Success hinges on more than just driving traffic to your website. To truly measure and optimise your efforts, it’s crucial to understand and implement conversion actions and goals. This blog will delve into the importance of conversion actions, the various types, how to set them up, and the role of smart bidding in leveraging micro conversions to enhance your campaigns.
What are Conversion Actions?
Conversion actions are specific customer interactions you define as valuable to your business. These actions can range from making a purchase to signing up for a newsletter, filling out a contact form, or even spending a certain amount of time on a page. By tracking these actions, you gain insight into how well your PPC campaigns are performing and where improvements can be made.
Types of Conversion Actions
- Sales and Revenue: This includes direct purchases from your website. Tracking these conversions is critical for e-commerce businesses.
- Lead Generation: Actions such as form submissions, newsletter sign-ups, and call tracking fall into this category. They are essential for businesses focused on capturing leads for future sales.
- Engagement: Metrics like page views, time on site, and social shares help measure user engagement with your content.
- App Installs and In-App Actions: For businesses with mobile apps, tracking installs and specific in-app behaviours can provide valuable insights.
- Local Actions: These are actions related to local searches, such as calls to your business from a mobile ad, or visits to your physical store.
Setting Up Conversion Tracking
Implementing conversion tracking involves placing a small piece of code, often referred to as a tag, on your website or app. This tag collects data about user interactions, which you can then analyse to understand the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Steps to Implement Conversion Tracking:
- Define Your Conversion Actions: Determine which actions are most valuable to your business.
- Set Up Conversion Tracking in Google Ads: Navigate to the ‘Conversions’ section in your Google Ads account, and click on ‘New Conversion Action’. Choose the type of conversion you want to track.
- Install the Tag: Google Ads will provide you with a snippet of code. This tag should be placed on the relevant pages of your website, usually the confirmation or thank you page after a user completes an action.
- Verify and Test: Ensure the tag is firing correctly by using tools like Google Tag Assistant or the ‘Tag Assistant’ Chrome extension.
Leveraging Smart Bidding with Microconversions
Smart Bidding is a set of automated bid strategies in Google Ads that use machine learning to optimise for conversions in each auction. By incorporating softer micro conversions—like page views, time on site, or add-to-cart actions—you can provide Google’s algorithm with more data points to start optimising your campaigns effectively.
How to Use Microconversions:
- Identify Micro conversions: Choose actions that indicate user interest but aren’t necessarily final sales, such as video views, clicks on product details, or initial form fills.
- Set Up Micro conversion Tracking: Implement tracking tags for these softer conversions in the same way as you would for primary conversions.
- Adjust Bidding Strategies: Use smart bidding strategies like Target CPA or Maximize Conversions, allowing the algorithm to use micro conversion data to optimise bids.
- Transition to Lower Funnel Goals: As your campaigns gain traction and you collect more data, gradually shift your focus to lower funnel goals like actual purchases or high-value leads.
Conclusion
Conversion actions and goals are the backbone of a successful PPC campaign. By carefully tracking and optimising these actions, you can make informed decisions that drive better results. Implementing proper tag management, leveraging smart bidding, and using micro conversions can significantly enhance your PPC strategy, ensuring sustained growth and higher ROI.
With over 10 years experience managing Google ads and conversion actions, I can support you and your business with your ppc activity. Contact me to discuss how I can help you.