Keitaro Review: Efficiency and Performance Unveiled

Digital marketing is evolving, and so should we. And when it comes to managing ad campaigns, juggling data from countless traffic sources can feel like a Herculean task. It’s like having to be everywhere at once, making sure every click, impression, and conversion is noted.

If you’re in search of a new best friend when it comes to data management, why not set your sights on Keitaro?

This review is all about peeling back the layers to reveal Keitaro’s prowess in efficiency and performance. Whether you’re a marketing maestro or just getting your feet wet, discovering what Keitaro brings to the table might just be your secret weapon for campaign success.

Key Takeaways

• Keitaro tracker offers comprehensive analytics, making it highly efficient for tracking and managing campaigns.
• It is particularly suitable for intermediate media buyers and can handle unlimited events and clicks.
• Keitaro ensures data and landing page security with statistics that can be stored for extended periods based on user preferences.
• As a cost-effective solution, Keitaro offers robust tracking capabilities with options like KClient PHP, KClient JS, a basic Tracking Script, and a WordPress plugin.
• The support team at Keitaro stands out with quick response times, detailed assistance, and readiness to engage in calls for more complex issues, earning high user satisfaction.
• One downside is that you need to pay separately for the server and install the tracker. However, as you manage the server, all your data is secured and confidential.
• Advanced targeting options such as geolocation, device type, and browser are available to help users target their desired audience accurately.
• Keitaro also offers a wide range of integrations with popular advertising platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
• The platform’s user-friendly interface makes it easy for beginners to navigate and set up campaigns without requiring extensive technical knowledge.
• For more experienced users, Keitaro offers advanced features such as A/B split testing, multi-level campaign funnels, and customizable reporting dashboards.
• Additionally, Keitaro regularly updates its features and tools to stay current with industry standards and meet the evolving needs of its users.
• Limited options to compare the results of a particular parameter against another within the same campaign.

What is Keitaro?

Publicly launched in 2017 with offices in Spain, Estonia, and the United States, Keitaro positions itself as the Ultimate Advertising Tracker, and it’s easy to understand why. With over seven years of experience, the company has developed a deep understanding of affiliate marketing and applied this knowledge to the creation and evolution of the tracker.

Its self-hosted tracking platform is rich with features that seasoned media buyers will love. Top it off with Keitaro’s highly responsive support team, which ensures that even beginners with no knowledge of server usage and maintenance can effectively utilize the tracker, it’s on its way to becoming one of the best trackers out there.

Keitaro Best Features

Keitaro offers a wide range of features that are designed to make tracking and optimizing your campaigns as efficient and effective as possible. Some of the standout features include:

Self-hosted Platform

Keitaro is a self-hosted platform, which means you have full control over where your data is stored and how it is managed.

As such, there is no limit to the amount of traffic you can direct through your tracker. Whether it’s 100 or 100 million hits per day—Keitaro’s monthly fee remains unchanged. However, you must adjust your server’s capacity (RAM and CPU) based on your traffic volume, which may increase the cost of maintaining a self-hosted tracker.

Subscription fees for cloud-hosted trackers rise with traffic volume just the same. So overall, self-hosted trackers tend to be more cost-effective than their cloud-hosted counterparts.

One downside is that your tracker operates on a single server. This can lead to slow load times for traffic originating from regions far from your server’s location. This could result in users abandoning the page before it loads. To mitigate this, it’s best to use a server located centrally to the regions you aim to target.

Real-Time Data Updates and Conversion Attribution

If there’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate about Keitaro, it’s the platform’s near real-time data updates and conversion attribution. Imagine having your finger on the pulse of your marketing campaigns with data that refreshes every minute. That’s right—every single minute.

This is a significantly shorter time period than most other trackers offer. And it’s particularly handy when you’re running multiple campaigns simultaneously and need to make quick decisions based on the latest data.

The platform tracks where every conversion originates, giving you a clear, detailed roadmap of your customer’s journey. Was it a Facebook ad that sealed the deal? Maybe an email campaign or a Google search?

Also, is the conversion approved or rejected? Is it a lead or a sale? These can be set as well. Keitaro lays it all out, making it easy to see which channels are your star performers.

Multi-platform Integration

There are over 360 affiliate network templates to choose from. Just pick one and you’re set! Tokens are pre-updated for easy tracking.

When it comes to traffic sources, only 167 advertising networks are listed in their templates. And this number will only grow as the platform is continually adding new sources.

In total, there are more than 500 templates available. You can also manually add your network if it’s not listed in Keitaro.

The good news is that Google Ads, Facebook (Meta) Ads, and TikTok Ads are included in the list of sources you can monitor. With these traffic sources, full API integration is possible, so rapid exchange of costs and conversions are done.

On top of that, Namecheap and CloudFlare integrations are available for those who go for the Expert Plan and any of the two Business Plans.

Keitaro’s integration with Namecheap makes things super convenient. You can use it for quick domain registration, domain parking, and management of domains and subdomains—all directly from the tracker. No more messing around with DNS settings or manually specifying DNS records. The tracker handles these for you.

This integration enables you to buy and park domains directly within Keitaro and add existing domains or subdomains from Namecheap to Keitaro.

CloudFlare improves the loading times of your landing pages, which is essential if you are planning on promoting to distant locations. It also adds an extra level of security to your pages. Being able to connect your server to CloudFlare is a huge plus.

Redirect and No-Redirect Tracking Options

Redirect tracking uses a link that redirects the user through your tracker before sending them to the final destination. This method lets you collect valuable data such as clicks, conversions, and revenue. In short, it’s the typical way we track media buying campaigns.

No-redirect tracking, on the other hand, doesn’t require any links or redirections. It uses postback, pixels, and/or tracking scripts from ad networks to track traffic and conversions. This method is ideal for Facebook, TikTok, and Google Ads, which don’t allow redirect links.

Keitaro offers both options, giving you the flexibility to choose what works best for your campaigns and monitor them with ease.

Detailed Reporting and Analytics

Keitaro offers detailed reporting and analytics tools to help you make sense of your data. You can track clicks, conversions, revenue, ROI, and more in real time. The reports are customizable, allowing you to view and analyze your data in a way that makes sense to you.

You can also set up alerts to notify you of changes in your campaign performance or any issues that may arise. This allows you to take immediate action and optimize your campaigns for better results.

We’ll talk more about the reporting dashboard later.

 

Local Landing Pages

Keitaro simplifies working with local landing pages without needing any external redirects. You can leverage your own server to directly upload your landing pages as zip archives into the tracker.

This streamlined process keeps all your campaign data under one secure roof. Plus, you can tweak your landing page code on the fly with Keitaro’s built-in editor—goodbye, tedious tasks! No need to edit the LP’s code and re-upload over and over.

Having locally-available landers not only simplifies tracking but also defends against direct visits. You can protect your marketing strategies from sneaky spy tools, keeping them both effective and untouchable.

Banner Ads Option

This feature is pretty handy for website publishers who use their own banners on their websites. You can even rotate offers for every banner. It works just like adding a landing page, except that you choose the Action option and paste your banner HTML.

Once done, you can use this banner in a campaign and place your offer rotations. You’ll get an ad code after saving the campaign, which you will then place on your website. This will help you efficiently monitor banner clicks and send them to appropriate offers.

Advanced Traffic Distribution

Keitaro has taken the art of traffic distribution and turned it into a masterclass. From my experience, using this platform feels like having a traffic control tower at your fingertips.

You can direct where the traffic goes in different ways:

Based on Parameters

You can seamlessly direct traffic between campaigns based on various parameters—think country, device type, connection type, and more. This allows you to send users to the best possible offer that matches them.

Based on Position

Imagine you’ve lined up multiple flows, landing pages, and offers within a campaign. With Keitaro, you can determine where the traffic should go depending on its position in that list.

You can assign different flow types—forced, regular, and default. The default flow captures all traffic that doesn’t meet the criteria for forced flow, ensuring no potential lead slips through the cracks.

Weighted Distribution

This option lets you allocate traffic to specific landing pages or offers based on weight. Essentially, you get to decide which destinations get the lion’s share of attention.

Visitor Binding

You know when some users need repeat convincing to convert? Keitaro has got that covered. This feature binds visitors to the specific flows, landing pages, or offers they’ve previously checked out but didn’t convert on.

When you combine these advanced features, you can create a highly customized traffic distribution strategy. You can use this to set-up A/B testing for landers or offers.

In my book, it’s a great feature for anyone serious about optimizing their traffic management.

Flow and Link Monitoring

Keitaro’s flow and link monitoring tool is a lifesaver for anyone managing multiple campaigns. It’s only available to Expert, Team, and Enterprise plan users. It keeps your URLs active by checking them regularly. If a URL fails, Keitaro steps in. It swaps it out to keep your campaigns running smoothly.

Flow monitoring checks destination URLs, landing pages, and offers. It looks for various issues: is the page responding? Does it contain certain text? It even scans for viruses.

When it finds a problem, Keitaro takes action. It can disable the faulty flow, get a new URL from an external source, replace the URL, or log the issue. You can also use webhooks to connect with other services.

It sets intervals as short as one minute between checks to keep you informed. For anyone serious about minimizing downtime and maximizing efficiency, Keitaro’s monitoring tools are indispensable.

Bot Filtering

Keitaro’s bot filtering keeps your campaigns clean and effective. Every click matters, so Keitaro ensures you get the ones that count.

Your tracker stays on top of bot detection with updated spam bot databases every two weeks. Fewer junk clicks, more valuable data. But there’s more. You can add your own lists of IPs and signatures to further customize the filtering based on your specific traffic.

Paid and Organic Traffic Monitoring

We’ve talked about how Keitaro shines with paid traffic. Now, let’s explore its organic traffic monitoring. If you need to track and optimize organic traffic, Keitaro has strong options to make it easy.

KClient PHP

Perfect for tech enthusiasts or those with developer support. It integrates smoothly into your setup, offering thorough tracking without slowing load times.

KClient JS

Great for JavaScript fans. This lightweight script ensures fast page speed while maintaining accurate tracking.

Tracking Script

Seeking simplicity? The Tracking Script is your answer. Copy, paste, and you’re set.

WordPress Plugin

Running a WordPress site? They Keitaro Tracker plugin makes organic traffic tracking simple. Install, configure a few settings, and you’re good to go. It’s user-friendly and a real time-saver, especially for WordPress aficionados.

Support

I say this is one of Keitaro’s best features. They have extensive documentation and knowledge base, and you can reach out to them through email, Telegram, or live chat.

They say they are online from 6:00 to 16:00 GMT during business days, but they answer queries even during weekends (even at a reduced capacity). During business days, they reply within minutes.

The support team is very helpful. Aside from providing links to guides, they walk you through everything step by step. They will even offer to get into a call if you need more help. That alone can turn someone who’s just testing the capabilities of their platform into a loyal client.

If I can rate their support, I’d say it’s 5 out of 5 stars.

How to Start Tracking with Keitaro

Possibly the biggest reason why people think twice about using self-hosted campaign trackers is the initial setup part. Hearing the words “install to your server” and “configure your set-up” may make you feel like you’re going to get a nosebleed before you even start.

But but but! Let me ease your worries—setting up Keitaro is really not that hard. The platform provides in-depth guides on how this can be done. Think videos, full documentation, and a very helpful support team who will all but hold your hand (literally!) just so you can get everything up and running.

Let me give you a quick preview of how it’s done.

But first, sign up for an account.

Tracker Installation

You’ll automatically be given a 14-day free trial license upon registration. You can extend the license key once this trial license expires.

Choose the region that best suits your traffic and your daily traffic volume. You will be then shown the best options for server.

Keitaro recommends 4 cloud hosting services: Vultr, Digital Ocean, Friend Hosting, and HostZealot. Servers pre-installed with Keitaro tracker is already available in these hosting solutions.

For instance, if you visit Vultr’s Marketplace, you will find Keitaro under Monitoring apps.

You can, therefore, launch Keitaro directly from Vultr. All you need is an active license for it to work.

You can try other web hosts, as long as they fit Keitaro’s requirements. These requirements are:

• Must have a clear server without control panel
• Uses either CentOS 9 Stream or CentOS 8 Stream
• Is KVM virtualization-enabled
• Has a disk size of 20 GB SSD or more
• Has at least 2 GB of RAM (size depends on how much traffic you expect to receive daily)

Hetzner is another reliable cloud hosting service that you can use, but weirdly it is not listed among the options during installation. Keitaro provides instructions on how to use it as your server, though.

If you choose any of their recommended hosts, you can simply visit your cloud hosting account and follow the instructions supplied by the provider.

I chose Digital Ocean and got a $200 credit for signing up (which automatically pays for the server that I’d need for the trial, and maybe even more).

Instructions for recommended cloud hosts can be found here: https://docs.keitaro.io/en/get–started/auto–installation.html

If you select a different provider that you believe passes the requirement, you can install Keitaro by using your server terminal:

After about 10 minutes, you can access Keitaro through your server IP: http://your_server_ip/admin/

You     would then be asked to copy and paste your license key. You can find this in the License page of your Keitaro account.

Remember that one license key is equals to one instance of Keitaro. If you plan on installing another Keitaro instance on another server, you’d have to buy a new license.

You’ll need to choose the system currency. This is the currency the tracker uses for money data. While this can be changed later, take note that currency conversions will not be done for old data and will only be applied to new data.

Next, pick your default language and set the default timezone. Keitaro will use this for stats and data operations.

Finally, you’ll be asked to create an admin user, which you’ll use to gain access to the tracking tool.

Dashboard Overview

Here’s an overview of the dashboard. As you can see, this one is in Dark Theme, which is available on all plans.

At the top are the navigation buttons: Dashboard, Campaigns, Landing Pages, Affiliate Networks, Offers, Traffic Sources, Reports, Trends, and Domains.

On the dashboard, it’s hard not to notice the colorful boxes at the top, which provide a summary of the stats for the date range and campaign you select. These are:

• clicks
• unique clicks (campaign)
• conversions
• cost
• revenue (confirmed)
• profit/loss (confirmed)
• ROI (confirmed)

But these aren’t just colorful boxes (which are customizable, by the way). These are actually buttons that display the trend of the parameter you chose in the chart below.

As you can see, the color of the button (let’s choose conversions) matches the color of the trend on the chart, avoiding confusion on what data is currently being depicted.

Beneath the chart are the summary tables of the campaign you chose and its corresponding offers.

Campaign Creation

Let’s head over to the Campaign tab.

Here, you can view your campaigns based on Groups, States, Sources, and Date Range. You can also search by keyword.

You can view up to 60 metrics, from basic ones like clicks and conversions, to more complex ones like uEPC (Earning per Unique click) and conversion rates from registration to deposit.

If you already have campaigns running, you can view individual reports by clicking on the icon to the right of the campaign name. You can also copy the links, duplicate the campaign, or edit the campaign.

To create a new campaign, click on the Create button.

Creating a campaign in Keitaro is straightforward. Start by entering a name for your campaign.

Next, select a domain for your Campaign URL; you can reuse one domain across multiple campaigns. Create a unique alias for your campaign link.

Organize your campaign by choosing or creating a group for it. Then, select an existing traffic source or add a new one (we’ll talk about how to add one later).

Decide on a method for traffic distribution, either position or weight-based. If you choose weight-based, you will be given the option to bind repeat visits.

Next, select the cost model. You can leave the cost value blank since the platform will automatically assign the costs based on the data passed by the traffic source. Just make sure “From cost parameter” checkbox is turned on.

Add the traffic loss % if you already have an estimate of the possible traffic loss from your advertising network.

Leave the rest of the fields untouched, unless you really need to change the settings for Uniqueness, etc.

Now click on the Create Flow button.

Add the name for your flow. Choose the flow type and its position (since I previously chose position-based flow). If I chose weight-based flow, this part would ask for the % of weight this flow will get, should I choose to add more flows.

Next, go to the Schema tab. This is where you’ll place the landing pages and offers for this campaign. Or you can choose Direct URL and Action, if that’s what you want for your campaign.

Under Action, your options are:

• Send to another campaign
• 404 not found
• show as text
• show as HTML
• do nothing

Going back to Landing pages & Offers. Choose the landing pages and offers for your campaign. If you don’t have them yet, you can create them here.

For now, let’s choose a landing page and a couple of offers. I also edited the weight of each offer since I am adding two offers and I want the other offer to get more traffic.

Choices for Offer Selection are Before Click and After Click. I left it with the default, which is Before Click.

It’s done now, so I clicked on Create, located in the upper right corner of the page, to save the campaign.

To get the tracking link, just head over to the Tracking tab. The Campaign URL is displayed there, which is now ready for use with the advertising network.

If you want to check whether your campaign/flow works as intended, you can simulate the traffic. Click on the Other Options icon (the three dots), then choose Simulate Traffic on the dropdown.

Select your simulation options and metrics. Add parameters that would really allow you to see were the traffic will go.

[simulate 2]

Click on Start, and the simulation will run. It will only take a few seconds for the results to come up. Check it and see whether everything works as expected before using it in an actual campaign.

Adding Traffic Sources and Affiliate Networks

This one’s simple enough. Just go to the Traffic Sources tab and click on Create.

Check the list of templates to see if the ad network you want to add is in the list.

If not, go ahead and manually add yours. For this to work, you need to visit your ad network and search for the tokens it uses for the URL. Manually add them here.

And you’re done!

Now let’s try affiliate networks. Follow the same first few steps, this time in the Affiliate Networks tab. Here, you have more than 250 options, so it’s possible your network is already listed.

If not, you can always manually add the name and offer parameters.

Make sure you copy the postback URL and paste it into the necessary section in your affiliate network. Do this whether you chose an affiliate network from the templates or you manually added one. This is necessary for Keitaro to capture conversion information.

Adding Offers

Let’s add an offer to the tracker. First, go to the Offer tab, then click Create. Fill in the fields like name, affiliate network, and how the offer opens.

If you have your own offer page, choose Local to upload the zip file to your server. Select Redirect if you have a link from your affiliate network. Pick Preload if you want to load a page hosted elsewhere without redirecting. For Redirect and Preload, you need to place a URL.

For offer settings, click the Settings tab. Here, you can add country, payout type, payout amount, allow upsells, and set a conversion cap. These are optional, so you can leave them at their defaults if you prefer.

Adding Landing Pages

And finally, let’s add a landing page. Go to the Landing Page tab and select Create.

Fill in the fields Name and Group (optional) fields.

If you’re going the Redirect and Preload route, add the URL.

But this time, let’s use the Local option and upload the zip file to a landing page I already have. when uploading yours, make sure you add the offer link as indicated.

If you haven’t added the offer link, no worries. You can always edit the landing page’s code through Keitaro’s LP editor.

Once the landing page has been saved, click on it again. A thumbnail of your landing page will show up. Click on the code symbol underneath the thumbnail to edit the code.

Keitaro Plans and Pricing

Keitaro has plans for everyone. From solo marketers to big companies. Let’s take a quick look at the Individual Plans:

Starter Plan

For €49 a month or €40 if paid annually, you get a full set of features to enhance your experience. This plan is for one user only. It includes user scripts and strong server protection. You also get high-performance analytics and reporting tools. There’s local landing page storage with code editor. Plus, one domain with SSL for secure browsing.

Advanced Plan

The plan is priced at €89 per month or €72 per month if paid annually. It is limited to one user.

This plan includes all features from the starter plan, along with additional benefits such as the Click API, advanced tracking scripts, and Facebook integration. It also allows up to 100 domains with SSL.

Expert Plan

For €129 a month, or €104 if paid yearly, you get Keitaro’s top plan for up to 5 users. It has everything in the Advanced Plan. It includes an onboarding session and supports 500 domains with SSL.

Custom solutions and integrations like Namecheap and Cloudflare are part of the deal. You can enjoy exclusive flow and link monitoring. Integrate up to 5 Google Ads and 5 TikTok ads accounts. Finally, you’ll get admin dashboard protection and an admin API.

Keitaro also offers two Business Plans:

Team Plan

The Team Business Plan is perfect for those looking to bring their team together to collaborate and manage workflows seamlessly. The cost is €249 per month if you pay monthly. Opt for annual payment, and it’s €200 per month. Being a plan meant for teams, it supports up to 50 users.

It includes everything that the Expert Plan has, plus advanced tracking scripts and access to the Keitaro Geo DB. With the ability to manage 5,000 domains with SSL, your team will have ample capacity to scale. Its integrations include Facebook (Meta) Ads, 10 Google Ads accounts, and 25 TikTok ad accounts.

Enterprise Plan

For those wanting the most complete package, the Enterprise Plan is unbeatable. It costs €499 per month if paid monthly, or €400 per month if paid annually. This plan offers everything in the Team Plan and more.

The Enterprise Plan offers unlimited users and domains. It’s ideal for big organizations needing scalability. You get Facebook (Meta) Ads integration, 20 Google Ads accounts, and 50 TikTok ad accounts. Plus, you’ll have a personal manager for dedicated support and tailored help. This plan is built for those who need extensive resources and reliable assistance.

To top it off, you can take advantage of branding options to maintain a cohesive and professional appearance across all your dashboards and reports.

All of these plans have a 14-day free access. If you’d like to test it out, you need to get yourself a VPS first, as there’s no cloud-based option. BUT if you sign up with any of Keitaro’s recommended trackers, you’ll be given dollar credits or deals that will allow you to use their server for 14 days free.

For affiliate marketers (even those with teams), the Individual Plans are your best bet for cost-effective usage.

Sign up today and get a 25% discount on your first month! Use our exclusive coupon code MOBIDEA during checkout. You’ll get both the discount and 14-day free access of the Expert Plan.

Keitaro Pros and Cons

Before choosing any tracking platform, consider the pros and cons. Weigh the benefits and potential downsides to help you decide if it fits your needs.

Below, we’ll list the key pros and cons we’ve found when using Keitaro.

Pros

• Highly efficient tracker with comprehensive analytics
• Supports up to 30 custom tokens, plus 7 default ones
• Ideal for intermediate media buyers
• Unlimited events and clicks. If you expect more traffic, you should purchase or upgrade to higher-tier plans on the server side.
• Ensures data and landing page security
• Stats can be stored for extended periods, based on your preference
• The support team facilitates seamless server transfers, ensuring no data loss
• Cost-effective

Cons

• Server management is necessary, and frequent backups are necessary to avoid data loss (as is common with self-hosted trackers)
• Using a single server means potential traffic loss if you buy traffic from regions far away from the location of your server.
• Tree-type drill down is not yet available, which could’ve been great for not just drilling down reports, but comparing the results of a parameter against another. For instance, if you want to compare the performance of clicks from WiFi users and clicks from Mobile Data users within a single campaign. Nevertheless, Keitaro reps say this feature will be available in the Fall of 2024.
• While the interface is user-friendly, mastering all of Keitaro’s features might take some time for beginners.

Keitaro Verdict

Keitaro is a solid and versatile tracking platform that’s also budget-friendly, especially when you take into consideration high-volume campaigns.

I recommend it mainly because of its thorough analytics, local landing pages, paid and organic traffic tracking, and ability to handle unlimited events and clicks. The platform shines in offering detailed insights and a range of customizable options that work well for intermediate media buyers.

For marketers in need of a powerful yet affordable tracker, Keitaro is definitely a great choice.