One of NASCAR’s top track owners and top driver Denny Hamlin got into an online altercation over paving at Sonoma.
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You just started a new AdWords campaign.
You’re trying to drive some easy, instant sales to your site.
But you quickly realize that you have no idea how to tell if those visitors are converting. No clue if you’re wasting your hard-earned budget without a return.
You’re not alone.
76% of marketers are still struggling to track the ROI of their campaigns.
Even worse is when marketers think they’re tracking the effectiveness of their campaigns, but they’re doing it in the wrong way.
So it looks and seems and feels like they’re on the right track. All while budgets get squandered, and results continue to lag.
Here’s how to get started tracking your return on online advertising campaigns.
Conversion tracking can be complex.
It’s not cut-and-dry like most people think.
The first step to tracking the return on investment for an online advertising campaign is to outline what your campaign goals are.
Are you trying to build brand awareness? Are you trying to drive e-commerce sales? Consultations? Free trials?
Depending on your goals, conversion tracking will be vastly different.
For example, a conversion for e-commerce sales is quantifiable without much extra effort.
You can tell exactly what someone bought and how much you spent to acquire that customer via ads.
But what about consultations or free trials?
When AdWords shows a conversion for your campaign, it’s not a sale.
Meaning you aren’t getting a return on investment just yet. Your bank account isn’t increasing when someone signs up for a consultation.
So those conversions don’t tell the whole story.
If you’re not tracking something quantifiable, such as items sold or likes generated to your Facebook Page, then you need to start with some basic math.
If you are trying to get consultations (or other similar conversions) that don’t have a dollar amount to tie back to, you can set up a basic equation to give them value:
(Average Closed Lead Value X Rate of Lead Close) = Per Lead Value
This simple equation will give you insight into how much a lead is worth in your business, making it easier to tie back ROI to your conversions.
Setting up Google AdWords conversion tracking correctly is critical for measuring your ad ROI.
It helps you track data on how your campaigns are performing and whether or not you are finding success.
To get started, open up your AdWords account and navigate to the conversions section:
Here, you can begin setting up conversion tracking elements for multiple parts of your campaigns.
From basic call data to website conversions, you have a few different options:
Depending on your campaign, you might need more than one of these elements to track conversions.
For example, if you decide to run AdWords ads with call-based extensions, you’ll want more than just website tracking.
To get started, click on the element that you need to track.
The most common one will be your website conversions, or the people who buy a product or convert on your site.
Select the tracking type and give it a name and a category to recognize it:
Next, under “Value,” you’re going to want to input some basic numbers.
Remember that equation in the section before?
If your product/service isn’t a direct sale like e-commerce, you want to set your lead value as the conversion value here.
This will give you some insight into ROI fast without having to dig through each conversion.
Once you’re ready, save the conversion tracking element, and it’s time to install your tag.
I can tell you’re already jumping for joy. Tone it down, I know it’s exciting stuff.
Now you can scroll down to the box called “Event snippet” where you can select between two options:
The most common one will be the Page Load option.
This simply means that whenever someone lands on a page, AdWords will mark it as a conversion.
So, the key here is to place this tag on the right page.
If you place it on your landing page, your conversion data won’t make sense.
You need to place it on a thank you page that a user will land on after they’ve converted.
So, if someone fills out a form somewhere on your site, they need to be directed to a thank you page. That’s where you want to place the tag.
Simply install the code into your thank you page header, and you’ll have live tracking for your campaign.
If you want to double-check your tag installation, use the Google Tag Assistant to make sure it’s installed correctly:
Voila! That’s it.
Now you can start to track the fundamentals of ROI on AdWords.
But that’s not all. This is just the first step of tracking your advertising ROI.
It’s time to go into some depth.
Facebook advertising is amazing because of all the diverse options it gives you.
The options are virtually endless. You can create campaigns to fit almost any goal you might have.
However, that’s also part of the problem. Determining exactly how likes, comments, awareness, visits, and clicks translate into new paying customers isn’t easy.
First, you need to set up tracking scripts, just like you did for AdWords.
This is the only way to start collecting the initial data on how your campaigns are performing.
To start setting up your Facebook Pixel for tracking, head to your Facebook Ads Manager and click “Pixels” under the Assets section:
Now, click the green “Set Up Pixel” button to get started:
Facebook is easy to work with because they’ve got dozens of integrations that make installation a breeze:
If you know how to install code, you can do it yourself.
If you don’t (or you’re just lazy like me), select the first option.
Once you’ve integrated, be sure to head back to the Ads Manager to make sure there’s a confirmation in the top right corner:
This pixel script will give you the basics. You’ll start to see who does what on your site (and how it all relates back to your original ad campaigns).
But you’re going to need to take it a few steps further before you can glean any ROI insight.
Let’s do it.
UTM codes ‘tag’ your URLs to give you extra data about where your traffic is coming from.
For example, let’s say you’re doing paid promotion with an influencer on Twitter.
They are posting a few of your blog posts every day to get you more traffic and sales.
But when you look in Google Analytics, this is all you see:
Great. This isn’t helpful because you could be running dozens of these campaigns at one time. Or your traffic could just be high and diverse.
There’s no way to pinpoint which activities or campaigns are generating those sessions. Meaning, you have no clue if your efforts are working or not.
UTM codes allow you to add tracking data like source, medium, campaign, and even keywords to your URL to properly record each visit.
For example, here’s what a completed UTM could look like:
Here’s what your data will look like inside Analytics when you start to add UTM codes:
Now, you can tell exactly how you got the traffic, why it’s coming to you, and where it’s coming from.
So, how do you set these up?
There are a few ways to go about it.
If you’re running smaller advertising campaigns and just need to track a few links, head to Google’s UTM builder:
You can use this page to fill out the desired tracking tags like campaign source, medium, name, and keywords.
You simply type the final URL that you want to track into the “Website URL” section and generate your new URL.
Use that in your next campaign to get better data in Google Analytics.
If you run tons of AdWords ads and don’t want to make new UTM codes for every landing page, there’s a shortcut.
Head to your AdWords account and navigate to your shared library.
From here, select the URL options tab from your settings:
Then, make sure that auto-tagging is enabled. Head to the “Tracking Template” and here’s where you can enter UTM information.
Enter {lpurl}, then a question mark, and then any ValueTrack parameters you want to use, separated by ampersands (&).
For example, let’s say you wanted to track the campaign it came from. You’d add a string like this:
{lpurl}?ads_cmpid={campaignid}
Doing this will enable tracking at the account level, meaning you’ll never have to set up UTM codes for each new AdWords ad you create.
Now that you’re tracking basic conversion data on the top advertising networks, along with more laser-focused link tracking, it’s time to pull it all together.
Without phone call data, you’re missing out on a big piece of the puzzle.
Tons of AdWords conversions are from phone calls.
Why? When someone is going to book something like a consultation or hotel room, they often call in.
It’s easy, especially from mobile phones.
But what happens when this is all you see in AdWords?
You ain’t got nothin’ to show who converted or where in the heck they came from.
Tracking offline events is critical to success.
If you’re getting a lot of conversions from phone calls, you need to know which ones came from advertising and which were already coming from organic traffic.
Otherwise, it’s a shot in the dark as to whether you’re better off spending your dollars on SEO or PPC.
One of my favorite tools for tracking call data is CallRail.
You can set up keyword pools on your site that give each user their own tracking data.
Using dynamic number insertion, CallRail gives each user their own phone number rather than 1,000 users seeing your standard business line.
Meaning you can track each individual as they move throughout your advertising funnel.
You can see how they got to your site, the keywords that brought them to you, and the landing page they landed on.
You can record phone calls for even better conversion tracking.
If you want to tie ROI back to your advertising campaigns, you need tracking at every level.
That includes boring, old-school things like phones.
And yes, people still call businesses (as much as we hate it).
When you’ve started a new online advertising campaign, what’s your first step?
If it’s not setting up conversion tracking, you might be making a big mistake.
Tracking return on investment is critical to understanding how well your online campaigns are doing.
First, you need to start by outlining what a conversion means to your campaign.
Is it a direct sale via e-commerce, or is it a consultation?
The idea here is to tie your efforts directly to ROI and understand that a conversion isn’t necessarily money in your pocket.
Next, set up tracking scripts with the top advertising outlets.
You need these to collect critical data.
Be sure to take advantage of UTM codes to get insight into where your traffic is coming from.
Lastly, track your phone calls. People often forget how important call tracking is for getting an understanding of ROI.
Want to prove that your campaigns are worth it?
Clicks don’t tell you that. Neither do leads, opt-ins, or consultations. Only revenue does.
About the Author: Brad Smith is the founder of Codeless, a B2B content creation company. Frequent contributor to Kissmetrics, Unbounce, WordStream, AdEspresso, Search Engine Journal, Autopilot, and more.
A/B testing is brilliant. It lets you compare two or more versions of the same page element, paid ad, or another variable to see which one performs the best. In other words, it’s a key way to improve your content, increase user engagement, and boost conversion rates across your site. What’s not to like?
Additionally, with A/B testing, the results are clear and speak for themselves. For example, if you test two versions of a newsletter, it’ll be obvious from the results which version “worked” best based on the numbers.
How do you know why either version A or B performed best, though, and how do you gain deeper insight into your campaign performance?
This is where secondary goals can help you out. Let me show you why secondary goals matter in A/B testing, and how you can use them in your own marketing development.
Before we get started, let’s be clear on what’s meant by “primary” and “secondary” goals in A/B testing.
A primary goal is, quite simply, your main objective. It’s the priority goal of your campaign or the goal you’re hoping to achieve when you run an A/B test.
For example, say you’re a personal trainer. You have a notice on your landing page, encouraging people to sign up for a free sample week or taster session. Maybe it looks something like this from My Soul Sanctuary:
Your primary goal might be identifying how many people click through to complete this form because you’re trying to increase your sign-up numbers.
Secondary goals, on the other hand, give you more insight into user behavior and how people interact with your website. They help you reach your primary goal by providing a detailed insight into your A/B test results.
For example, the personal trainer might also want to know how many people share their content on social media, or sign up for their newsletter while on their website:
Knowing the answers to these questions offers additional insight into how well the content is performing—rather than tracking submission form sign-ups alone.
If you want to increase conversions, grow your business, and improve your ROI, you need to track primary and secondary goals. Otherwise, you only have half the data you need to market your business effectively.
Ready to track some secondary goals? To help you get started, here are seven metrics I suggest you measure as part of your A/B testing.
Tracking the “add-to-cart” metric allows you to identify how often customers add items to their cart and which pages get the most traction. Knowing how many times the “add-to-cart” action is triggered lets you split your audience into two categories:
You can use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to track cart actions. GA has detailed instructions for how to do this. Once you’re set up, you can run some different A/B tests. For example, you might test if more people proceed to checkout if there is a discount advertised for the product, and so on.
It sounds obvious, but it’s useful to track how often people interact with certain website features. Otherwise, it’s hard to tell whether your website offers visitors the great user experience they’re looking for.
From an A/B testing perspective, you might track features such as how many times users click CTA buttons, how many users engage with your live chat, and how many people click on your email address to contact you.
The exact features you track vary depending on your business goals. For example, Betterment, an investing website, has multiple different features, such as quizzes and investment calculators worth tracking:
In the above example, you might be inclined to track if the calculator performs better if it’s placed higher on the page, or if different colors mean more clicks.
If you’re unfamiliar with rage clicking, it’s basically when someone repeatedly clicks on a page element, but nothing happens. This typically occurs because a page element looks clickable even if when it’s not, or because a link on your page isn’t working.
With Google Analytics, you can track, for example, if there’s a single page generating a high amount of rage clicks. Or, you can see if there’s a certain type of page element which generates a lot of rage clicks e.g., a button, line of text, or image.
Rage clicking can frustrate your audience to the point where they lose trust in your business and leave your website, so it’s crucial to track the cause of these events. Again, you can track rage clicks in GA through Google Tag Manager by inserting the appropriate tags into the HTML where you want to start tracking.
Why does it matter if people highlight a portion of text on your page? Well, there are two reasons.
First, they might be highlighting the text so they can take action on it. For example, if lots of people highlight and copy your phone number, then maybe it needs a hyperlink.
On the other hand, people may highlight text to copy it into Google and search for related content. In which case, there’s a chance your website isn’t providing the answers they’re looking for. This last scenario is bad from a marketing perspective, obviously.
How do you track a secondary goal like this? Well, in the first scenario, you might run an A/B test to see if more people call you if you hyperlink your phone number. Compare the results in GA to check if it’s worth keeping the hyperlink or not.
Newsletters are a great way to expand your audience reach and deliver high-quality, informative content straight to your subscribers’ inboxes. First, though, you need people to sign up for your newsletter (which isn’t always easy.)
If you’re low on newsletter subscribers, there are a few variables you can play with during A/B testing. For example, you might track if people are more likely to subscribe to your newsletter during the checkout process or if a brighter, more colorful banner on your landing page results in more subscribers.
Newsletters and similar content like free guides and e-books can really help you build brand trust, so this definitely isn’t a secondary goal you should ignore. In fact, every marketer should have it near the top of their priority list.
Category and subcategory pageviews are equally important.
Your category page contains a list of related pages on your site, so it’s easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
Subcategory pages branch off from category pages and allow you to provide more structure to a customer’s web experience.
What should you be tracking on these pages? Well, you might track how many people click on certain subcategory pages, your bounce rate for various pages, and whether there’s a subcategory with very low engagement levels.
Then, you can play with optimizing the names of each page, changing the order of the categories, or making the subcategories clearer and more condensed. GA allows you to track both category and subcategory events, so make full use of the available features.
It’s awesome when people share your content. Not only does it mean you’re resonating with your target audience, but it means they’re introducing other people to your brand. In other words, social media shares count as free marketing, which is always a bonus.
From an A/B testing perspective, you might want to track how many people are sharing your page content, and if there’s any platform outperforming the others. Perhaps no one shares your blogs, but you discover your videos are shared frequently, or maybe more people share your content on Instagram than elsewhere.
GA can help here to an extent, but it’d be worth checking out the analytics tools on your social media platforms, too.
OK, so you have some goals in mind. Now, you need a means of measuring these goals to see if you’re actually reaching your objectives.
First, you need to establish your baseline measurements. You need to know how your website and all its features are performing right now so you can set an appropriate end goal.
If you don’t already have your baseline measurements, go back and collate some data, and then you’ll be ready to track your progress.
Do you have a baseline? Great. Now let’s consider how Google Optimize can help you measure those all-important secondary goals.
Google Optimize is a GA extension. It allows you to run experiments and track different outcomes, and you can measure the results via Google Analytics. If you don’t already have a Google Optimize account, head to optimize.google.com and click the “Get Started” button.
After creating your profile, link it to your GA account. Google has some comprehensive instructions for this, so check them out if you get stuck.
Once you’re all set up, create an experiment within Google Optimize by heading to the “Experiments” page and clicking the “Create Experiment” option:
Add your variables, configure your specific objectives, and let your experiment run. Once the experiment concludes, track your results by clicking the “Reporting” tab from the experiment’s page. Repeat the process if you want to try new variants.
To be clear, you’re not restricted to Google Optimize, though. You can also use data from sources like GA and even Facebook Analytics to build a comprehensive understanding of how your secondary goals are performing.
A/B testing can seem a little daunting, so here’s a quick recap of the main points I’ve covered to highlight the role of secondary goals in your A/B testing strategy.
A/B testing, or split testing, allows marketers to test two versions of the same variable, such as paid ads or page elements, to identify which version performs better. The idea is to run both versions simultaneously to see which one has the highest impact.
In A/B testing, the primary goals relate to the performance of each variable. In other words, primary goals allow you to track how tweaking a variable impacts visitors’ behavior.
Secondary goals, or metrics, give you further insight into how your visitors behave while they are on your website. Secondary goals matter because they help you improve the overall user experience on your site which, in turn, increases your conversions in the long run.
The secondary goals you should track vary depending on your unique goals. However, metrics you should focus on include newsletter signups, add-to-cart actions, and interactions with other site or page features. You might also track conversion rates, depending on your primary goal.
First, measure current performance so you have a benchmark to test against. Then, use analytics tools such as Google Optimize to measure each goal. Compile your results and devise a strategy based on your findings.
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The best part? You don’t need a host of complicated tools to measure secondary metrics. Simply track your analytics data in GA, or check out one or two other measuring tools to build a more comprehensive picture of your performance.
Are you tracking your A/B secondary goals? Which measuring tool do you find most effective?
McLaren rolled out its striking blue and orange Gulf livery on Thursday ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, a one-off look designed especially for F1’s showpiece event this weekend.
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McLaren rolled out its striking blue and orange Gulf livery on Thursday ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, a one-off look designed especially for F1’s showpiece event this weekend. The post McLaren's stunning Gulf livery makes track debut appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
The blue-chip index rose toward a fresh record as concern about the potential for a rise in interest rates eased.
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Why was Lewis Hamilton allowed to get away with abusing track limits at Turn 4 during the Bahrain GP but Max Verstappen’s overtake at the same part of the track deemed against the rules?
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I’ve been an SEO for roughly 17 years now.
And one thing that has remained constant, no matter how much
you know about SEO, there is just too much to do.
So much so, that most SEOs don’t even optimize their own websites anymore. And if they do, you’ll find that their site doesn’t rank for many competitive terms.
Why?
Because it is a lot of work!
That’s why I’m excited to announce Ubersuggest 6.0.
It now tracks and improves your rankings, even if you don’t have an SEO bone in your body.
So, what’s new?
First off, you can now keep track of all of your websites.
You’ll have to register to
use this feature, but don’t worry, it’s free.
Once you register, you’ll be dropped into a dashboard.
Now for me, I’m already tracking a few websites. Which is why
my dashboard is already populated.
The dashboard will keep track of your SEO errors, link
growth (or decline), your monthly search traffic, your overall search rankings,
and any SEO errors that you need to fix.
Best of all, it crawls your website for you each and every week so you don’t have to worry about keeping up with Google’s latest algorithm changes.
And with the search rankings feature, you can automatically track how your rankings are changing on a daily basis.
Within each site you add to the dashboard, you’ll be able to
automatically track your rankings for any specific keyword.
Not only are you able to track your rankings on desktop devices, but Ubersuggest also shows how you rank on mobile devices.
If you want to track specific keywords, all you have to do is click Add Keywords and it will pull a list of suggestion from your Google Search Console. Of course, you can also track any other keyword even if it doesn’t show up in your Search Console.
What’s also cool is that you have the ability to track your rankings in any country, city, or region. That means if you do local SEO or international SEO, you can see your rankings anywhere.
There’s also a date picker so once you’ve been using
Ubersuggest for a while, you’ll be able to see a nice chart of how your
rankings are improving over time.
What’s great about these changes is you can now directly see how Ubersuggest is helping you grow your search traffic.
It will automatically keep track of all of your changes and
notify you when it finds any new SEO issues to fix.
And over the next few months, you’ll see a few more features added that will make your life even easier.
One example is that I’ll introduce email alerts so that you don’t have to log into Ubersuggest anymore and it emails you when there is an issue that needs your attention.
I’ll also be adding in competitive analysis features. You’ll be able to track your competitors and be notified when they make an SEO or marketing change that you should look at.
And my long-term goal is to make it so you don’t even have to code or make any changes manually. Ubersuggest will eventually be able to go into your website and make these fixes for you. However, this feature won’t happen until next year sometime.
So, what do you think of the new Ubersuggest? Give it a try… make sure you create your free account.
PS: If you missed it, I released some cool features like local keyword research and a billion-plus keyword database last week. Click here to get the update on those new Ubersuggest features.
The post Ubersuggest 6.0: Track and Improve Your Rankings Without Learning SEO appeared first on Neil Patel.
Can you guess how most people improve their rankings?
Well, they either hire an SEO firm, which is expensive, or they do it themselves, which is time-consuming.
There must be a better solution, right?
One that still gets results, doesn’t take as much time and doesn’t cost any money.
Well, I’m about to make a major upgrade to Ubersuggest in the next 30 days that will help you do just this.
And before I release it, I need your feedback… so let me know what you think.
Here’s what I am thinking of doing to help you get better rankings in less time and without spending money.
The first thing I want to do is help you track your results so you can see what’s working and what isn’t.
Currently, with Ubersuggest, there is no way to track your progress, but I am about to change that.
First, I plan to create a dashboard that looks something like this:
You’ll be able to see your site, how much organic search traffic you get on a monthly basis, the keywords you rank for, how many backlinks you have, and any website errors you need to fix.
And on a weekly basis, we will automatically run your site through our site audit report to show you what’s wrong and if you are improving.
This way, you don’t continually have to check your site or look for opportunities. Instead, you’ll be notified when you need to fix something.
In addition to that, you’ll be able to start tracking your rankings for any keyword you want.
From your dashboard, you can click on a profile and see where you rank for any given term on both mobile and desktop devices and in any country or city.
If you have specific keywords that you want to track, you’ll be able to manually add them to do so. And if you aren’t sure which keywords to track, you’ll see a list of suggestions as well.
And if you want to track those rankings in a specific city or country, you can also do that…
My favorite part about the report is that you can easily see your rankings over time. Not just from an overall site perspective but also from a keyword level.
Now, this is where I need your help.
My goal is twofold… the first is to help you track how your SEO is doing and the second is to tell you what to fix.
Here’s why I am trying to accomplish both of those things:
Eventually, I want to even automate most of link building, but that isn’t ready yet.
Is there anything else I can add to the reports to make your life easier? Is there anything I can change to make it easier for you to get higher rankings?
PS: If you haven’t checked out Ubersuggest recently you should. We’ve made a lot of improvements to it over the last few months.
PPS: These features will be free of course. 😉
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