Amateur marketers all-too-often tell a bitter-sweet story of spending a lot of money on AdWords ads, getting fantastic click-through rates, a ton of traffic and, when the dust settles, losing money – sometimes a lot of it.

Getting clicks on your ads is only one part of the profit equation. If those same clicks aren't converting to sales, you're just wasting money. Whenever you advertise, through AdWords or any other medium, you're making an investment in your business – one that's intended to generate profits by driving customers to your site and motivating them to do business with you. If you're not generating a positive ROI (Return-On-Investment), then your advertising campaign starts looking like a loser instead of the profit center it's supposed to be. The only way to know when you're generating a positive ROI is to use a tracking system that measures the results of your advertising investment.

See Previous Articles in Series This is the fourth installment in our series on waging a profitable AdWords campaign. In our previous articles...  The First Critical Steps To Waging a Profitable AdWords Campaign   Implementing a Profitable AdW...