Any time that you are spending your own or someone else’s money on a PPC advertisement, you want to be able to *show* what you got for it, right? You try to develop a clever way of demonstrating how the advertising spend brought ‘x’ number of visitors to their site, which resulted in ‘y’ number of leads and ‘z’ dollars in revenue. Without true reporting and ROI measurements, you are honestly just guessing and spending money in a vacuum.
Google tries to help its advertisers with Google Adwords Conversion Tracking. If you are new to PPC management, and you read about conversion tracking, it can seem confusing and overwhelming. But, let me tell you that it is essential to building and maintaining a successful campaign. As a company or a small business owner, if you take a look at that section, and your head starts to spin, just call your web master or your ppc manager and have them remedy this for you!
Why is Conversion Tracking important?
On the big picture level, it allows you to combine with your other PPC statistics, another statistic which shows which of your campaigns are converting to leads or sales. So, right away, you know which campaigns are performing better for you — Which are spending your dollars more efficiently.
Then, you can also drill down into the detail — This is the part that I love. With conversion statistics, I can see which KEYWORDS are converting best, which SITES on the Content Network convert the best, which PLACEMENTS convert the best, etc. Then, you are able to start whittling down the “bad” and trying to replace it with more stuff that looks like the “good.” Over a short time, conversion tracking will increase your click-through rates (CTRs) and send you more conversions (leads and sales) — Since you will be optimizing for what is converting best, not what is generating the most clicks/traffic.
Without Conversion Tracking, I cannot answer these questions:
“What can we do to increase our revenue from PPC?”
“What are our best keywords in AdWords for Product A?”
“What Placements Offer the Best bang for the buck?”
“Does the Content Network work for us?”
Again, in most cases, installing conversion tracking takes less than 5 minutes for your web editor or web master. It is easier than it looks, and is well worth digging into. Find a way to have it added to your program! This is a cheap (read: free) way your AdWords experts can help you get closer to your success goals. Ask your PPC advertising firm today if you are using this properly.
And, let me know if you have questions. We’re here to help.
Shanee