Stop Wasting Money
With the constantly evolving world of online marketing, business owners often struggle with how to know what is working and what isn’t. As Google moved into GA4 and the old version stopped working, it is confusing people even more. When I sit down with business owners who are great at what they do, they struggle with measuring their marketing plans. Other than that the phone is ringing or the forms are filling, it can be tough to know which tactics are working and which are not. Not knowing what works makes it tough to tell what to invest more in and what to stop investing in. This leads to a lot of money being flushed down the drain and missed opportunities. With the changes in the internet, it is even tougher to know if new customers found you on their phone, their Google Home device, or even from the dashboard of their car. We can help a business better understand where their quality leads are coming from.
Measuring the Right Information
We work with a business on how they collect information so we can come up with a plan that works with what you are doing. Often a tweak here or there or introducing a tool that you hadn’t thought of is all it takes to make that last connection between what you are doing and good actionable data. Once you are continuously collecting good data your decisions become much easier. You know what works and how well it works and you are on your way to success. It is just a matter of building a plan and using the tools that work with the way you do business. With over fifteen years of measuring success, we know how to get you there. Some of the unique ways to better divide your data are below.
- Call Tracking: Using call tracking techniques to understand specifically where phone calls are coming from. Is it your local search results page, your advertising, or that billboard you advertised on? We can help you track this information. For businesses that rely on phone calls, this can answer a lot of questions and help you spend your budget properly.
- Click-to-Call from Your Website: Are you tracking who clicks your number on your website and calls you right from their mobile phones? This is often an important conversion that small business owners don’t know how to measure. It can often be put into place for a few hundred dollars and really help you understand what is driving your calls. Is it traffic coming from Google or those social media posts? Now you know.
- Traffic Segmentation: Using campaign tracking codes, we can help segment where your traffic is coming from. Does most of your traffic come from local search, paid search ads, or display ad campaigns? Which traffic is converting better and from which place? Tracking it properly can help you spend more where it helps and less where it doesn’t.
- Off-Site Tracking: Google is keeping more and more searchers on their results pages by providing more and more information about your business without ever going to your website. It doesn’t really matter if it turns into business, but how do you measure that? How do you see how many people are seeing you in these other spots? We can help with that.
- Geofencing: We can even help put into place display campaigns that can help capture and measure those that see your ads on their mobile device and end up visiting your business, even without necessarily visiting your website. This and the constantly evolving tools available are important to stay on top of. Making the right decisions based on true data can save you far more money than the cost to capture that data.
Ad Platforms Give You Biased Information
In today’s digital marketing landscape, understanding the true impact of your campaigns has become more critical than ever. While platforms like Google Ads and Meta offer a plethora of metrics to gauge performance, it’s essential to keep a watchful eye on your true conversions and costs. Relying solely on these platforms’ measurement tools may lead to a skewed perception of your marketing success. A Fall 2023 article on Search Engine Land highlights significant differences in key performance indicator (KPI) metrics, emphasizing the importance of independent monitoring. Sometimes the same information is presented differently by different tools. Keep in mind that these ad platforms want to convince you to keep using them. Most just trust what they say, but it often is biased to the platform.
The digital marketing ecosystem is complex and ever-evolving. Advertising platforms have their algorithms and methods for tracking conversions and costs, which can sometimes be opaque. This lack of transparency can lead to discrepancies in data and reporting. Businesses must recognize that their unique goals, audience, and industry nuances can impact how conversions are defined and measured. This is where the concept of “true conversions” comes into play. By independently tracking and validating conversions and costs, you can gain a more accurate understanding of your return on investment (ROI) and the actual impact of your marketing efforts. This proactive approach allows you to make data-driven decisions, allocate resources effectively, and optimize your strategies for better results. Make sure you have your conversions set up to measure what is most important to you and you can view independently of the advertising platform.
Custom Plans to Help You Measure Success Accurately
With more than fifteen years of helping smaller businesses that can struggle with methods for measuring success, we can help you come up with custom methods to measure success in a manner that fits the way you do business and doesn’t cost so much that it isn’t worthwhile. Knowing the best way to spend your money always ends up paying off in the end, but it can sometimes be daunting spending your limited budget to try to generate a plan that you aren’t sure will even work. The important aspect is those first steps.
Whether it is calls or online sales that drive your business, we have the experience and knowledge to keep adjusting to new technologies and finding the best way for you to measure success. Though GA4 is supposed to make it easier to track, it has proven to be a steep learning curve for many. Having helped businesses with SEO and digital marketing for over 15 years as we have, it is imperative that we show how our techniques are working. Even if you don’t hire us for SEO, this is an important piece of your marketing puzzle. We are happy to sit with you and help come up with the dashboards and key performance indicators that help you make the right decisions going forward. Not only saving money but making money by investing in what is really working. As technology and measuring tools evolve, we can help you take advantage and make the best decisions for your business.