Pinpointing Conversions, How to tell which conversion came from ppc Options

[Dresden]

I'm just now getting a handle our Google PPC campaign. I've put in the tracking code and conversions are showing in my reports. Great! However, I've got a problem which can be summed up in the following scenario:

I see that 5 people signed up for our newsletter yesterday (they were redireced to a "thank you" page which contains the google tracking code and counts them as a conversion). Google shows me 2 conversions which means that 2 of these 5 people converted from a Google Adwords ad. The other 3 found our site and signed up for the newsletter by other means (i.e. organic search, direct entry, etc). How do I know which 2 of these 5 people came from a Google Adwords ad?

I've contacted Google and I've not gotten anymore than how to broadly distinquish conversions; putting in cross-channel tracking code. But that won't tell me specifically that Jim Smith and John Doe came from a Google Adword ad.

As far as I can tell, Google Conversion Tracking offers no time stamp which would allow me to compare sign-up's and conversion times and figure out who's who.

Do I need to set up landing pages specifially for Google Ads and create some type of "forced experience" to know which 2 people, in fact, came from a Google Adword ad?

Thanks very much for any advice and please let me know if I can provide any clarity.

Best,
Dres

[chrisbiber]

First question: why do you need to know this detail? I.e. does it make a difference to know that John Smith came from AdWords and Mike Jones came from search? What actionable insight does that provide?

Having said that, it's relatively straightforward to do this (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) (Provided that the signup form is being reached via the PPC campaign, you can add a hidden field to the form which captures this fact (taking a parameter from the PPC click). With anyone else coming to the signup form, the field does not populate...

Chris

[Dresden]

Chris:

Brilliant! I love the hidden field suggestion. I'm not certain on how to add the field that shows only when it's a Google PPC person, but I'll do some research. Is this some sort of conditional show? (sorry, I'm not a hard core coder). Any suggestions or resources are certainly welcome.

Unfortunately, we do need to get this data. We have to prove that Google PPC is giving us a ROI. If, for example, we've spent $3,000 on Google PPC and not had a single person complete a full transaction with us, we'll have think seriously about continuing.

Thanks Chris. I'll see if I can get that hidden field working.

Best,

Dres

[chrisbiber]

Hi Dres,

Glad to be of help. Your form designer/programmer should be able to implement this hidden field routine fairly readily. And it goes without saying that you should also use Analytics in the mix...

Cheers,
Chris

[wrockca]

Wow $3k and no conversions, depending upon your keywords and your industry I would start looking at your landing pages and your forms or product offerings.

However their are many 3rd party tools that can help provide these stats I like to use Google Analytics with Conversion Ruler this allows me to put a code that is generated from their site to put into Google AdWords allowing me to track all the way down to the keyword.

I like to compare if my paid ads bring more leads than my organic or if my organic converts better than my paid. This also tells me how I can optimize my landing pages to get the best results.

I feel it is very important to know where my leads are coming from and what my visitors are typing to get to the conversions so I can go back to the drawing board and create more of what they what.

Also look at your bounce rates, figure out how to get those down... You may need to tweak your ad copy based on your landing page. Make sure your ad displays the offer you have on your site, I find many people saying one thing and offering something else.

Test Test Test = Conversions


Hope this helps (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[cline]

In the case of high value conversions on a low-traffic site, e.g., inquiries for high-priced specialty b2b services, you know from the inquiry the date, company, and location. You can use that information to mine your log data (e.g., via Google Analytics) to match the inquiry with online behavior. It's tedious manual work, but in the case of one client we've learned that the best keywords are ones so obscure they don't show up on the Adwords keyword tool, and they don't come to the client's mind as being something to target. We also have been able to determine that PPC is working much better for them than SEO.