What do we measure precisely?
When Data Doesn’t Work
The promise of Digital Marketing was it was uniquely measurable. In the beginning, it was delivered. We were lucky to see the impact of messaging on specific groups of people.
Every year, we get less of the data we were used to. Strategies are needed.
The data is going away.
People who type words into search boxes are the most specific groups of people on the planet. Those words are being hidden from us. Devices are refusing to give up data. Advertising platforms do not want to share. We can speculate why.
Website Marketing data now often hides way more than it tells you.
We can still use the knowledge. Just because the data is no longer available, it doesn’t mean those same audiences are not there. How to plan around those invisible audiences is what this site is for.
Conversion rate averaging: a thought experiment.
The conversion rate of what?
Most website measurement is geared towards conversion rate. The percentage of people contacting us on a website. Improve it to win bigger.
100 visits, 1 contact goal conversion = 1% conversion rate.
ASK, though: Are we measuring the website, the page, or the campaign? Averages hide actual performance.
Baseline
Imagine you have little or no competition for a fantastic introductory offer. The clicks go well.
- We get 10 visitors and 5 leads.
- This is a Ready to buy keyword conversion rate of 50%.
- The highest consistent conversion rate is often around 30%. But the maths is more manageable with 50%.
Different stages in decision making
More people search for information (on the same topic) than people searching to buy. We have seen pages with 5,000 different keyword visitors. Same page, related traffic, way different levels of intent
An informational keyword can have a conversion rate of 0.1%
Let’s add this up
A ‘website’ conversion rate tells us very little. In our thought experiment, even the Page conversion rate is not helpful.
Reporting is about taking action. What would you do next?
In reality, getting 20 more visitors on the low volume keyword could triple your revenue on that line.
Compared to needing 2,000 more visitors on the other keyword to match that result, at least! Do you think that leads from ready to buy keywords are more valuable than leads from informational keywords?
Me too.
Why would most SEO’s work on the high volume keyword?
One page we saw had over 5,000 different keyword visits, the ones that stick in the memory were the high volume ones.
This is the problem with Google Analytics and SEO: what we see in there is often not helpful
There is no keyword information in google analytics
They all look the same in analytics.
The number of keywords is vast. The range of conversion rates is so vast, and many keywords never convert, delivering 0%.
Everything is averaged. Nothing is being measured ‘properly’.
Some many variables exist. Brand keywords bump up averages (ignore home pages). For local market companies, the same keyword visitor can be vastly different value depending on where the user is.
Its a big smokescreen. Apart from, Google knows exactly what converts as it gave away the software to every website in the world.
Conversion rate scenario: thought experiment
Lets imagine you had little or no competition for an amazing introductory offer and it went well.
There were 10 visitors and 5 leads.
Ready to buy keyword conversion rate of 50%.
The highest consistent conversion rate we ever had was 30% but the maths is harder! Converting keywords are often lower volume like this and we are often writing for small audiences. Luckily there are lots of them.
The value of knowing converting keywords
Hopefully, you can see why specific converting keyword information is so valuable.
When you know what works, then you can get disproportionate success.
With a high response and low waste things get profitable.
The only place you learn keyword information is currently Google ads (get it while it lasts, Google will kill this information soon)
Something funny happens when you measure this very carefully (including phone calls from the website). You start to notice instant impact from certain types of keyword, consistently.
It doesn’t take many clicks to stick out like a sore thumb.
Comparing what works with what doesn’t and why.
You get to know in advance what should work. This will be increasingly important.
If something is hidden then how do you know its legitimate any more. Trust is reduced. No trust, no business.
I feel for small businesses. The beer is being watered down.
If leads are going to get more expensive, then only the bigger companies will benefit. Once nimble and go getter small businesses will find it harder to get a start.
How we can help
We are collecting stories. Happy to help you map out your audiences in exchange for feedback…
