How To Measure Success for Actions Outside of Adwords

What is the best way to feed information back into adwords?

[tenerifejim]

Currently I am running several campaigns that are running well on Adwords. The campaigns are very similar inasmuchas they collect details from visitors and send out electronic brochures or similar.

I measure the conversion by the action of completing the form with a valid email address and a phone number.

However, two of my clients would like to take this further as they follow these clients up to make a sale.

They are now asking about the conversion ratios for different campaigns against subsequent sales. I need someway to measure what keywords / adverts / campaigns were used to produce an inividual brochure request so I can then track subsequent sales.

I would also, if possible, like to be able to feed this back into Adwords somehow so I can know the actual success of a campaign at a real granular level.

I have a few ideas of what I could do - but wondered if anyone has some real world, practical advice on the best approach?

Any ideas welcome.

[pavlovapete]

This might help

Tracking Offline Campaigns
[google.com...]

Cheers

[tenerifejim]

Hi pavlovapete,

Thanks for the reply. Maybe I have got what you sent wrong, but what I am looking for is not to track people who come through to the website from another source and then convert on the site.

I want to track the Keyword and Adverts and landing pages of people who subsequently take an action outside of the website.

An example - I bid on "widgets for sale".

I show two adverts:

1) "Buy really great widgets only $10,000"
2) "Widgets for sale - cheap offers"

People do not actually make the purchase through the site (due to the value of the purchase) - they register their interest in receiving a sales call by completing a contact form.

I can measure how successful adverts 1 and 2 are for creating enquiries - but I cannot work out which one of 1 and 2 are better at making actual sales.

Has anyone experience of doing this?

[netmeg]

That's because as a general rule, it's not your ad that converts. It's your landing page. Your ad just drives the traffic *to* the landing page.

[mustan9]

I totally understand what your asking, but I don't think it's possible because Google tracks the user by cookie/session. That session has ended once the visitor fills out the form and leaves.

Even if they complete the sales goal via the telephone or later this can't be reconnected back to the Adwords activity that started the process, because that process ended when the form was filled out.

You could do it by implementing some server-side coding that does the following...

- add a unique GUID to every keyword in your adwords account
- save the GUID in the visitors session
- save the GUID in a database when the form is submitted by the visitor
- when a sales person completes a sale then they update a counter in the database for that GUID.

You can now generate a report of exactly which keywords/ads are generating offline sales.

Personally, I think this is over kill tracking. It's trying to guess which person would be thirstiest in a desert by the color of their hair. Really all you need to know is that a desert makes people thirty.

I think if you go threw all this hard work and trouble you will discover the simple truth.

"The ad with the most clicks gets the most sales."

[Dlocks]

I would also, if possible, like to be able to feed this back into Adwords somehow so I can know the actual success of a campaign at a real granular level.

So when someone fills in the form he gets an phonecall and makes an order on the phone. Then you would like to be able to ad that info manually into Adwords? That is not possible.

You can keep track the keyword people have searched for by adding this in a hidden field in the form. Then if someone orders something via phone then you know what keyword he/she used. Then you know what keyword was responsible for the conversion and you can update that info into an exel sheet for example. But feeding this information back into adwords is not possible without an action from the user.

Even if they complete the sales goal via the telephone or later this can't be reconnected back to the Adwords activity that started the process, because that process ended when the form was filled out.

Yes it can because tracking conversions is not session based but cookie based (30 days). So when someone fills out the form you could track that as a lead. When that same persons visits a couple of days later domain.ext/thanks-for-your-purchase.html and you have the conversion code on that page Google will count that as an conversion.

I think that is also the only solution to track actions outside of AdWords. If someone purchases something via phone after filling out the form then you could send them an email with a link to a page they must visit to verify the order. On that link you place the conversion code. However, after 30 days AdWord will stop counting conversions for that specific customer.

[tenerifejim]

Hi Nutmeg -

I understand what you are saying - simply replace the example of 2 different adverts with two different landing pages.

Mustan9,

I understand what you are saying but it can actually make a big difference. The ad with the most clicks does not always convert the best into enquiries - let alone sales.

What method can I use on my site to detect which keyword was sent through from Google or a publisher?

Thanks for any help - I cannot believe I am alone in looking at this issue.

James

[tenerifejim]

Hi Dlocks,

I think you were writing while I was reply to the others above.

I understand that I cannot "feed information back into adwords" - I fully expect that I am taking reports out of adwords and merging them with the external data I gather during the "post-website" sales process.

I would like to identify in my form that is sent through the sales team what keyword (and if possible what advert) was used. Do you think this is possible and what is the best way to achieve this?

Thanks,

James

[Dlocks]

Depends a bit on how your adgroups are organized. If you have one adgroup for exact match keywords, one for broad and one for phrase match keywords than you could do something like below:

[yoursite.ext?ad=1&kw={keyword}...]

The above example is for ad number 1 within the adgroup containing only broad match keywords. For the second ad in the same adgroup you will use the URL below:

[yoursite.ext?ad=2&kw={keyword}...]
etc. etc.

If you use {keyword} then AdWords will fill this in with the matched keyword.

You can put the info you get for the variables ad= and kw= into a hidden field in the form that a user fills out.

For the adgroup with exact match you use:
[yoursite.ext?ad=1&kw=[{keyword}]...]

For the adgroup with phrase match you use:
[yoursite.ext?ad=1&kw="{keyword}"...]

If you wish you could also add other parameters like adgroupname= or campaignname=.

If you have all keywords types (exact, broad and phrase match) in the same adgroup than you can not track the ad that triggered the conversion. Then you can only track the keyword. To do this you must use a custom URL for eacht keyword.

For broad match keywords you use:
[yoursite.ext?adgroup=sample&kw={keyword}...]

For exact match keywords you use:
[yoursite.ext?adgroup=sample&kw=[{keyword}]...]

For phrase match keywords you use:
[yoursite.ext?adgroup=sample&kw="{keyword}"...]

[tenerifejim]

Hi Dlocks,

That really helps - I should have figured some of this out myself with the use of {keyword}.