Landing Page Series: Tracking and Reporting Conversions
by Matthew Mamet, President
07/23/2007
So far in our series on Landing pages, we've discussed the basics elements of landing page tactics, as well as the importance of efficient design and consistency in content. After creating a set of effective landing pages, the next step is deploy them across your marketing channels and start gathering useful data. Landing pages should be grouped first into the channel they have been deployed into, then by the specific vehicle. Example channels may include such activities as:
- Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertisements: Within your PPC campaign, you will have multiple segments supported by a few hundred keywords per segment. A specific landing page with messaging consistent with keyword segments is mandatory.
- In-bound links from Partner websites: Where you have the influence, place specific links to landing pages from your partner, client, or vendor sites - rather than a simple link to your homepage.
- Tradeshow Activities: All materials related to a specific tradeshow should have their own landing page.
- Print Campaigns
- TV Advertisements
- Radio Advertisements
Data Points to Measure
Simply having these landing pages in existence is not enough. Constant measurement of two key activities is required - visits and conversions. The number of visits is a measurement of how effective your marketing activities are. Effective PPC ads, targeted mailers, and strong TV ads will entice prospects to take the next step and visit the website link offered to them. Conversions, on the other hand, represent the number of people who completed the specific action you wanted them to take. In other words - once they arrive, do your web visitors reach your goal or objective? You may want to learn more about Goal Setting and Conversions. Briefly stated - the action that defines a conversion must be tailored to the specific nature of the product or service you are selling. In the end, this number is important to track because the number of conversions per landing page is a measurement of how effective the landing page design and content is. Common conversions are defined as:
- Making a purchase online
- Completing an online form
- Downloading materials or specific white paper
- Performing a search within your website
- Placing a call to a dedicated 1-800 #
Next, assign a dollar value to your conversion actions. For example, if 25 percent of the people who complete the online form on your landing page actually buy, and your average sale for a landing page is $100, assign a value of $25 to the event.
Calculating ROI
The first step in calculating ROI is to be disciplined about keeping track of costs. A common metric used is Average Cost per Visit. Per landing page, your average cost per visit is defined as: Sum of Acquisition Marketing Costs / Visits = Average Cost per Visit. For example, if you sent a print campaign of 500 postcards the Sum of your Acquisition Marketing Costs would equal - design & content authoring fees ($1000) + printing fees ($750) + postage ($300) = $2050. If your postcard generated 500 visits to your landing page, the Average Cost per visit = $4.10.
You know you have done something wrong if your Average Cost Per Visit exceeds the dollar value assigned to your conversion rate. Either you need to generate more visits from that activity reducing the Average Cost per Visit, or you need to have more effective conversion methods in place.
Summary
Using the traffic acquisition costs from your marketing activities in conjunction with visit and conversion data from your landing pages, you can make objective decisions about where to spend scarce marketing dollars. By keeping Average Cost Per Visit low, conversion rates, calculated as Conversions / Visits = Conversion Rate, high, you will be on track for success.
