Digital marketing analytics tools like Google Analytics provide businesses with powerful metrics to optimize online campaigns, increase customer engagement, and reach business goals. However, understanding these metrics requires an in-depth knowledge of data analysis and conversion tracking.
Conversion tracking API gives marketers access to accurate data that enables them to optimize advertising campaigns effectively and reduce discrepancies caused by ad blockers and browser settings.
Defining Conversion Goals
No matter, if your goal is to increase online sales or
generate leads, conversion goals and digital marketing analytics tools, should
be set and reviewed regularly in order to meet audience needs and tailor
strategies accordingly.
Set conversion goals by outlining what actions you hope for
from website visitors and then outlining all the micro-conversions they must
complete before reaching this final objective - for instance, watching a video
or signing up for your newsletter before purchasing items from your store may
be necessary first.
Decide which metrics you will use to measure these goals.
Binary conversion goals that meet a "yes or no" condition (for
instance, did they click the CTA button or fill out a form) are often popular;
goal completion rates can also be calculated by dividing goal completions by
total website visits - giving you insight into whether or not your goals have
been accomplished and helping make any necessary adjustments as needed.
Implementation of Tracking Codes
Tracking conversions is essential to increasing marketing
and sales ROI, providing marketers with the insight needed to understand why
customers make decisions that lead toward specific KPIs. If a customer clicks
an initial CTA for a free quote but abandons it midway through, marketers can
use retargeting campaigns to encourage them to go back through to complete
conversion.
Conversion tracking can be accomplished using various
digital marketing tools, including Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel. When
choosing conversion-tracking solutions that align with your business goals and
integration processes, make sure they know how to set them up and integrate
themselves smoothly into the system.
Establishing and optimizing a strong conversion tracking
system takes strategic planning, ample resources, and continuous refinement.
Achieving optimal performance means collecting the necessary data points,
translating insights into positive ROIs, driving sustainable brand growth, and
maximizing returns on marketing dollars spent - something that sets you apart
from competitors who fail to take full advantage of their data.
Platform-Specific Conversion Setup
Your digital marketing analytics platform of choice will
determine how to collect and track conversion data. For example, Google
Analytics (GA) requires that you insert a small piece of code onto each webpage
where conversions should be tracked in order to track them effectively.
The GA code can help your business track goal conversions
like email sign-ups or product sales, as well as event conversions like video
plays or form submissions that add specific value to your business.
GA can assist with optimizing ads by helping identify key
performance indicators (KPIs) that are most important to your business and
creating and running campaigns that support them. Campaigns can target specific
audiences based on their interests and behaviors to maximize your advertising
spend efficiently.
Google Ads (formerly AdWords) users can add call conversions
by either directly entering their phone numbers into AdWords or adding a phone
snippet tag on their website (see the previous section for instructions on
installing). Once included in total calculations, these conversions need to be
included and how they should be calculated.
Multi-Channel Attribution Modeling
Multi-channel attribution modeling (MCAM) allows marketers
to assign credit for conversions across various touchpoints on the customer
journey - everything from search and social media ads to emails. It helps
marketers better understand their real marketing impact instead of relying on
traditional last-click or ad-based models alone.
To establish multi-channel attribution, marketers must
select an attribution strategy and configure their analytics platform
accordingly. Some models provide more accurate estimates; linear attribution
gives equal credit for every channel involved in the conversion path, while
cross-channel position-based and time decay attribution strategies give more
weight to touches closer to conversion.
As part of your analysis strategy, it is also wise to assess
what gaps exist in your analytics - like offline attributions (when customers
say they saw a Facebook ad at a physical store). Many ecommerce brands find
success using post-purchase surveys or third-party tools like Zigpoll to
collect this information and fill in any missing pieces of the puzzle.
Conversion Funnel Analysis
A conversion funnel is a model of how potential customers
move through your sales process, beginning with sparking interest and then
informing them of its value before eventually making up their minds to purchase
or not. Each step along this journey serves as a touchpoint where users must
engage with your brand for conversion to occur - making a well-crafted
conversion funnel invaluable in customer acquisition and retention efforts.
Funnel analysis is a way of tracking how many people reach
each stage of your conversion process and identifying any barriers preventing
them from continuing on their journey. For instance, if many customers drop off
at the checkout stage without purchasing, using funnel analysis could help
identify where in their conversion journey they may have become stuck and
uncover where the culprit lies.
Smartlook makes it easy to analyze funnels by pairing funnel
analysis with screen recordings of visitors who dropped off at specific points
during the conversion process, giving you insight into what visitors were doing
before leaving and quickly identifying low-hanging fruit for improvement.
Cross-Device Tracking
An ideal digital marketing analytics platform should enable
users to be tracked across devices. This feature is essential, given that most
individuals own multiple devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and
Smart TVs.
Cross-device tracking provides marketers with an effective
tool to gain a comprehensive view of their omnichannel performance. Without it,
it can be challenging to ascertain attribution (which channel caused the sale),
advertising effectiveness (which device reached the customer), and even
traditional marketing activities like direct mail's impact.
Cross-device tracking can be accomplished in several
different ways. One method, known as probabilistic cross-device tracking, uses
non-personal information to infer that multiple devices belong to the same
user. However, this technique is less precise than using login data from apps,
sites, and devices such as Wizaly's Identity Graph Solution, which uses more
precise deterministic data mapping users across devices for accurate user
targeting and better campaign performance.
Data Integrity and Quality Assurance
Data integrity is of utmost importance in digital marketing
analytics, particularly for businesses that use it to make important decisions.
A misstep due to inaccurate or incomplete information could have a devastating
impact on a company.
Businesses should implement a quality assurance system to
verify and monitor the data being gathered by verifying its source and
legibility and meeting its intended use requirements.
Monitoring analytics dashboards in real-time is another
effective way of maintaining data integrity, as this enables businesses to
quickly detect any discrepancies with their data and take corrective actions as
soon as necessary. If a campaign isn't performing as intended, businesses can
pause it and try out a different strategy - this helps avoid costly mistakes
while maximizing return on investment.
Conclusion
Numerous external economic trends, competitors' spending,
and even your product or service offerings may influence conversion rates, but
with proper strategies and tools, you can optimize conversion tracking to boost
ROI and meet business goals.
Under increasing privacy scrutiny and with third-party
cookies increasingly obsolete, accurate marketing metrics are more crucial than
ever to measuring marketing performance accurately. Luckily, there are new
solutions available that help address these challenges by offering better
tracking and optimization capabilities than before.
Conversions API (CAPI) is an ad tracking technology that uses server-side tracking to transmit data directly into Google Ads without needing third-party consent, adhering to privacy regulations and providing robust cross-device tracking so that if a user interacts with your ads on mobile and then converts on a desktop later that same user is recognized as the same one; as a result, attribution