- Contest Factory
- November 2, 2021
Advertising has become more complicated and technical at best as we approach 2022. Privacy laws have become more stringent and it’s becoming more difficult to track the effectiveness of your advertising. Or that’s what all of the noise is saying – funny enough when we hear noise, we get to work to ensure that it’s just noise. There are plenty of solid methods for tracking your advertising.
Let’s first start with one of the handiest tracking tools around for services industries; this means you are collecting names and not selling online. HubSpot is a free CRM that enables you to track several handy metrics that also are smart for scoring your leads. HubSpot has a 1-click WordPress installation which makes it fairly easy to install and start using.
In addition to knowing the original source of your lead, HubSpot will track the first referring site, the last referring site, how many website visits, and how many pageviews during your website visit. It also tracks the Facebook and Google Click IDs. You can start determining your successful lead sources by the sources that convert to customers more frequently. You can also score your leads to know where to focus your efforts. When you score your leads, you want to build a point system that leverages prior learnings; typically, more engagement equals higher conversion.
Another tool to help you track your advertising is UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters. The name comes from the Urchin Software Company, one of the original web analytics software developers. Google acquired the company in 2005 and leveraged it to create Google Analytics. Google has a UTM generator that makes it easy to use and your data is available right inside GA under Campaigns.
The UTM generator enables you to look at very granular detail. You will want to create a testing matrix and include the data from each UTM to track the details of what is working and what is not. You will find the smallest detail can have the biggest impact, so measuring well is paramount to effective advertising optimization. The same image with a different copy can produce a 1,000% difference in response. Below you will see a testing matrix that has been created to track different campaigns and creative.
Ad Version | Target
Audience |
Product | Link | Segment | Copy |
1 | Over 50 | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/3mf03Ga | Strength, Power, Go Getter | Copy version A |
2 | Over 50 | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/37a1wcO | Simple, Natural, Inner Beauty | Copy version B |
3 | Over 50 | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/2KgYhHq | Boss Sisters that Wear Their Values | Copy version C |
4 | Over 50 | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/3mjLvp6 | Products that Beat the Rest | Copy version D |
5 | Latina | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/3mdNScE | Strength, Power, Go Getter | Copy version E |
6 | Latina | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/3mlnwWB | Simple, Natural, Inner Beauty | Copy version F |
7 | Latina | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/3mjKJII | Boss Sisters that Wear Their Values | Copy version G |
8 | Latina | All-in-one | https://bit.ly/3mjKJII | Products that Beat the Rest | Copy version H |
In addition to Hubspot and UTM data, you will want to measure your view-through conversions; view-through conversions references the number of folks that saw your display ad, and did not click, yet went to your website independent of the ad and browsed as well as purchased. It is more likely to get view-through conversions than direct click conversions and why this metric is so important in eCommerce.
It takes an average of 4 ad impressions to make a prospect click or change direction on current scroll path. This is why it is more often than not that a view-through conversion occurs as opposed to direct click conversions. UTM data will not show up here, rather you will need a custom cookie to identify these folks – it is called a persistent cookie and may be found in 3rd party ad servers; Reporting Ninja is a leader in this space.
Adding all of your tracking data to your CRM will help you understand how many touchpoints, engagements, emails, and creatives it takes to convert a prospect. You will also start to see patterns that you can maximize; once you find an effective ad combo, you will want to maximize your ad spend here while minding net profit. Once you max out with a good NP, you will maximize your next and so on. All the while continuing testing new lead sources to push the line on how low can you go to acquire customers.
Using these tips should give you a lot more visibility while others believe technology left them in the dark. There is always a way around and sometimes you create it yourself and sometimes you follow the leader. Good luck in your advertising endeavors!