Keeping tabs on clicks and visits

When you are running a PPC campaign, it can be annoying waiting for the online stats to update. One thing I have used in the past is to simply get my website to email me for every visit, with details on the IP Address, referrer and full path requested. The same technique is useful for newly registered domain names that you can self park.

My automatic emails provide a number of useful things:

• I know about site visits almost immediately, rather than when the online PPC stats update. (Useful for high bid terms!)
• I can see when I start getting referrals from somewhere new, like a forum, and jump in to comment.
• I can see what search terms my site is getting clicks from
• I can block the IP address of bad spiders that start to overwhelm the server
• For previously registered domains, I can see what pages are still getting referrals, and from where. Potentially useful for matching future content, rather than returning 404 errors.
• With a custom 404 handler, you can trap missing pages, and be alerted to them immediately.

Of course, you wouldn't want to do this on any big traffic sites for any length of time, as you would drown in email! But for new sites, high PPC terms, or specific test conditions, it is very useful - and far easier than downloading log files or waiting for stat reports to update.