Tracking your conversions is one of the most important elements in any PPC campaign. You will not be able to optimize your campaign if you cannot track your conversions accurately.
You have the option of simply using your landing page hits and number of sales from a link to analyze your conversions. But it’s also worth looking at the tools Google provide its Adwords users for acquiring conversion data. Here are some tips and guidelines for using Google’s conversion tracking tools.
Google uses a Javascript code to gather conversion data from your links. You need to embed this code in your links. This method can also be used in most checkout processes including shopping carts.
Using this method will allow you track the number of complete conversions for each ad. This tool, however, does not show you the number of visitors to the site. After placing the code in your website, you can then access the tracking reports under ‘Campaign Summary’ page in Google Adwords.
There are only two conditions for the above method to work and track your conversions accurately. The first is that you should be running approved Adwords ads on your site and the second condition is you should place the code only in your conversion page.
You can confirm that the code is working by doing a complete conversion yourself. Just remember not to click on your own ads as this is against Adword’s TOS. Once a conversion is done, you will be able to see the click-through and conversion data within twenty-four hours.
You can still track your conversions if you are using a payment checkout system, like PayPal. PayPal and most other systems offer a conversion confirmation webpage wherein you can insert your Adwords tracking code. You will have a record of all conversions or sales once a customer successfully completes the checkout process.
The book “Google: The Missing Manual”, written by J.D. Biersdorfer, Mathew McDonald, and Sarah Milstein, justifies the importance of knowing your total cost per conversion.
Your total cost-per-conversion shows you how much you are spending before generating a sale. This information is vital for determining if you’re campaign is a success or not, and for optimizing your campaign. You can get this information by dividing the number of conversions in a given period with your total campaign cost for the same period.
