Note: This post was originally published in May 2018 and was updated in January 2024.
Understanding the benefits of conversion tracking is essential. On average, businesses spend only $1 on improving conversion rates for every $92 they spend on getting customers. (Source) This shows a big gap between attracting traffic and turning that traffic into actual customers. Many businesses focus too much on getting traffic and overlook the crucial step of converting them. If they double the conversion rate, they can make their investment more effective by cutting down on unnecessary traffic.
Every business wants to convert more of their website visitors to paying clients. It costs time and money to run ads, build content, post on social, manage your SEO, etc. so it’s important to be able to measure the results those activities are generating so that you can gain valuable insights into what is worth your time vs. what is a just a wasted investment.
Your efforts to invest in online marketing were probably inspired by someone else’s success. Stuff like “This company increased their sales leads by 350%!” or “This business increased online B2B lead generation by 252%!”
These kinds of results typically require doing more of what you may already be doing – building new landing pages, creating useful content, connecting with prospects and building relationships on social media, running ad campaigns – but there is a critical step that many companies miss.
Unless you just launched your website, you’re already getting some amount of traffic and some of those visits are turning into leads, but which ones and why? If you knew which channels were producing leads and which ones weren’t, you’d know where to invest your time and money more and where to stop or pull back.
Conversion tracking is the answer!
Conversion tracking involves implementing mechanisms to track the actions that you want users to take on your website, such as purchasing a product, requesting a quote for service, calling your office to make a booking or signing up for your monthly newsletter. Conversion tracking also involved collecting this data and reporting on it in meaningful ways.
Here are nine very convincing reasons to start using conversion metrics right now. Seriously. Today. If you aren’t already doing it, it’s probably the most important step that you can take.
9 Reasons to Use Conversion Tracking, Right Now
That’s right, NINE reasons. It’s got a lot of hidden benefits you need to know.
And trust us… they’re going to take you from conversion zero to sales hero. Here’s why:
1. Track ROI
Maybe the most significant advantages of implementing conversion tracking is that it enables your business to strengthen its return on investment.
Do you know exactly how much each client costs you before they become a sale?
If you’re not using conversion tracking, the answers probably “no”.
Tracking conversions shows you what you’re getting back from your blood, sweat, and tears.
Each click costs. You need to know how much.
Without knowing, you can’t improve!
2. Improve Campaign Efforts
The average conversion rate for paid search landing pages in all industries is 2.35%. The top 10% of landing pages achieve a conversion rate of 11.45% or higher. According to research, the average conversion rate for search advertising across all industries is 6.11%.
There’s no point in shooting aimlessly into the darkness of the web. If you’re hoping one of your strategies is going to hit the mark but never checking your targets to see if you hit, your campaign is in trouble.
That just doesn’t make sense.
What does make sense is using a strategy that’s something like this:
- Run your PPC strategy
- Collect results
- See one campaign’s doing really well… OOH!
- Improve on that campaign with A/B testing
- Save resources by ditching the lame non-returning campaigns
Pretty win-win. No more shots in the dark and improved aim.
3. Identify Important Content… to Use Again!
Ok, so you’ve got your PPC strategy more tailored and efficient. What’s next?
Repurposing quality content. Why not use that content again if it’s so effective? Who says you can only use it once?
No one! In fact, I’m here to tell you to definitely use it repeatedly. You don’t have to continuously invest in fresh, new content when you have old stuff that’s so valuable.
Maybe that uber effective PPC campaign should be made into a blog post, or an infographic, or an email campaign… the possibilities are endless.
Tracking your conversion results makes sure your repurposed content is only made from the best performing pieces. When you land on gold, don’t call it a day. Turn it into a gold mine.
4. Improve Audience Segmentation
As good marketers, we all know how important it is to segment our audience. It allows you to send specific, relevant material to clients who most likely want it, and tools like Google Analytics allow your business to see which marketing channels drive the most conversions.
This prevents unsubscribes and spam-like yucky stuff that leaves a bad taste in people’s inbox.
We’ve all clicked the dreaded “unsubscribe” button because the stuff coming to our inbox was lame and irrelevant.
Nobody wants that!
Track your conversion results and gather valuable information on how to segment your audience.
Think about it. Let’s say you’re a car dealership. Here’s an example of how conversion tracking can help segmentation:
- Steve loves cars and sees your ad on social media
- Steve visits your website and sees your lead magnet about this year’s dream cars
- He downloads a vehicle fact sheet and you get his email
- You add him to your list for a new email campaign about up and coming luxury vehicles
- He eats it up, and clicks your CTA about affordable models you sell that rival these “luxury versions”
- He comes in for a test drive
Now, I can’t help you with Steve’s wife… but you just got a potential customer into the dealership.
This is something your competitors might not have which makes it a serious asset. You’ve got added details about your target’s persona that make it easier to market specifically to them.
All made possible because of that juicy data you collected from conversion tracking.
5. Better Allocate Your Marketing Budget
We all want to save money on marketing, have more effective marketing, and get more clients. Sounds heavenly.
Guess what… tracking conversions can help you do this!
Because when you know what campaigns are working best, you can ditch the duds. That means saving resources… including valuable moola.
Rather than continuing to funnel money into strategies hoping they work, you can actually see what’s working and allocate your funds.
Boom. Money saved. More clients converted. The dream, accomplished.
Plus all that money you’ll save by repurposing your highest performing PPC strategies into other content. That’s serious strategy.
6. Improve Website User Experience
Did you know: 57% of B2B marketers say conversion rate is the most useful analytic for showing how well a landing page is performing.
But you can’t use your conversion rate statistics if you aren’t, well, collecting them.
Crazy, right?
Use conversion tracking to improve your website’s overall experience for potential clients. What’ll happen is a decrease in drop-offs… and more hits on your sales page. Which is where you want everyone to be.
You can’t sell your client if they never get to your sales page!
So the funnel has to be seamless and user-friendly. We’ve all closed a browser window because we’ve got lost on a convoluted site. Our attention spans are short.
And those lost leads? They go packing right to the competitors.
Conversion tracking data will show you where your clients left. So you can get closer to the root of why they left… and fix it!
7. Convert More
That’s right. Convert more.
Seems like common sense that all the above points would help you do this… but it’s still worth stating.
The more you track your conversion rate data, the more in-depth you look at what’s working and what isn’t, the more clients you’ll get.
And that’s the goal, right?
If we didn’t care about conversion we’d be out the job. So it’s worth monitoring. You can’t afford to set it on the back burner.
In fact, only 22% of businesses say they’re satisfied with their conversion rate. What do they have? That other 78 % is privy to what I’m teaching you today.
Collecting the data is the only way to better your strategy. Otherwise, there’s nothing to build on.
8. Create Better Future Ad Copy and Content
This is one of the most beautiful things about collecting the numbers. It allows you to create a more bulletproof PPC strategy than ever before.
Developing your target client’s persona and catering to their needs may be a bit of guesswork at first. But luckily, the more data you receive, the more insight you get into what they want.
The metrics collected from conversion tracking allow you to delve more into your target clients psyche.
This campaign generated 232% more leads than the last one! Why? What was different? Let’s run an A/B test and see!
Without the data collected to show how effective a strategy is, you can’t ask those questions. And they’re important.
The answers will allow you to develop more effective Ad Copy and digital content for your website in the future. Well-written and descriptive ad copy is the secret ingredient to high-converting keywords, and because it will be what your potential clients want… it will be content that genuinely drives results.
9. Gain Historical Data to Build On
There’s always room for improvement. But without a base to build on, what does ‘improvement’ even mean?
Your metrics from conversion tracking will give you a base for your marketing team to work with in the future. You’ll be able to see what has worked for you historically in the past. It’s the perfect way to brainstorm what will work in the future.
This has awesome long term benefits! A campaign could have been seasonal without you even knowing it, but year after year performs better in the same quarter.
You won’t know without collecting the data! It’s amazing what comes out of the analytical woodwork over time.
Knowledge is power — and that’s really what you’re getting when you track your conversion data. Knowledge for your company’s future.
Thoroughly Convinced? — Do You Want to Track Your Conversion Data Now?
The benefits of conversion tracking are undeniable. It’s the first key to taking your website’s hits and clicks and turning it into money.
Without tracking the data, there’s no way to improve on past efforts. And without improvement, it’s a shot in the dark if a PPC campaign will yield better results than the last.
And while the collection and analysis of all those metrics may seem daunting… the benefits far outweigh the effort.
I mean, we get it — it’s no easy task. But don’t worry! You don’t have to go it alone.
Contact us today to learn more about how you can measure and improve your conversion rates. We know how to turn your site traffic into your next paying clients.