Paid Ads Lead Conversion Tracking: A Collaborative Approach for Service Businesses
In today's highly competitive digital landscape, service businesses often rely on paid advertising to reach their target audience and generate valuable and quality leads. However, the effectiveness of paid ads can only be truly measured when businesses go beyond website metrics and dive deep into lead conversion tracking. This blog post will support business owners and marketing managers of service businesses in setting up internal lead conversion tracking processes. Moreover, it will explore the benefits of a collaborative approach between clients and paid ads agencies to optimise ad campaigns to support the improvement of lead quality.
The Foundations of Effective Lead Conversion Tracking
Before we delve into the intricacies of lead conversion tracking, let's establish a solid foundation. Lead conversion is the process of turning a lead, or prospective customer, into an actual customer. Lead conversion tracking involves monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of lead generation strategies. To set the stage for success, businesses must define clear objectives and goals for lead tracking. These objectives can vary, such as:
Increasing lead volume;
Improving lead quality; or
Boosting overall conversion rates.
Understanding the different stages of the lead funnel is crucial for tracking success. From initial awareness to the final conversion, each stage provides valuable insights into customer behaviour. By tracking lead movement through the funnel, businesses can identify pain points and areas for improvement, as well as lead quality.
An example lead funnel for a service-based business from paid ads could involve several steps such as:
Paid ads campaign is created to generate traffic to a website or landing page.
Once the potential customer clicks on the ad and lands on the website, their contact information can be captured by offering a lead magnet, such as a free guide or resource related to the service. This helps to build trust and establish expertise.
After capturing contact information, these leads can be nurtured by sending them targeted emails or other forms of information to provide value, educate, and build a relationship. This could include sharing case studies, testimonials, or offering limited-time promotions.
Leads could continue to be nurtured until a point where they convert.
Another example could be:
Paid ads campaign is created to generate traffic to a website or landing page.
Once the potential customer clicks on the ad and lands on the website, they are compelled to call, email or submit an enquiry via a website form.
Both of these examples require accurate internal tracking to understand the conversion rate of leads generated by paid advertising, as well as feedback around the quality of the leads. This information can support the optimisation of a paid ads campaign, as well as internal processes around the lead funnel such as nurturing leads and building trust.
So What Is A Conversion?
At GRAVITATE, we generate phone calls, email enquiries and website form enquiries for service businesses. A conversion is just this, a potential lead who's converted from the website or an ad to make a meaningful sales interaction. Now if a service-based business has an online sales portal or for an e-commerce business; it's likely that tracking will be set up for the most meaty conversion metric, a transaction. Therefore, a conversion is a key KPI likely to be measured to show how many clicks to call, emails, form submissions or transactions with the business were generated by that particular marketing medium (e.g., Paid Advertising, SEO, Email Marketing or Social Media).
Having optimal business processes in place to measure conversions and as an outcome of these processes to shed light on where converted leads are being generated from and how marketing investment is being spent is paramount. However, while paid advertising can attract a steady and scalable stream of potential customers, the kiss of truth lies in efficiently converting those leads into loyal patrons and measuring whether a phone call or email or form submission concluded as a client or a lost lead.
A well-structured internal team equipped with streamlined business processes and mapping this internal data into a customer relations management tool (CRM) or even a simple spreadsheet will help to see that no lead falls through the cracks. It will also allow marketers and business leaders alike to measure the true value of a conversion and marketing efforts.
Whilst there may be great data on conversions, if there is no tracking around whether that converted lead turns into a customer or a lost lead there are blind spots, in truth, in the marketing efforts. A good measurement of converting leads requires both the website and ads analytics meeting in the middle with the internal CRM lead tracking.
So What Happens After A Conversion?
If a phone call click is initiated and not picked up within 3 rings, or a lead goes to voicemail or is sent on an automation for a minute or two... don't expect to see a conversion turn into a customer. Hence, measuring internally the drop-off rate of how many calls are received, versus those marketing analytics data may report, can uncover interesting improvements at various stages of the customer funnel.
From timely follow-ups and personalised communication to seamless handovers between departments, these processes can enhance customer experience, build trust and convert more leads into customers. Without robust business processes and excellent customer service, sales and onboarding; businesses risk losing valuable opportunities and undermining the full potential of their paid advertising investments.
Next, let's explore potential ways to set up internal lead tracking.
Zoe
Read Time
5
min
Like what you're reading so far? Subscribe to our newsletter for more insights and industry trends.
Internal Lead Tracking Process Ideas
To support the accurate measurement of lead conversions, service businesses often need robust internal processes. Here are some tips to develop these:
1. Utilise a reliable CRM System
Investing in a reputable Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help to effectively manage leads. CRM functions can include:
Consolidating lead data;
Tracking interactions; and
Streamlining communication with potential customers.
2. Consistent Data Collection
Standardising the process of lead data collection across all touch points can help to ensure that the data collected is accurate and reliable for analysis.
3. Assign Lead Attribution
Establish a lead attribution model that attributes each lead to the appropriate marketing channel or campaign. This allows businesses to identify the most successful ad campaigns and optimise their budget allocation.
4. Track Offline Conversions
If a service business involves offline interactions, implement ways to track these conversions. For example, use unique phone numbers or coupon codes linked to specific ad campaigns, or simply asking the following questions:
"How did you hear about us?" - When taking a lead phone call.
"Was it an ad, email or did you find us organically or other?" - To get an idea of where the lead came from. Keep in mind that the lead's response to this question could be subjective.
If using a spreadsheet to track leads and enquiries, it's important measure more than just name, phone and email. The following questions can support more accurate internal lead tracking:
"What was the enquiry about?" - What service or product.
"How did they hear about us?" - What source/medium.
"How did the enquiry come in?" - What conversion goal: phone, email, web form, transaction.
"Converted to lead?" - Yes/No.
"Converted to client?" - Yes/No.
"Client estimated annual fee?" - $X.
Whilst it may seem like a lot to ask, tracking this information and feeding it back to your marketing team to review can help to ascertain a service business' return on investment (ROI), return on ad spend (ROAS), average order value (AOV), minimum order value (MOV) and even advertising cost of sales (ACOS).
5. Too Busy & Time Poor, Forgetting To Track Or Doing It Sometimes (But Incomplete)?
It's better to track shorter periods of time with high accuracy than every so often over a longer time period. If you're struggling to get internal metrics on the above, try doing an exercise of internal lead tracking over 14 days or 30 days. If really getting finite, 7 days can be useful but of course, the longer the time frame and more accurate the data, the more statistically significant your business metrics will be to take inferences from. Start short and accurate and then extend.
Collaborative Approach for Accurate Lead Tracking
A successful lead conversion tracking strategy requires seamless collaboration between a service business and a paid ads agency. Here's how this collaboration could work:
1. Feedback Loop
Establish a feedback loop where the internal client team communicates lead quality and conversion data to the paid ads agency. This information is invaluable for optimising ad campaigns and improving targeting.
2. Shared Reporting Platforms
Shared reporting platforms can help to provide both teams with real time data. This fosters transparency and facilitates data-driven decision-making.
3. Regular Meetings and Reviews
Schedule regular meetings and comms between the internal client team and the paid ads agency to discuss campaign performance, share feedback on lead quality and together, identify areas for improvement, and set new objectives.
Essential Metrics for Lead Conversion Tracking
Now, let's explore the key metrics that service businesses could track to measure lead conversion success at the website analytics or advertising measurements:
Click-Through Rate (CTR): CTR measures the percentage of users who click on an the ad's link out of the total number of impressions. It indicates ad engagement and relevance.
Conversion Rate: The conversion rate represents the percentage of website visitors who take the desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): CPA reveals the average cost to acquire a single lead or customer through paid advertising.
Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS): ROAS measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. It indicates the effectiveness of ad campaigns in driving revenue.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): LTV predicts the total revenue a customer is expected to generate throughout their relationship with the business. It helps evaluate long-term profitability.
share
Ready to take your digital marketing to the next level with GRAVITATE?
To simplify lead conversion tracking, service businesses can leverage various tools and software. Here are some options:
Google Analytics: A powerful and widely-used tool for website and ad performance tracking.
Facebook Pixel: An essential tool for tracking Facebook ad performance and user interactions.
CRM Platforms: Choose from popular CRM platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Zoho to manage leads and customer data effectively.
Conversion Tracking in Ad Platforms: Utilise the built-in conversion tracking features provided by advertising platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Optimal Lead Conversion Tracking Tips
Check out the following tips to make the most of lead conversion tracking efforts.
Set Realistic Goals: Define specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for lead tracking.
A/B Testing: Continuously test different ad variations, landing pages, and calls-to-action to identify the most effective elements.
Monitor and Adjust: Regularly monitor lead tracking data and make data-driven adjustments to ad campaigns.
Focus on Quality over Quantity: Prioritise lead quality over lead volume to maximise conversion rates and ROI.
Accurate lead conversion tracking is the backbone of successful paid advertising for service businesses. By implementing robust internal tracking processes and adopting a collaborative approach with the paid ads agency, businesses can optimise their ad campaigns to support the improvement of lead quality.
Embrace best practices for continuous improvement and to stay ahead in the competitive marketing landscape.
Start your journey towards data-driven advertising success today with GRAVITATE and witness the transformation of your service business through effective lead conversion tracking.
Want to learn more? Reach out to the GRAVITATE team today for a chat.
