In this day and age it’s crucial to understand exactly where your target audience is coming from, how they reached your website landing page and ultimately how and when they lead to a conversion. It is essential to set this up at the very beginning stage of your website build, so if now is the time for a revamp then this is the perfect time to get a solid and reliable tracking method in place.
When taking on a new Digital Marketing account, we always review the current standing in terms of the active Google Analytics account. There are some accounts which won’t haven’t tracked their efforts effectively previously and this is mainly due to a lack of technical knowledge within the team. If this is the case, we won’t begin the campaign with historical data which would have assisted in guiding strategic decisions on the digital marketing campaign moving forward.
The amount of lost information that we see is shocking so we want everyone to understand the benefits of tracking and how to do it effectively. Through effective digital tracking you obtain complete clarity on your digital efforts. Every penny that you spend will be able to clarify who is looking at your content, how your website is being used and what types of enquires you will be getting through your site. For example, if you are getting bad quality enquiries through your website we can review the customer journey to understand which pages your customers visited and what type of content they consumed.
Here are just a few tips in this article to ensure that effective tracking is implemented on your website.
Google Tag Manager
This is an essential free tool from Google which makes it super simple to install tracking codes and pixels on your website. Previously you’d need a developer to do this, but now with Google’s training it is possible for a layman to enact. With Google Tag Manager you can link Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter; and any social media platform or even a CRM that will enable tracking. This can all be managed through Google Tag Manager and just by informing your website and placing these tags you’ll be able to track effectively.
Enquiry Tracker Module
When you are developing the back end of your website, you should ensure that it is equipped with a robust enquiry form module. This module should store every single enquiry that comes through from a website, from the general enquiries, to job applications and other defined criterias for your business. You should then be able to export it as an excel spreadsheet or tie it in with Google Sheets so it can merge with your CRM. Even better, you could link it directly to your CRM so enquiries are already within your pipeline.
If you have
WordPress as your CRM, you can install “
Contact Form CFDB7” or similar.
Merging Enquiries with Sales Statistics
With WebSmart we have developed our own lead tracker so from the launch of the website you will be able to understand how many enquiries you are getting throughout the day. You’ll have data on the name of the person enquiring, their phone number and their dedicated message. What you could also add to your lead sheet are dedicated sales statistics for example, a percentage closure rate field and value field. So for example if the enquiry is 20% through the sales cycle then apply that and then you can add the quality of the lead and along with the value and ultimately month on month that’s when we sit down for you to see which leads have closed and which ones haven’t. It’s really crucial to our efforts because we want to gain satisfaction and understand that we are delivering value to you as well.
Download the sales tracker below which offers an example of a sale tracker form that you can apply immediately for your own website. Make sure that you refer to this sheet regularly, update it and review which enquiries have led to closed business.
Add an enquiry form on every page
You’ll receive 33% more enquiries if you add an enquiry form to the bottom of each page.It’s a simple one, but make sure all of your pages have an enquiry form at the bottom. For example, one of our clients runs a sports website and we saw that a host of strong enquiries were coming through via the Hong Kong 7’s page and that was because that certain event was very popular during that time. If we didn’t have that tracking we wouldn’t understand which page the enquiry had come from so we knew that the content was strong and this can guide us for future website improvements. Another tip is that the tracking goes far beyond placing the pixels & codes and enhancing the website. You need to ensure that you are tracking the whole 360 of your business. For example, if you are a physical store you need to know exactly where your money has gone so if somebody viewed you from a Facebook Ad and landed on the website then enquired; did they eventually visit the store? If so, close the loop and to do this you just need a tracking device within the store, within your restaurant or within your organisation. Ask people where did they find you / where did they hear about you. This is a very simple step to do and make sure that all of your staff is trained to do this because this is vital information.
Through careful tracking of phone calls, Flip Out received on average 51% of their revenue through Digital.
Tracking phone calls
Want to understand how much revenue you’ll receive from phone calls? We’ve actually seen huge successes of clients who just have a unique number on their website for digital purposes. For example, a separate line and a separate number for only website and digital enquiries. This means that all of your
business cards, print collateral, leaflets, flyers and all other efforts can be on a separate number and this means that you contribute your phone calls to digital sales. We’ve implemented this for one of our clients because initially they weren’t seeing the value and they really didn’t understand how digital was playing a part. What was actually realised that 50% of their revenue was coming through the digital number. Customers were viewing the website; and perhaps not necessarily enquiring through the website enquiry form, but they were making a phone call which eventually led to real business.
Know your source!
If you are just going to rely on the standard phone number then you’ve lost that that tracking, and the enquiries will be lumped in with other possible sources. Train your staff and make sure your secretary or the touchpoint behind the phone understands the full value of tracking - Incentivise them. It’s very easy to track social media efforts as well through Google analytics using the conversions tool. You can view exactly what type of media people have found you from, so for example, if you have an online ordering website you could see that you may have twenty conversions on that day; 5 may have come from Facebook, 10 may have come from Instagram and another 5 could have come from Google Ads. By knowing this, we can then guide our budget so and understand that we need to be pushing the social media budget higher since Instagram is driving more conversions. Without all of this you are flying in the dark; blind and this data is so crucial for future strategising. By adding URL parameters on Facebook you’ll even know which adverts drive a sale of enquiry so again, this can inform your content, inform your copy and inform the type of imagery that you use to increase conversion.
Ultimately tracking is crucial for understanding your business ROI and it is imperative that it is embedded and that your entire organisation understands its importance. It’s also very rewarding to see where your efforts are coming from and this can even be implemented for other types of marketing efforts that aren’t digital. You’ll understand for example; if you did a radio campaign or some flyer marketing, if you received strong ROI from that. Track, track track for true clarity within all elements of marketing.
Good luck with your tracking efforts and gaining a lot more clarity and insight with your digital marketing campaigns.
