How conversion tracking can turn you into an IndianAdwords? Scout!
In a recent blog post entitled Is Google SEO sleeping with Google SEM, we refuted the claim that Google Adwords strategies by small business owners somehow positively or negatively influence natural search rankings for your website.
According to Vanessa Fox, author of Google in the Age of Marketing, her research indicates that when a brand appears in both the organic and paid results, web searchers clicked on the brand 92% of the time, compared to 60% of clicks when the brand appeared in only location. Thus, if you were to shutdown your Google Ad campaign you would most likely see a reduction in SEO leads from natural rankings, too.
Many misinterpret the lead drop-off? (from natural results) to conclude that running Google Ads improves your SEO keyword ranking.? This is definitely not the case.
But, never mind that: What happens AFTER they land on your home page and decide to inquire. Are you connecting the lead to the Ad that spawned it?
This is often one area of weakness for small business owners who run their Ad campaigns on autopilot. There is of course an easy way to solve this issue: It’s called conversion tracking.
?This free tool in AdWords can show you what happens after a customer clicks on your ad (whether they purchased your product or signed up for your newsletter, for example),? said Google.
By doing this you turn data into information and dare we say it: ROI! If you already have a Google Adwords account the steps are relatively straightforward and listed here.? However, it’s worth pointing out one very neat piece of functionality, which dovetails with one of the biggest IT developments, EVER!: The Smartphone revolution.
According to research firms, by 2013 the dominant form of web browsing will take place via a Smartphone. Armed with this fact, don?t? you think it would be awesome if you could track people who called your company directly from a Google Ad?
Well, you can if you have a mobile website that displays a company phone number.
?Customers with mobile devices can click and call that number. You can track those calls in AdWords and assign a monetary value to them,? said Google.
This is especially useful to a small business who does a lot of business over the phone, or conversely if you do not take orders through your website.
Google provides a concrete example:
You sell car insurance on your website. But many customers who search for “car insurance” want to talk to an insurance agent before they purchase. So, they visit your website on their mobile phone, see a phone number, and call. With Conversion Tracking, this call could be tracked and measured in AdWords. Without it, this important customer segment isn’t counted.
This super-cool feature is outlined in the final step of setting up conversion tracking.
Please let us know if anybody reading this blog has used this feature, we would welcome your comments!