Website Optimisation Series: Part 1 - Advanced Conversion Tracking

It’s been too long since I really put my back into publishing some valuable “how to” information, so I’ve resolved to put together a 7-part series on how to accelerate your sales using the Marketing Results “hybrid” approach to website optimisation.

Here’s Part 1:

Advanced Conversion Tracking of Paid Search

This post on the Unofficial Google Analytics Blog got me thinking about the importance of conversion tracking as a tool for optimising your paid search results.

This article will cover the basics and move on to more advanced concepts, so feel free to skip through to the juicy bits if the first part is too basic.

Conversion Tracking 101 - Cost/Conversion

If you spend money on Pay Per Click search engines such as Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing, it’s imperative that you know where that expenditure is leading to desired actions (e.g. enquiries or sales) and where your budget is underperforming. A feature called “conversion tracking” allows you to do this.

Above: Conversion tracking within Google Adwords. The two columns on the right show conversion rate and cost/conversion for each Adgroup. The system also allows you to drill down to the keyword and ad level.

This is elementary, right?

Installing conversion tracking is Adwords 101 stuff and you may well be using it now, but I include this information because I have seen clients with Google Adwords budgets in excess of $100K per year who are not using this invaluable tool.

How to use Conversion Tracking to Boost The ROI of Paid Search

Once you have conversion tracking set up, the next step is optimising your results. The Google Adwords platform offers a range of testing and tracking tools that facilitate rapid campaign optimisation. These tools allow you to determine:

• Which keywords are producing desired actions and which keywords are wasting your money.
• Which ads are not only generating traffic but also desired actions (conversions).
• Which landing pages are generating the best conversion results (it’s seldom optimal to direct all visitors to your homepage.)
• Which hours of the day or days of the week tend to produce high returns justifying higher budgets, and which time periods tend to be associated with unproductive clicks.

Knowing this information is the first step toward optimising your paid search campaigns. By excising unprofitable pockets of spend while optimising what’s working, it’s possible to dramatically increase the ROI of your Adwords account within a few weeks or less.

Conversion Tracking 201 - Multiple Conversion Goals

For a long time, one of my frustrations with conversion tracking within Google Adwords was the inability to track multiple conversion goals at the same time.

For example, let’s just say you sell a high-priced product or service such as termite control. And as part of the conversion process, you also offer a free report on termite control.

Well, conversion tracking within Adwords won’t allow you to track both types of conversions simultaneously.

It’s easy to imagine a situation where your Google Ad does a good job at “selling” the free report, but not such a great job at driving actual enquiries.

Enter Google Analytics for Google Adwords

Adding Google Analytics to your site not only provides you with all sorts of analytical bells and whistles but it also provides you with advanced Google Adwords testing capabilities.

For a start, you can track multiple conversion goals (e.g. free report signup and enquiry form submission).

Above: Analysing multiple conversion goals within Google Analytics. This screen can be accessed via the Content Optimisation > Ad Version Testing > Overall Ad A/B Testing menu.

The only downside, as pointed out in the ROI Revolution blog post cited above, is that ads are listed by headline only within the Google Analytics interface. To differentiate between different ads, you either need to use different headlines OR manually tag ads (for Analytics uber-geeks only!). But there’s still plenty of useful info you can glean from this process without setting up manual tagging.

Clicking on the purple “buttons” just to the left of each headline pops up a menu with more regions to explore. Of particular interest are the “Cross Segment Performance” options which let you slice and dice the data in a variety of new and interesting ways.

Conversion Tracking 301 - Closed Loop Tracking and Beyond

Conversion tracking can be taken as far as you like. By manually tagging ads and adding conversion values, this system can be made very powerful indeed as you build up a fuller picture of how prospects and customers are engaging with your website.

“Closed loop tracking” comes highly recommended if your CRM system can handle it (or your entire business is online and running via Google Analytics). This is where you import Google Adwords data into your CRM system and track results right down to actual sales.

This level of tracking allows you to find the 20% of factors (keywords, ads etc.) that are driving 80% of your sales and then laser focus your energies on those factors - profitable stuff!

At the next level of abstraction, you can look at the Lifetime Value of customers, either using the “To Date Lifetime Value” reports within Analytics or standalone tools. This can yield some very interesting results. For example:

• You may find that the Lifetime Value of customers differs significantly depending on the initial product purchased.
• You may find that the time of day of the initial purchase also influences LTV - this may be particularly relevant if you operate an online store. You will probably find that people who order in the early morning hours have higher return rates and a lower LTV than people who order during other time slots.

Summary

Conversion tracking is an essential tool of good paid search management. As you can see, there’s no limit to how far you can take it. The size of your business and your online spend are two factors to consider as you choose how serious you want to get. If a 1% increase in sales means $1 million dollars to your business, you’ll want to go straight to Conversion Tracking 301!

Will Swayne Google Analytics enthusiast

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