St. Louis Pay Per Click

Posts Tagged ‘pay per click conversion’

Earlier this year, Google AdWords added another way to track conversions other than the 1-per-click method.  The many-per-click method allows you to see the overall number of conversions occurring, but may cause some confusion.

First, conversions can be many things besides someone purchasing an item from a site.  You can choose an action you would like to count as a conversion, based on what is important to you.  For example, you can track purchases, form completion, or a certain page view as a conversion.  You can also track more than one of these types of conversions simultaneously.

With the 1-per-click method of tracking conversions, a user is only counted once within a 30 day period.  For example, if a user clicks on your ad, fills out a form and makes a purchase, it only counts as one conversion.  If that same user bookmarks your site, and returns the following week and makes another purchase, it does not count towards the 1-per-click conversion number.  So, within a 30 day window, all conversions one user makes only counts as one conversion.

With the many-per-click method of tracking conversions, every conversion a user makes is counted within a 30 day period.  Using the same example as above, if a user clicks on your ad, fills out a form on your site and makes a purchase, the many-per-click conversions would be two.  If that same user bookmarks your site, and returns the following week and makes another purchase, the number of many-per-click conversions would increase by one.  So, within a 30 day window, all the conversions that user made count, adding up to three many-to-click conversions.

If the number of many-per-click conversions seems too high to be true, it probably is.  There may be other things triggering this conversion, other than the ones you intended.  If a user refreshes the page or hits the back button to continue browsing your site after the conversion was completed, this may lead to an increase in the number of many-per-click conversions.  If a user bookmarks your converting page and returns to it within 30 days, this will also result in a conversion, although no purchase was actually made.  There are some ways to improve your code to prevent some of these issues, click here for more detailed information about how to do this.

If you are unsure about what you’re seeing, it’s always best to do a little research and look into Google Analytics to see if everything is matching up.

The Geographic Performance Report in Google AdWords allows you to determine how your keywords and ads are doing by location. You can analyze your impressions, clicks, and conversions by their geographic distribution by the account, campaign, and ad group levels.  You can use this report to calculate data on a daily basis by Country, Region, Metro, and City. 

Currently, the report only gathers data on a daily basis.  According to Google, reporting across multiple days would result in an under-representation of impressions. This is because there is a threshold on impressions in the reporting calculations.  But the number of clicks would be accurately counted, resulting in an inflated CTR.

However, due to the large amount of information being compiled in this report you cannot run a report for the current day.  Complete data for a given day isn’t available until 3 PM PST the following day.  To get the daily report for your campaign, wait until after 3 PM the following day and then choose the “Yesterday” option in the “Date Range” drop-down menu.  Click here for step-by-step instructions from Google on how to create the report.

Based on what you see in your report, you may want to separate your campaigns into several smaller campaigns, specifically targeted to different locations.  For example, if clicks from a certain location aren’t converting, you may want to create a specific campaign targeting that location and try a new tactic, or you may want to exclude areas that don’t convert altogether.  On the flip side, you may consider separating top performing locations into their own campaigns.  This way, you can create ads customized to that audience and direct more of your budget towards these higher converting locations.  This report allows you to breakdown your campaigns in a way that will help you fine-tune keywords and ads targeted to a specific location, while making the most of your budget in the locations you want to focus on.

In today’s business environment, conversion tracking is becoming increasingly popular. It is not enough to generate customer leads. You want to convert leads into sales. When measuring the success of pay per click advertising, a great amount of focus goes toward return on investment, generated revenue, and sales/leads conversions to determine which advertisements produce the most revenue for your business. Pay per click advertising can help drive traffic to your business, but you need to be able to track your success. The following are some important areas to consider when setting up conversion tracking.

 

Landing Page Layout

You cannot track conversion without providing an action for the customer to take (an action you deem a conversion). The landing page that the pay per click ad leads to is one of the most important factors in creating a successful ad. While the ad encourages a potential customer to visit your web site, it is the landing page that encourages potential leads to take the desired action once they arrive at the landing page. A common practice is to place a form, number, link to the contact us form, product the visitor wants, promotion, or some other means for the visitor to connect with your web site and its products or services.

Conversion Page

Equally as important as having a landing page that connects with the customer is having a page that entices the client to engage in your product or service. The best way to track conversion is through actions such as making a purchase, filling out a contact form, signing up for your company’s newsletter, or any other interaction that serves as a lead or sale on your web site.

Utilizing Analytics

In order to determine which conversions came from your pay per click advertisements, you need to have the tools in place to track the source. There are several analytics packages available that can assist you in identifying the source of the conversions you receive. Google AdWords allows pay per click advertisers to track conversion through its online platform. The tracking script is placed on the page that signifies a conversion. Through the Google AdWords platform, you can track the ads and keywords that provide the highest return on your advertising. This will allow you to refine your campaigns and utilize your strongest advertisements. Analytics services outside of the AdWords including Google Analytics, Hitslink, Index Tools, Omniture, and other packages, can also provide you with the tools to determine how you can get the most bang for your buck.

The key is to formulate a plan and then put your plan into action.  In order to develop a successful advertising campaign, you have to be able to track conversion.