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.
Outline What a “Conversion” is For Your Campaign
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.
Set up Google AdWords Tracking
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:Setup Facebook Pixels
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:
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.
Take Advantage of UTM Codes
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.