Is your company working towards marketing objectives? If not, let’s hope you have another way to bring in income. If you do have marketing goals, then your business needs to be monitoring conversions.

What Exactly Are Conversions?

Many people mistakenly believe that conversion tracking only applies to online sales. Actually, a conversion is any significant action taken by a website visitor. It could be something as simple as someone subscribing to your company blog, downloading a helpful guide, or even just visiting a key page on your website.

Begin by determining which actions are valuable to your company. For example, imagine you run a sports camp. Visitors who spend time exploring the interactive activity map on your webpage are likely important for business growth. They may not be directly generating revenue yet, but they are converting by showing an interest in your services and activities, making them promising potential customers.

Why Should Conversions Be Tracked?

Do you want to understand what’s effective and what’s not? Are you hoping to enhance your Google Ads performance? Is improving your return on investment and saving money a priority? If at least one of these resonates with you, tracking conversions in Google Ads is an absolute MUST! The key takeaway here is that conversions are crucial, and tracking them is even more critical. It’s concerning to know that less than 50% of active Google Ads accounts utilize conversion tracking. Not tracking conversions is like navigating a winding road in the dark without your glasses – there’s no clarity on whether your marketing investments are paying off. You could be wasting time and money on pay-per-click advertising due to a lack of conversions. According to Dan Norris, co-founder of Informly, “Blogs that don’t implement conversion strategies usually convert at less than 1%, while those that do see rates of 5% or higher.” Some of my clients who have implemented conversion tracking have discovered that while they receive a lot of ad impressions and even website clicks, these visitors aren’t converting into customers. Talk about frustrating! However, now they have a clear direction to focus on – by improving website relevance and optimizing landing pages, conversions are more likely to follow! Without this tracking in place, they would be stumbling around aimlessly. Jason Gannon, one of our Paid Search Strategists at nexus-security, conducted a case study in July 2013 on one of Google’s then-new features: enhanced sitelinks applied at the ad group level. Focusing on a Canadian shoe retailer, Jason examined click-through rate, conversion rate (1-per-click), and conversion rate (many-per-click) to see how these enhanced sitelinks impacted the account. His findings revealed a significant positive influence on clicks and conversions, which ultimately led to more conversions and improved ROI for the retailer. “Even a small improvement in conversion rate can have a significant impact," Jason wrote. “If you can increase your conversion rate by just 0.5% while keeping everything else constant, you could potentially double your business!” Making these critical improvements is impossible without implementing conversion tracking to understand which changes are beneficial or detrimental to your business.

Setting Up Conversion Tracking

To track conversions from PPC campaigns, you need to embed a code snippet into the “thank you” or confirmation page that visitors reach after completing a desired action. If you have multiple conversion goals, you’ll need a dedicated landing page, confirmation page, and code for each one. You likely have two of these elements in place already. For the code, follow these steps in Google Ads: NOTE: nexus-security clients can easily generate Google Ads conversion codes through the “Show me more tab” under the Manage PPC section of the software. Please get in touch with your Customer Success Representative if you require any assistance.

1. Go to the “Tools and Analysis” tab and choose “Conversions” from the menu.

2. You’ll be directed to the “All conversions” page. To create a new conversion, ensure you are in the conversion tab and click the green +Conversion button. Here, you’ll name your conversion and choose the source for tracking code generation.

3. Selecting a source: This refers to where the user completed the conversion. It’s essential to select the correct source to generate the appropriate tracking code, whether the conversion happens on your website, through a phone call, or by downloading an app.

4. Next, choose your conversion category, conversion window, markup language (likely HTML), and set a conversion value if you wish.
5. Proceed to the next screen for code generation. You can choose who manages changes to your website and send them the code directly with a personalized message. If you handle website updates, copy the code provided and paste it between the tags of the page where conversions are directed after completion.

Next Steps

With your conversion tracking in place (assuming you’ve sidestepped common conversion tracking errors), allow your account some time to accumulate data. Then, make it a habit to dedicate time each month for analysis and optimization. Examine your conversions and conversion rates for specific campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ads, and landing pages. Increase your budget for those performing well, and revamp underperforming ads or landing pages. Don’t hesitate to experiment and test features you might not have utilized before, such as implementing sitelink extensions or establishing a remarketing campaign through the display network. As According to Fit Marketing’s Chris Kilbourn points out, “Even the smallest improvement in conversion rate can result in significant additional business for your company.” So, let’s remove the blindfolds, put on our glasses, and start closely monitoring those conversions!

4 Compelling Reasons to Start Tracking Conversions Now:

1. Gain valuable insights: By measuring conversions, you can pinpoint which campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ads, and landing pages are generating the most conversions, allowing for data-driven adjustments.
2. Attract more customers! It’s a universal desire. Once you start collecting conversion data, you’ll clearly understand what changes are needed to improve underperforming keywords, ads, and other elements. Implement these changes and watch the customer influx begin!
3. Maximize your return on investment: Clicks hold little value without conversions. Tracking conversions helps minimize wasted spending, attract higher-quality clicks, and ultimately improve your ROI.
4. Embrace experimentation and growth: With conversion tracking in place, you have the freedom to experiment with additional Google Ads features like ad extensions, remarketing campaigns, and product listing ads. Test and discover new avenues to boost conversions and transform your business into a profit-generating powerhouse.