Have you tried "boosting" posts on your Facebook business page? Do you tweet about upcoming events with a link to buy tickets? Are you marketing with paid ad campaigns in Google or Bing? Rather than hoping for positive results from your advertising, conversion tracking allows us to measure real results. Measuring ROI (return on investment) is important for all businesses.
This article discusses how to measure your return on investment using "conversion tracking codes" to ensure you're marketing in the best ad channels. Additionally, utilize click-tracking codes to compare the number of those who clicked versus those who followed through with their purchase.
Tracking sales for online advertising by utilizing conversion tracking codes and click-tracking provides a great way to track whether the ads are working. Of those people that saw your ad, how many clicked on it? Moreover, of those who clicked on the ad, how many completed a purchase? How much revenue did those purchases bring in? Most importantly, does the value received from the ad (ROI) exceed how much you spent?
Understanding the answers to these questions helps to better manage your marketing budget. We'll first explore the generic process of measuring ROI with conversion code tracking. After that, we'll apply those processes to your ThunderTix account.
Conversion tracking simply measures whether an ad had its intended effect -- did it inspire the action you wanted? In other words, did a potential customer "convert" into an actual customer after they saw your advertisement.
Every social platform or advertising channel uses its own processes to measure conversion. Those platforms then share details about how your ad performed. For example, the number of people who viewed or clicked on an ad is readily available on all platforms. Above all, we want to know how many new customers we earned through our advertisement. This is the essence of conversion tracking.
Conversion tracking follows what customers complete once they've clicked on your ad, whether they signed up for your newsletter, bought a product, etc. Click tracking tracks how many people click on your ads.
Conversion tracking measures the successful orders or actions from ads, while click-tracking tracks everyone who interacts with the ad.
Conversion tracking works by sending a signal back to the channel where you advertised -- be that Facebook, Google ads or another platform -- that an action you want to measure has been completed. You determine what a successful action is for your ad. Did they buy a ticket or create an account? Did you simply want to gather information via a contact form, and was that data submitted? In other words, we distill success into a single and often final action.
It is this final action or "goal" that we want to measure. Since this goal usually means your customer-submitted data to your website, or they completed a purchase, we want to know when the customer finishes this final step. We do that by putting a "conversion tracking code" on the final page your customer sees immediately following this success goal. This might be a "thank you" page or a page of related information to further engage your customers.
The conversion tracking code sends a signal back to your advertising platform. How is this signal sent? We accomplish this by putting a snippet of javascript code or a tiny image about the size of a period (".") into your own web page. This code or image triggers a signal that is sent only on the final step of your goal whether this is a purchase, form submission, or another event that you wish to measure. Even better, the signal only fires after a customer saw your ad, clicked on it, and took the steps that you deem a success.
Because we only want to measure the final step that signals success, it is very important to select the proper page where you'll enter this conversion code. This web page represents the last page the customer sees after completing the desired action. For example, after submitting a contact form, we often show a "thank you" page to our new customers.
Today, all agencies offering online advertising also offer conversion tracking codes. They may all use variations in the names used to represent conversion tracking codes. Some use conversion codes while others provide conversion pixels (like the tiny image mentioned earlier). While the names and appearances of each code you'll need to copy and paste differ, the functionality generally remains the same across all ad channels.
We've listed a few of the most popular ad channels and where to create your custom conversion tracking code from your ad management portals:
Start tracking your sales, or conversions, by doing the following:
ThunderTix allows you to add these tracking codes right into your account. We've taken the guesswork out of which page measures success. For ThunderTix, we measure ROI by understanding when a customer successfully purchases tickets. Simply follow the steps below, and we'll enter your conversion tracking codes in the proper pages for you.
It's that easy. Once the tracking codes are entered, ThunderTix will trigger the signal back to your advertising platform to show that a sale resulted from your ad. There is no limit to the number of conversion tracking codes you can enter in your ThunderTix account. You may add as many conversion codes as desired with one on each line.
Once your code is added, you can view results in your advertising platform. It may take 24-48 hours before the conversions begin to trigger and appear within your ad management portals. If you have any questions, our staff is ready to assist.
Each ad channel allows you to track a conversion value of paid orders that are directly attributed to online ads. Tracking the value allows you to evaluate if your advertising budget is working. Again, does the value you received from each ad exceed how much you spent to display the ad?
As a default, each ad network may ask you to assign a base value to a conversion like $1.00 or $10.00. However, in the case of online ticket sales for events, that value varies based on the cost of the ticket for the event and how many tickets were purchased. Since assigning a flat value of $10 doesn't provide the level of insight needed for measuring ROI of each conversion, we'll need to dynamically assign the order value based on the events and tickets purchased.
Start tracking the values earned from each conversion by doing the following:
In conclusion, today's ad channels enable us to measure the result of our advertising. Let us know how we can help you achieve success! Be sure to check out our other helpful social sharing features!
