Google AdWords™ For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 6

Measuring What Matters with Conversion Tracking

In This Chapter

• Setting up conversion tracking
• Understanding the numbers
• Creating and automating reports
• Keeping track of your ads' and keywords' ROI
• Adjusting your ad campaigns to improve ROI

Say you're testing two ads, and one gets a click-through rate (CTR) of 1.00%, while the other attracts only 0.77%. The first ad is definitely a keeper, right? Without conversion tracking, you might think so. But what if the first ad attracts lots of nonbuyers, and the second ad gets clicks from buyers? Remember that a click on your ad means one thing: You just paid Google. When you think about it this way, your AdWords strategy shifts from trying to get the highest CTR to enticing only the most qualified prospects to your site. And to tell which ad leads to leads and sales — not just clicks — you need to install conversion tracking. And that's precisely what this chapter shows you how to do.

A conversion simply refers to an action that you want a visitor to take on your website. When you can track a visitor's actions on your site, you know what clicks lead to positive outcomes: sales, opt-ins, software downloads, requests for more information, and so on. Conversion tracking also allows you to bid intelligently on keywords. You may find that a high-traffic keyword that's costing you a lot of money isn't actually generating leads and sales. You can then lower your bid, change your offer, or fire the keyword. Without conversion tracking, ...