Tracking the effectiveness of magazine ads for your web site...

In a post below it was mentioned how it can be a good idea to advertise your web site in a printed ad (in a magazine or newspaper, etc.).

However, one of the important keys to effective advertising is being able to TRACK the effectiveness of your ads...

When orders are sent through the mail, tracking is easy. Simply create fictitious "Department" names within the mailing address for ads in different publications . Then, by which "Department" the order is sent to, you know which ad it came from.

Even with phone orders, it is a simple matter for the phone operator to ask where the person ordering saw the ad....

However, with ads in magazines promoting web sites, what is the best way to "track" which ads the click-throughs came from?

The way which comes to my mind is to have different web pages for each ad...

For example, in one magazine you could advertise www.doodadwebsite.com/doodad1 , whereas in another magazine the advertised site could be www.doodadwebsite.com/doodad2 . These could both go to identical web pages, however by which page an order comes from, you could track which magazine ads are pulling the best.

Anyhow, does anyone know of other ways you can use to track orders from ads in multiple magazines, where the ad sends the reader to a web site?

Thanks... (Hope the question was clear).

Dien Rice