargeting tools

• Data-backed customized emails

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RollWorks

RollWorks is an account-based marketing (ABM) platform under NextRoll (along with AdRoll) specializing in growing revenue for the right accounts at the right time. Brands can use RollWorks for ad tracking by monitoring which marketing campaigns are moving consumers through the sales funnel; this helps prioritize the right channels with the right content, to optimize the return on your ad spend. RollWorks uses machine learning to optimize ad budgets, reach, frequency, and engagement with your ads.

RollWorks' key features:

• Machine learning for optimization
• Integration with other services (i.e. Salesforce, HubSpot)
• Cross-channel engagement tracking 

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Adstream

Adstream is an all-in-one technology tool that enables brands to manage, create, optimize, store, and deliver their advertising content. The goal of Adstream is to use automation to streamline marketing campaigns at every stage. They do this through cross-media delivery of content, connected workflows, campaign compliance services, and insights & analytics.

Adstream's key features:

• Connected workflows with broadcasters, publishers, etc. 
• All-in-one ad platform
• Legal/compliance management 

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AdsBridge

AdsBridge is a platform that focuses on affiliate tracking software. Affiliate marketing is the process of using partners (or influencers) to help promote and sell your product through ads on their own channels.

AdsBridge works by tracking, managing, analyzing, optimizing, and monetizing affiliated content. The platform offers worldwide data centers for seamless traffic distribution, hundreds of integrated affiliate networks, and a number of tracking features such as A/B testing (i.e. split testing), conversion tracking, PPC tracking, pixel tracking, and more.

AdsBridge's key features:

• Affiliate marketing expertise

• Specific tracking (conversions, pixels, ads, links)

• Customizable, all-in-one ad platform

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Voluum

Voluum is a cloud-based ad tracking platform that integrates with multiple platforms through API to collect data about your visitors. It can help brands determine which ad campaigns and elements are most profitable (native ads, display ads, email, search, social, etc. - or a combination of each). Their Traffic Distribution AI can send more traffic to the pages or campaigns that perform the best. 

Voluum is a good choice for those managing large, complex campaigns across multiple networks. 

Voluum's key features:

• Real-time access to data 

• Cross team collaboration (one account with multiple users and shared workspaces/reports)

• Anti-fraud kit (automatically detects suspicious clicks and visits)

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RedTrack

RedTrack lets brands (especially brands' media buyers) create custom tracking links to place within their ads so that it can capture data about each ad's visitors (traffic source, device type, browser, location, timestamps, etc.). It provides these metrics in real-time through dashboards and customizable reports so brands know which campaigns are under/over-performing and whether or not they should reallocate spend. 

RedTrack's key features: 

• Customizable linking for detailed ad metrics 
• Multi-channel support (track campaigns across various ad networks and platforms such as Meta, Google, and TikTok)

• Fraudulent filtering (detect and block fraudulent ad tracking - such as bots) 

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What to look for in an ad tracking software

When combining AI and market research through ad tracking software, keep the following elements in mind to ensure you’re getting the most out of your tool:

• Real-time data:
  When you launch an advertisement, you don’t want to be waiting weeks to know if the ad campaign is performing well or not. You want an ad tracking solution that allows you to monitor ad performance in real-time, so you can either make adjustments within the existing campaign time frame or pull the campaign and save your ad spend for a revised version down the line (if the ad is underperforming).

  Without access to real-time data, you could be wasting valuable budget on ads that aren’t gaining any viewership or traction.

• Custom dashboards:
  No two advertisements are built the same, and your dashboard should be able to reflect the uniqueness of each ad spot. Look for an ad tracking solution that offers customizable dashboard options so you can personalize your ad metric reporting with brand colors, images, logos, videos, and a variety of chart options - ideally built with automation.

• Consumer preference tracking:
  Look for an ad tracking solution that can measure a number of consumer preferences - not just basic engagement. The best ad tracking solutions offer advanced methodologies (such as A/B tests - also known as split testing) that can measure consumer preferences about specific elements of your ad - such as music choice, color scheme, logo placement, etc. as well as overall preference for each iteration of your tested ad.

• AI capabilities: 
  Implementing AI into your market research process through solutions that offer AI features and tools will speed up your ad-tracking process. These types of features will allow you to spend more of your time strategizing and acting on your insights rather than on the tedious manual setup and analysis processes.

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Important metrics to track with ad tracking software

There are a variety of elements you can track in advertising campaigns, though every ad tracking campaign should include the following metrics:

• Cost per acquisition (CPA)
  Cost per acquisition is a metric that measures the pricing involved in converting a potential customer down your sales funnel - whether that be a click on an ad, a purchase from your advertisement link, or something else. Customer conversions can be measured by taking your total ad spend for a specific marketing campaign and dividing it by the total number of new customers brought on as a result of that campaign. Calculating CPA is a great way to measure the overall success of your advertising or marketing campaign.

• Conversions
  When someone interacts with your ad and takes action from it, that’s considered a conversion. Conversions are defined as unique metrics depending on what’s important to your business - some brands may simply be looking to convert viewers of your ad into subscribers of your newsletter, while others may be looking to convert viewers of your ad into actual customers who buy your product/service.

  Ad tracking allows a brand to measure conversion rates that show what a consumer does after viewing your ad. You can use a variety of tools for conversion tracking, such as third-party analytics, setting up website tracking links, or monitoring phone conversations.

• Engagement
  Aside from conversion, you also want to be tracking general engagement through your ad tracking software to understand ad performance. As a business owner or media buyer, you need to know if people are seeing your ad at all, how long they’re spending consuming the ad’s content, and whether they actually click on the ad (perhaps counting as a conversion if that’s your end goal).

• New visitors
  Customer loyalty is great for brands, but brands should also aim to be continuously building their customer base (that's how brands grow). Tracking new visitors to your site or to your social profiles provides a glimpse into a potential new target audience to promote your product/service to. Brands can identify new visitors through unique redirect links, landing pages, or other integrations with your ad tracking tool, such as Google Analytics.

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Why do you need ad tracking software?

Brands that leverage ad tracking analytics tools are better positioned to optimize and enhance their advertisements in real-time or after the campaign is over for future marketing campaigns. In addition to running A/B tests prior to launching an advertising campaign, advertisers need to understand the actual performance of that content once it goes live to ensure the ad is evoking the response intended from the campaign.

Without ad tracking software, brands won’t be able to easily capture things like conversion tracking (who saw your ad and made a purchase of your product/service), affiliate marketing performance (how much traffic influencer or affiliate posts drove for your brand/product), or the return on ad spend (how much value your advertisement produced for the cost it took to run).

While there are many reasons why brands should be using ad tracking software, below are three main reasons to consider:

• Convert customers
  The core goal of any advertising effort should be to convert consumers into buyers/users of your brand. Of course, the initial goals of advertising campaigns might be to garner interest and awareness of your brand, but the hope is that those aware will eventually buy into your brand, or be a referral to others in their network.
  
  

  In leveraging ad tracking software, you are better informed about ad performance and whether or not your conversion rates are meeting expectations. If not, it’s a signal to your team to go back to the strategizing phase rather than continue to burn your ad spend on an advertisement that doesn’t deliver new customers.

• Improve campaign efficiency
  By tracking your advertisements across channels, you can see where consumers are most engaged with your content (i.e. social media such as Facebook ads, website landing pages, Google ads, or televised ads). Knowing engagement metrics means future campaigns can run much more efficiently - no longer wasting budget or effort promoting your content on channels where traffic distribution is low.

• Improve audience understanding
  Most brands have a good idea of who their target audience is in terms of demographics and maybe even purchasing behavior, but deeply understanding your audience through the means of ad tracking takes the relationship a step further. Knowing how your audience reacts to your advertisements informs you if your target audience is generally serious, light-hearted, humorous, etc. - all elements that you can build into your future advertising materials.

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Boost your campaigns with ad tracking

Ad tracking software put brands in a position to better understand, monitor, and optimize their advertising content. There are a number of ad tracking analytics tools on the market, each specializing in its own areas of the ad tracking space. Regardless of which tool you choose, ensure it can measure real-time results, is customizable to your brand, and can track a variety of consumer preference metrics.

quantilope’s ad tracking capabilities allow brands to accomplish all of the above through the power of automation. With a simple drag & drop of advertising usage & attitude questions or advanced methodologies, brands and media buyers can capture key metrics to help enhance and build out their overall marketing and advertising strategy.

To learn more on how to leverage quantilope as your ad tracking platform, get in touch below: