Conversion tracking is one of the most important aspects of any PPC advertising account and you need to be sure that you have this installed correctly. Conversion tracking allows your account to be managed to the most important criteria for your business – and that is – “What am I getting out of this?”.

What Google AdWords has changed is the name of “Conversions” to “Conversions (1-per-click)” and they have added a new metric called “Conversions (many-per-click)”. The Conversion (1-per-click) field can only be filled once per customer and the Conversions (many-per-click) is incremented whenever any conversion occurs within 30 days after a click.

This can mean a couple of things to you depending on what your conversion structure is.

First, if your conversion is strictly measuring sales, it can mean that you have customers that come back within the first 30 days after their first purchase to purchase again. This is especially common in stores that sell commodities or that cross-sell a customer with more accessories to compliment their first purchase. (By the way – that begs the question – what kind of follow-up do you have with a first time customer to be sure they have everything they need and are you measuring the success of that follow-up?)

Also, if you have setup several types of conversions to be tracked on your site – for example, mailing list sign-up, contact form and sale – the “many-per-click” field will give you information about customers that have performed several goals on your site. You may have customers that do all three and that will show up in the many-per-click field. There are additional fields regarding the type of conversion that will give you the information you need to micro-manage these conversion types as well.

And don’t forget, Google AdWords revenue tracking can be exceptionally powerful for tracking specific revenue achieved for each specific product sold. This is certainly not for everyone, but can be incredibly valuable when applicable and is usually very easy to implement. If you have questions or need help with this, contact a professional PPC Management Company for asssitance.

The bottom line is this – understand what these Google AdWords conversion tracking numbers mean to you and use this valuable information to enhance your sales-funnel on your website.

I’ll have to admit that this is something relatively new to me (and a thank you to Michael Whitaker at Monitus for telling me it was possible). A search through Google AdWords help files comes up with nothing, nor did my Google reps ever explain that it could be done – they always pointed to Analytics as the tool to track revenue. And the answer is really simple – when you add conversion tracking to your thank you page, you can alter the code slightly to capture the revenue generated by an order.

You’ll need to change the YOUR-ORDER$ to be the field name of your order subtotal which can differ by shopping cart.

One note on this: I attempted to do it for a client that uses a Volusion cart and processes credit cards offline (meaning they don’t actually process the credit card at the time of order, but do it manually at a later time), but this won’t work for them. I’m guessing that this will hold true for any shopping cart; if you don’t process credit cards in real-time, it won’t work. In fact, for my client above, it also prevented conversions from tracking.

One more thing to know about tracking Google AdWords revenue: you can’t see results within the Google AdWords interface, you have to run a report to actually get the data. You’ll need to select the field “Sales Conv. Value (many-per-click)” in order to add that data to a report, and then you’ll be able to see revenue by Account, Campaign, AdGroup and even keyword by keyword, and learn how profitable your PPC campaigns really are. If you need help getting Google AdWords Revenue Tracking implemented and/ or analyzed, contact a reputable PPC management company for assistance.

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Google Analytics provides great information, but one issue that can arise is when Google Analytics transaction numbers and the Google AdWords conversion tracking numbers don’t jive. I know that different packages are not going to track exactly the same, but most of the time, they are close enough that it’s not a big deal. However, a big issue arises when you have an e-commerce site and a decent percentage of people don’t order on their first visit, but come back and order at a later date.

Here’s the problem: Google AdWords tracks “first touch” – if someone searches on a term, clicks on your ad and comes to your site, does not order at that moment, but comes back a week later, AdWords will log the conversion back that first date and attribute the sale to AdWords. Analytics on the other hand tracks “last touch.” In our same scenario, if someone were to search, click an ad, visit the site and leave, then come back a week later, Analytics would attribute that search to organic or other, unless they did a search and clicked on an ad again. Not a big deal if a majority of visitors order on the first visit, but if you have a large amount of people who order at a later date, this can be present a huge problem.

I have two clients who have this issue. For one of them, 40% of visitors don’t order on their first visit, and the other is 50%. And you guessed it, there’s a 40% and 50% difference in AdWords conversions and Analytics transactions. They can’t get a true picture of their PPC ROI with Google Analytics because they only see the revenue for anyone who ordered the first time they visited the site.

The big question is why is that? You would think that, both being Google products, they would track the same way, or at least have an option to track that way, but they don’t. Frustrating for both me and my clients!

But, I’ll explain how to get around this dilemma in my next Blog.

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Google recently announced that the conversion tracking site stats message is now optional. This is great news for PPC management clients who would prefer that this text block did not appear on their website.

If you have already set up your website with conversion tracking, the text block will continue to display unless you follow the directions to opt out of the Google Site Stats message.

The process is relatively simple. First, you click the “Conversion Tracking” link located in the “Campaign Management” tab. Selection the action you wish to modify and then click “edit settings”. Select “none” under the “Customize tracking indicator” section. Click “Save Changes & Get Code.”. After regenerating the code, you will need to copy the code and then re-paste it into your conversion page. You must remove the original code.

If you do choose to remove the Google Site Stats message, remember to update your privacy policy to inform users about the tracking methods you employ on your website.

Data is good, data is important, data is what you should be looking at to make decisions based on what’s best for what’s going on in your account. But there are some things to keep in mind when you’re looking at your PPC data.

1. Nothing stays constant over short periods: a keyword that performs well one month may tank the next month and rebound the following month. Looking at too small of a time frame of data can really hurt you in the long run. Make sure you look at the keyword and its history over time.

2. Make sure to have enough data to make a good decision: having enough data is easy when you’re talking about search terms that gets hundreds of clicks a day. But what do you do when a search term might get only 10 or 15 clicks per month? You give it time. And unfortunately, there’s no hard or fast number of clicks or amount of time that you need to give to a search term to see if it works.

3. Look for trends but don’t spend so much time looking that you lose your mind: you know that old adage, “When you can’t see the forest through the trees?” That’s particularly true with PPC. Sometimes, if you spend so much time immersed in the data analysis, you can’t view your PPC campaign objectively, which makes it harder to make decisions.

4. View your account objectively: No matter how strongly you believe that a keyword should work, if the data proves otherwise, lower the bid or turn it off. For example, you’d think that for a company that sells golf shoes, the keyword “golf shoes” would be a great term. Actually, it’s not. People who search “golf shoes” tend to be in the research phase of their search, not the buying phase. So “golf shoes” spends a whole lot of money, but converts only rarely. This also includes the area of “ego bidding,” which is bidding high on keywords just so you can be number 1 for that term, regardless of the payoff.

5. Make sure you can track conversions: if you are an ecommerce site, looking for lead generation, selling services, no matter what you are doing, with very little exception, you MUST have conversion tracking in place. Conversion tracking, especially for ecommerce companies, is incredibly important. If you sell online and you’re average order is $47, and I can’t tell how much it costs for you to get that conversion, then I can’t tell what words are producers and which are money suckers. Conversion tracking lets me get you the best ROI possible – if a search term spends a lot but rarely converts, I can put that money someplace where it will payoff. I’ve had a clients how have told me that search terms don’t or won’t work without even trying them, just because they “know.” How do they know? Even if you’re a service company, you need conversion tracking – if you’re average service is $200, and it costs you $150 to get that lead, is that cost effective?

6. Test, test and retest: if something doesn’t work once, it doesn’t mean it won’t ever work again. It might work if you used a different landing page, or tried a lower position or tried site targeting.

All these items above rely on data analysis to know what works and what doesn’t, but remember, don’t get so caught up in the analysis that you forget to step back and look at the account as a whole.

Something New in the Data:  Google now separates data Search from Content.  Read the Google Blog for more information.

YSM converted to a new platform called Panama in June 2007. At the same time they came out with new conversion tracking JavaScript, while still supporting the original Overture legacy code. Lately, there have been intermittent issues with the legacy code – Security Warnings might be triggered in a shopping cart, conversions might not be tracked accurately, or tracked at all.

To solve the issue or prevent one from happening, the old JavaScript needs to be replaced by the new tracking JavaScript. To get the new code, login to your Yahoo account, click on the Administration tab, and choose the Analytics link. You most likely will have to activate Analytics, then copy the JavaScript code. Replace the old code with the new code where necessary on your website.

To see if you are using the old code, check your Thank You page(s) and look for JavaScript in the head tag. If the JavaScript has the the line “Overture Services Inc. 07/15/2003″ in it, than it’s the old Legacy code. If the JavaScript has “Yahoo! Inc.” in it, it’s the new code, and you don’t have to do anything.

Yahoo uses conversion tracking cookies in a similar fashion to Google. When a potential customer clicks your Yahoo! Search Marketing ad, a cookie is stored on the user’s computer. If that customer does indeed make a purchase on your site, then the keyword that was used in their search is credited with a conversion. However, there is a fundamental difference in how Yahoo tracks that conversion as compared to Google. Yahoo will attribute that conversion to have occurred on the actual day that the sale occurred, even if the initial click occurred days, or even weeks, in the past. This is markedly different from Google because Google will track the conversion back to the day of the initial click.

You may actually see a conversion tracked in Yahoo on a keyword for a particular day, even though that keyword shows no clicks even being received that day. That is because the initial click actually occurred in the days prior to the actual sale being made.

Keep this important factor in mind when making Yahoo bid management decisions, especially on newer keywords, and especially if you know you have a longer sales cycle for your products. You could be reducing bids on keywords that look like they are not producing sales, when in fact they might in the near future.

Let’s start with a Google example. On May 1, a customer searches for your product on Google and clicks your Google AdWords ad. Google puts a conversion tracking cookie on the customer’s computer that will expire after 30 days. Now, let’s say the customer makes the purchase on May 1, the same day they clicked your AdWords ad, the conversion is then tracked in your Google account to have occurred on May 1. However, if that same customer does not make their purchase until May 8, the conversion is still tracked back to May 1, back to the date they actually clicked your AdWords ad. The Google conversion is tracked to the day the customer clicked your ad, not to the actual day of purchase. These can be the same date, but quite often they are not.

Ultimately, your final May Google conversion data will not be truly complete until July 1st. The click a customer made on your Google Ad at the end of May will still register a conversion in your Google account back in May, even if the customer makes a purchase at the end of June. The conversion transaction is directly tied to the date of the click.

Be aware of your average sales cycle when looking at conversion data. Some of our JumpFly clients have zero lead time where customers come to the site and make immediate purchases, whereas other clients may have a two week lead time before a purchase is actually made from a click. This can make a dramatic difference in how you manage your accounts and adjust bids based on conversion data.

MSN works the same way as AdWords, so analyze your MSN AdCenter conversion data accordingly.

Next time, we’ll take a look at how Yahoo tracks conversions.

Conversion tracking allows PPC advertisers to monitor the success of their PPC campaigns down to the individual keyword level. Google, Yahoo and MSN all provide the needed conversion tracking codes free of charge. They are very small snippets of code that can be implemented on your website in literally a matter of minutes. You only need to copy the codes as provided by the search engines, then paste them into the html of the website page where you can track an action that took place. For example, if you sell items directly online, you can place the conversion tracking code on your “thanks for your order” confirmation page. This will allow you track actual sales that were directly generated by your pay per click campaigns. You can also track leads by placing the conversion tracking codes on a “thanks for contacting us” page that a potential customer reaches after filling out an inquiry form.

At JumpFly, we are huge advocates of using conversion tracking. It’s powerful. It’s effective. And it’s available as a free component of your PPC advertising campaigns from the big three search engines. Implement it. Use it. Love it.