Online advertising is expensive so the last thing we want to do is ignore conversion tracking. Yet a surprising number of advertisers are kissing countless dollars goodbye due to poor account management.

 

You have a goal, you need more business, who doesn’t want more business right?  If you’re running PPC campaigns, start at the end and work your way back. What do I mean by that? Conversion tracking.

 

If you’ve been running an ad campaign with Google adwords, Facebook or any online source but you’re not getting the business that you expected, you have to find out why.  After all, people have been building successful businesses with google Adwords so why is it not working for you? In order to find out you have to start with conversion tracking.

What is a conversion and why do you have to track it?

 

A conversion is an action you deem important to achieving your advertising goals. For example:

 

• A Phone Call
• A mobile-click-to-call
• Email Form Request
• Online shopping Cart Purchase
• Livechat On Your Website
• Free Download
• Email Sign-up

 

It’s critical that you track these important lead sources so you can:

 

• Find out what’s working and what’s not
• Implement changes
• Optimize Ads & Landing pages
• Allocate budget accordingly
• Fine-tune your advertising spend to realize a return on your investment (ROI)

 

This includes offline as well.  If you are running a direct mail campaign to advertise your latest promotion how will you know if it was successful? Add a unique phone number to your direct mail piece and track how many calls are generated from that phone number.  Thankfully with today’s technology there are numerous companies that can easily do this for you at a very reasonable price.

 

If you’re running paid ads to your website (which I would highly recommend that you use dedicated, keyword-rich landing pages instead but that’s another topic for another day) and your call to action is to “contact us” how will you know if the ads are successful?  

 

Online conversion tracking can tell you which ad, keyword and search term was used to generate that conversion action (phone call, email forms etc.)

 

Over time, your account data will show which keywords and ads are generating your conversions so you can eliminate those keywords that are generating clicks (costing you money) but not converting into an action that drives potential revenue and put more of your advertising dollars on the keywords that matter.

 

Not only does this data tell you which keywords and ads are working but it also allows you to target your website visitors by:

 

• Device (mobile, desktop, tablet)
• Location
• Time of day, day of the week
• Income 

 

Once you have significant data accumulated in your account, it’s easy to run reports to see which  targeted locations generate most of your conversions, what type of device is being used and at what time of the day and day of the week.  Armed with this information, you can increase/ decrease bids depending on performance.

 

Optimizing and managing your bid adjustments, over time will improve your return on investment.  For example, you can tell google to lower your bid in areas that are not generating as many leads or at a cost per lead that is not profitable.  On the flip-side, you can tell google (through your bid adjustment) that you want to show your ad more often in an area that is getting a lot of leads at a profitable price and dial it down during off-hours to preserve your daily budget, thus eliminating wasteful spend.  This strategy not only can improve the number of leads but capture a higher quality lead at a target cost-per-lead customized for your business.  

 

 

 

And as you know, It’s equally important to have a tracking system in place with your office staff once those quality leads start pouring in.  A system which can easily track who came in from where and how much they spent doing business with you. This will allow you to calculate how much revenue dollars were brought in by each advertising channel so you know where you’re realizing a return on your investment.

 

As a side note, part of an effective system includes responding professionally to leads in a timely-manner.

 

Let’s face it…

 

We live in the new “digital age” whether we like it or not. Prospects can now contact your competitors in minutes simply by going to the next ad on the search results page.

 

 

So to recap….  tracking is paramount to finding success in your advertising.  Less than 50% of Adwords accounts have conversion tracking set up. This is not good.  You can not win at Adwords (or Facebook) if you do not track your conversions. You will be throwing your money away, become frustrated and walk away saying “Adwords doesn’t work.”

 

So if you need help, please contact us at 407-459-8804 or info@TripleYourClicks.com and get conversion tracking properly set up so you can start making data-driven decisions. Without it you’re flying blind.