Track Conversions

Tracking your Web site conversions enables you to identify and evaluate the success of your advertising and traffic generation efforts. A conversion identifies a specific action performed on your Web site, such as an e-commerce transaction or an e-mail submission.

A key factor in the setup of your Google AdWords account is the installation of conversion tracking code on your Web site. Conversion tracking allows Google to monitor what occurs on your Web site after an AdWords advertisement has been clicked by a potential customer, and to report back to you when a defined conversion occurs.

When you enable conversion tracking, Google installs a cookie on the user’s browser as soon as one of your ads is clicked. If the click results in a conversion, the Google cookie passes that information back to the AdWords interface and reports the transaction.

Once Google’s conversion tracking registers a conversion, the transaction is defined as a cost-per-action. Cost-peraction is the total amount spent divided by the number of conversions, and is reported at the campaign level. If you are generating conversions at a cost-per-action at or below your minimum return-on-investment, you are making money.

During the conversion confirmation process, regardless of whether the traction is e-commerce or lead generation, customers are notified that Google is tracking their information with an option to view the AdWords Privacy Policy. This notification appears only if the customer has reached your Web site through the AdWords system. The customer’s personal information such as name, address, and credit card is not tracked or recorded.

The Google cookie remains on customers’ browsers for up to 30 days to ensure that customers who do not make a purchase immediately are still tracked if they decide to return to the Web site at a later date to complete their order.

For advanced conversion tracking, Google offers four primary types of unique conversions you can define. The Purchase/Sale label is used by online commerce sites to track individual customer orders, including the revenue that the sale generated. The Leads label allows you track how many users visited a certain page and entered their contact information. The Leads label may be useful for a Web site whose primary purpose is to drive leads for a business or an e-commerce site that sends catalogs. The Sign-Ups label tracks how many users may have subscribed to a newsletter, downloaded a document, or requested e-mail updates from the site. Finally, the Page Views label can tell you when a visitor browses a valuable page on the site. If your phone number is on the site, you may want to compare how many times it was viewed to how many times it was called.

Google does not limit your ability to define unique conversions. If you want to define your own conversion criteria, you can select the Other label and track whatever data you want. For example, you could track how many people click a specified link such as a “buy it now” button versus how many exit the page with the back button. Also, you could measure newsletter sign-ups on one or more pages of your Web site.

Using Google AdWords Editor

As your AdWords account grows larger, it becomes increasingly more difficult to manage. Google’s AdWords Editor helps advertisers manage large accounts and enables you to edit your accounts while offline. AdWords Editor, located at www.google.com/ intl/en/adwordseditor, is a free software application that works on both Windows and Apple computers and is continually updated for optimal performance.

AdWords Editor allows you to download your account, make additions and changes at any level of your account, and then post those changes directly to Google when you are done. You can work on your AdWords accounts from any location and then simply post those changes when you are able to connect to the Internet.

However, AdWords Editor is best used for making bulk changes to your account. It can quickly and easily create multiple campaigns, ad groups, text ads, and keywords by allowing you to copy and paste directly from a Microsoft Excel worksheet or text file. There is also a search capability within Editor that allows you to search throughout multiple campaigns and make changes to the individual ads and keywords that meet your criteria. Another helpful feature of AdWords Editor is the Revert Selected Changes button. If you are working on your account and make any kind of mistake, you can revert that change immediately without uploading it to Google.

This can save you time and allows you to see how changes will look in your account without actually implementing them. Finally, you need not worry about Google’s editorial guidelines while utilizing AdWords Editor. If you create a text ad that does not comply with the guidelines, the program alerts you immediately. This ensures that all your copy is properly formatted when it is sent to the search engine.

There are many useful, advanced options available with AdWords Editor. For example, with a simple click of a button, the program displays duplicate keywords that you are unaware of and provides functionality to easily delete them. Duplicate keywords compete against one another and drive up the cost of your campaigns. Performance statistics are also available through the AdWords Editor interface. When working on campaigns, it is sometimes useful to see how a keyword or text ad has performed in the past. Statistics are available from a customizable date range and are updated any time you request them from Google. Statistics are an integral part of optimizing the performance of your online campaigns and should be utilized on a weekly basis to adjust bids and track performance.

A final, important feature of AdWords Editor is the capability to download complete exports of your AdWords account. This makes it easy to keep backup copies of your account information. If you choose to download your account monthly, you can always import an older version of your campaigns if they were performing better in the past.

To get the most out of your PPC account, you should monitor your account on a daily basis. From keyword bids to ad copy, every aspect of a campaign needs to be monitored and tweaked in order to perform at an optimal level. In addition, you should actively take steps to grow your account as part of your ongoing account optimization strategy.

If your account is not receiving the amount of traffic you think it should, one thing you may need to do is increase your bids in order to get your ads ranked higher.

Increasing bids is an easy way to increase the amount of clicks your ads receive. When you click a campaign in your AdWords account, you see a list of your ad groups and the average position of each group. Keep in mind that an ad group that has an average position of 12 or higher does not show on the first page of the search results. This ad group will drive much more traffic if the bids are raised. The ad copy you are running throughout your account is a very important factor to evaluate when optimizing your campaigns. The text ads that are triggered when a keyword is searched determine if the customer clicks your link or one of your competitor’s.

You should always test multiple ad variations at the same time. After a few hundred clicks are accumulated, you can make educated decisions about the ads you chose. If a particular ad is not performing well, delete it. If a different ad is performing exceptionally, improve upon the wording and run similar variations. Also note that Google randomly serves all the text ads that you have designated to a particular ad group until one ad generates a higher overall click-through rate than the other ads. Google then shows the text ad with the higher click-through rate over the underperforming ads.

Finally, conversion tracking is essential to optimizing your campaign. If a particular keyword is driving clicks but no conversions, or if the keyword is driving conversions that are not profitable, the keyword should be deleted. If another keyword is converting well, raise the bids and increase the traffic it drives to your site until you find the perfect balance between generating conversions and return-on-investment.

On-site optimization is one aspect of PPC marketing that is sometimes overlooked. This is where your SEO efforts coincide with your pay-per-click efforts. The more relevant Google determines your site to be for a particular keyword, the less, on average, you are charged per click.

An optimized landing page results not only in lower prices on Google AdWords, but also in a higher conversion rate. When customers are directed to your site through a paid advertisement, you should direct them to the most relevant page to the keyword that was searched. The fewer times potential customers have to click to navigate your site, the more likely they are to make a purchase. Remember, you are charged for a click no matter what, so send the visitor to a targeted landing page.

Finally, remember to always restate the value proposition that drove the customer to the site in the first place. If your text ad included the phrase “Free Shipping,” be sure that the offer is repeated on the Web site. If it is not repeated, customers may think they were led to the site under false pretenses and immediately navigate away from the site rather than explore further.