Ads are made to generate business, at the end of the day. It can be hard to know which one will work best. That is why you use A/B testing. In this series we’ve covered a few ways to track ad performance, but another thing to consider is overall conversion.
Traffic Analyzers
We went over using unique domains to track ad effectiveness in the last article, but for those using mainly online ads, there is also the option to use a traffic analyzer on your site. This is something often done for those using SEO, online ad campaigns, or marketing in general. When using this method, you can actually see the URL of where people came from when they clicked on your website. So if they came from a friend’s site, you will see that. If it comes from a specific ad, there are ways to check that. And many ad networks also provide analytics, which can be utilized to get exact information. This is helpful because, while together you are selecting the best content for your ad, on the back-end it still must be decided where the best place to put those ads will be. But there is more to an ad campaign than just seeing how many visitors you get. That is why it is also important to go over cost-per-click, and ultimately cost-per-conversion.
Tracking Conversions
Ads that generate customers is the ultimate goal. One way to do this is when someone visits one of your “advertisement domains,” track what they do on your site with a cookie. This will tell you if they ended up contacting you or buying a product. Data analytic software can tell you where they came from, but this will tell you what they did when they arrived. If you are using unique URLs and numbers that are only advertised on that one ad, there is an easier way using simple arithmetic, though it is not for tracking precise customers. So if you have 20,000 people viewing your ad, 500 people clicking on your site, 50 contacting you, and 10 of those buy products or services, then you will have actual numbers to compare with other ads.
Weighing the Best Ads
From there, you need to decide how that ad network charges you. Some do cost-per-view, and they charge a set amount for every thousand clicks. Other sites charge for every click you get. So one may charge you $5 for every thousand views, meaning that 20k views is $200. And cost-per-click may be 15 cents per click, so you pay $75 for those 500 clicks. Potential customers, the 50 that contacted you, can be hard to quantify. But the 10 who did buy something are much easier to quantify. If half of them bought a $100 product you have, and the other half bought a year of your lawn mowing service for $100 a month, you are looking at $6500. This data tells you several things. One, that cost-per-click will be cheaper in this instance. Second, that the services you should be advertising are the lawn mowing, not the lawn mower itself that you sell. So now you will know this ad works, and what you should focus on next time. If another ad had twice the views and clicks, but half of the results, that tells you to stop focusing on that ad. A/B testing is truly a process of elimination.
If you would like more information about how to use conversion rates and analytics in your marketing campaign, contact tekRESCUE in San Marcos, TX.
