We get a chance to check our current Google Ads strategy against your needs.
We get feedback from you on what is trending in your business and in sales so as to rearrange our program if needed.
We get an opportunity to review your budget to keep on track with your marketing plan and revise budgets up or down.
I personally find that when we have regular feedback from the client in regards to how Google Ads is working for them, that performance is better and customer satisfaction with Google pay per click is higher.
My firm manages over $3 million in ad spend for clients in Google Ads yearly. As a result, we see opportunities for improvement in regards to conversion tracking across multiple accounts in diverse industries.
My Tips on Conversion Tracking
Always track website contact forms.
Try to track website phone calls.
Do not change key conversion actions.
Use Position-Based attribution.
Set your cookie for 30 to 60 days.
Add additional conversion actions for promotions.
Nancy C. McCord, Owner of McCord Web Services LLC
One of the most important aspects to conversion tracking is to select key conversion actions and to NOT change them in the Google Ads conversion control panel or Google Analytics.
We have recently had several situations where well-meaning marketing staff deleted conversion actions thinking that there would be no harm in doing so, but as a result the smart bidding algorithms in Google Ads were negatively impacted and performance dropped quickly in the account.
I have found that when a customer is changing the conversion actions for promotions and they do not have key conversion actions that are always in the account, bidding algorithms are easily confused and cost per click and cost per conversions will increase, sometimes dramatically.
Assure that if you track website phone calls and email form completions that you always keep these running as conversion actions. Do not move in and out of conversion actions unless you use manual bidding.
Let Smart Bidding Algorithms Do the Heavy Lifting for You
Once you have your conversion action strategy in place, wait to accrue 15 conversions in a 30 day period and then test the use of smart bidding options like maximize conversion or Target CPA bidding for your account.
Make sure to do routine checks at 2 weeks, 30 days, and 60 days to assure that these algorithms are actually delivering results with a cost per conversion that works for your business. Most accounts will benefit from the use of smart bidding based on Google’s machine learning and AI, but not all.
If your business is pulling back where can you realistically chop in your marketing plan and not get hurt?
Chop Away
Social Media – if you are paying to update Facebook, Twitter and Google+ you could easily take a break to save money.
Blogging – try not to kill all your writing as the SEO juice you get from well-written blog posts helps you in the long run, but maybe consider moving from three days a week to two or from two days a week to one. Try to still keep the momentum up but maybe lower the word count or frequency.
Chop Not!
Google AdWords – don’t touch it unless you absolutely have to. AdWords is hands down the best way to generate new leads and start cash pumping back into your business.
e-newsletters – they build loyalty and repeat business. Newsletters are especially important to businesses that have annual renewals for service plans like pest control firms and HVAC firms. If you chop this, your name is not kept in front of your customers and come time to renew, they may not see the value of renewing; which will hurt your sales even further.
Need some practical sense to make the most of the budget you do have or to get AdWords to work harder for you? We’re the firm to call and chat with first especially if you are looking for honest advice you can trust with no sales pressure.
As a professional Google Ads account manager, I see all kinds of accounts – healthy ones, sick ones, and those that simply need to be started all over. One thing that I have seen consistently is an issue with conversions and what clients decide to track has a big impact on performance. Especially when automated bidding driven by AI is turned on.
In the image above, you can see that this client has no conversion tracking working. This new client is using conversion maximizing automated bidding, but is not tracking any conversions as the codes are all broken.
Here’s what I like to track when it comes to conversions:
Sales
Email form completions
Phone calls from the website after 40 seconds
Click to call from ads – sometimes
Whitepaper downloads
Newsletter subscriptions
Free Demos or Trials
Here’s what I do not like to see as tracked:
Visits to a page
Time on a page
Number of website pages in a visit
Set up for a disaster are:
No conversion tracking at all
Broken codes for conversion tracking
Clicks on a button – in most cases
McCord Web Services is a Google Partner and a Certified Google Ads Professional
I have also found that changing from 1-conversion to many-conversion can be good, but moving from many-conversion to 1-conversion can be very problematic, for reporting history as well as communicating a strong success story in Google Ads.
From my point of view not tracking the “right” conversions in an account makes it very hard to utilize the Google Ads bidding algorithms to maximize performance and to drop the cost per conversion effectively.
If you do use any automated bidding tools with a conversion boosting focus and your conversion tracking codes are broken or not working, you set yourself up for incredibly high bids as Google has no historical data to base bidding upon.
If you are looking to optimize your Google Ads account join our clients and get quality review by our experienced team. We take a no-nonsense approach to getting you more business.
