No we aren’t talking about googling centimeters to inches or gender reassignment surgery. Nope, we are talking another word stolen by Google to be turned to ad jargon – conversions. If you would like to read Google’s long winded definition be my guest right here. But if you don’t have time for that like the rest of us then here is our super simple explanation. What is a conversion? A conversion is any action on your site that you deem valuable. That could mean a click on a certain part of your site (our least favorite), A phone call click (medium favorite), form fill submission (Favorite), or even a sale of goods or services on your site (our most favorite-ist).
It seems pretty simple right? Well lucky for you if you are working with Golden Goose it really is that easy. You tell us what is meaningful on your site and we get to work optimizing our advertising efforts to ensure we are working towards getting those valuable interactions (otherwise known as conversions).
Ok so you might be thinking: “wait a second, I came here to learn about ad conversions and you turned it into a sales ploy.” Well, that is what blogs are, elaborate wordy sales pitches showing how smart a company is about its’ services. Lucky for you we are nice Geese, (not the steal-bread-out-of-your-hand type) so we will give you everything you could want to know and more about conversions.
What is a Conversion Again? (aka, I’m just scanning headlines here…)
A conversion as a trackable event on your website you deem valuable (click, call, form, sale, etc.) that allows you to calculate a measurement of ad success. Putting a financial value on these conversions will allow us to calculate a return on ad spend (ROAS). The ROAS part is a little more complicated if your conversion is not tied to a direct sale on your website, but it can be extrapolated from other interactions like calls and form fills and an average success rate from these types of leads.
Why a Click on Your Site Isn’t Usually a Conversion
While clicks have their merit; unless they’re used properly to learn how a user interacts and flows through the site they end up making ad performance look inflated. It’s very easy to send cheap traffic to a website to get clicks and make an ad campaign look successful while driving zero actual sales or lead value from the campaign. Many agencies employ this strategy and have a “turn and burn” attitude towards client retention.
How Do You Know When a Conversion has Happened on my Site?
I thought you would never ask! We utilize Google Tag Manager to measure and track conversions from ad interactions. This is a nifty tool that is installed on your website or landing pages that allows us to dynamically generate and implement conversion actions. We then report on these conversions through our ad reporting dashboard.
Why are Conversions Important?
Conversions are what separate online advertising from the traditional shot gun blast approach that other media outlets have peddled before the age of the internet (tv commercials, radio, billboards, etc). Gone are the days of asking “was my ad successful?” and receiving “You tell me, did your sales increase?” With the advent of online advertising and conversion tracking, we are now able to measure if an ad was successful by how many valuable actions that ad generated. If you run ads without conversion tracking you are doing yourself and the ads a great disservice. Be weary of any company that wants to run your ads but tells you conversion tracking is not important.
What Else Should I Know?
You ask a lot of questions for fictional reader I created in my head. If you really must know more I suggest you continue doing your research and understand all conversions are not the same and that not all conversions mean direct sales. The better you understand the type of conversions you want, the more successful an ad campaign you (or “we” if we run your ads) can expect. As usual, when you run ads with us, we’re happy to show you the entire process so you can make educated decisions for your business. Now go forth and run great ads, or better yet just get in touch with us and let us do it for you!
