When is the last time you were immediately compelled to take action on a digital ad? You saw something and BAM! A need you maybe were not even aware of suddenly became so apparent and obvious that you had no other choice but to act, and act now?

That is the ultimate goal of a digital campaign. To speak so directly to the exact target audience and show them something they now urgently require. This is also known as a “call to action” or CTA for short and while it is a critical component of any advertising campaign it is paramount to digital campaigns. Why? Consumers are exposed 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day so if you want your message to be noticed, you have to break through the clutter and be clear to drive consumers towards a clear conversion. What are conversions? Quite simply conversions are actions. We take the action the advertiser wants us to do (buy something, or fill out a form, or call the business), those are conversions.

Let me give you a real-life example of an excellent CTA that led to my last conversion. Last week, my kitchen counter looked like this:

My counter has looked like this for quite some time, and I was not even aware of how wrong it was. I did not even know I had a problem until I saw this ad:

What have I even been doing my entire life? This is what a kitchen counter should look like. This is so fun and functional; I had no choice. I wanted, no, I needed to have this in my kitchen. Right now! AND it was FREE? WHAT? Yes, I’m in! Yes, I’m clicking. I must.

Here is what my kitchen counter looks like today, and how much more fun is this??!!

This is how a good digital campaign works:

  1. It is all about the targeting. My husband was not served this ad, and if he were it would have been a wasted impression. He would not have even noticed the ad let alone immediately recognize the dire turmoil our kitchen counter was in.
  2. It is all about the hook, the CTA. In this case, my call to action was crystal clear. This stuff is Free!! And once I have it on my counter, I will be happy and I will be able to show off my sparkly clean kitchen!
  3. The conversion needs to be easy. Once I clicked on this ad, I landed right on the offer page and it took zero effort and time to add a few qualifying items to my cart to earn the free promo (they even auto suggested things I need), and check out. It was so easy, I am now a monthly subscriber.

While monthly subscriptions and online purchases are awesome conversions, they are not the only conversions that are important. In fact, one of the most common misconceptions about conversion tracking is that it only works for purchases made online. In reality, a conversion is any meaningful action completed by a visitor on your website. ANY meaningful action! Something as simple as subscribing to your company blog, downloading a whitepaper, or even viewing an important webpage on your site can be tracked as a conversion.

Tracking conversions shows return on investment in digital campaigns and allows advertisers to see what calls to action are working best.  Interesting fact, Google says that less than 50% of active campaigns have conversion tracking implemented. That is not a typo. 50%! So, by tracking conversions on your marketing campaigns and sharing that info with your clients you differentiate yourself from the competition, demonstrate ROI to your clients and set yourself apart as a true Digital Marketing Guru and partner.

Conversions Tracking Shows Your Client:

  • What people do once they get to the client’s website after seeing the ad.
  • What content or pages are people most interested in?
  • How engaged are people once they get to the website?  Do they look at several pages, what do they click on?
  • Did people take a meaningful step towards purchase after seeing the client’s ad?

So how do we get more conversions? The process starts with an effective CTA. If we don’t have a great call to action, we can’t expect actions to be taken! So how do you craft that?

Here are some great simple steps:

Define your audience. To really make your CTA effective, you need to know who you are targeting. Visualize your audience and imagine what their challenges are. What pain points do they have that you could help solve?  What does your product do? Who are you helping? What are the biggest benefits?

Craft the CTA. What do you want the audience to do? What is in it for them? Why should they do it RIGHT NOW? Is there a free gift? Is there a limited time? Get to the point!

Make the CTA obvious. Draw a box around it in the ad. Make it simple and make it stand out. Where do I click? Then LAND me on the page that speaks directly to the offer. Don’t make me hunt!

Now let’s get technical and talk about how conversions are tracked. It’s simple really. HTML code is placed on your client’s website inside the Container Tag (also called a Google Tag Manager) we give you. When someone has been served the ad and then comes to the advertiser’s website and performs a conversion, the conversion code is triggered and records that action on the monthly report. Easy peasy.

To determine great calls to action and decide what conversions to track, ask the client “What do you want the person to do when they get to your website?”

  • Call you?
  • Fill out a form?
  • Schedule an appt?
  • Review your inventory?
  • Learn about your products?
  • Download info?

Based on the answer provided, you can suggest and start to map out conversions to track. Make this step a vital part of your sales process and sit down with your client and look at their website together. Look at all the pages to really identify conversions they are interested in you tracking. You can do this at the end of your needs analysis meeting, or on the second visit when you present your customized proposal. This is an excellent time to start talking about the call to action as well, they go hand in hand together!

Remember it is not just making a purchase! Here are multiple conversions to consider tracking:

  • Downloading information or discount offer from the website
  • Filling out a “contact us” form
  • Registering for a newsletter or other offer
  • Signing up for VIP type membership
  • Clicking to a certain page or product
  • Clicking on a specific button on a page
  • Clicks on the Live Chat box to initiate a chat
  • Clicking on the menu/header pages on a website

Remember to look at these conversion points on your mobile phone too. The conversion points need to be easy to navigate to on all devices.  While you are checking conversion points on mobile, stop and check to see if their phone numbers are clickable. That is another excellent conversion point to track.

Once your CTA and conversion strategy are set, you need to help the client select a landing page for their digital ads, and you want to  make certain the landing page talks about the offer! Remember the click through landing page URL should NOT be listed as a conversion.  That’s a click on the ad, it shouldn’t be counted as a conversion.  A conversion is what someone does AFTER clicking on the ad and landing on the website. We recommend tracking 5-10 conversions in a campaign. Tracking conversions leads to campaign renewals (Vici campaigns renew 70%!) and conversions show ROI.

So remember to discuss with the client the conversions strategy and use these tips to ensure success:

  • Is the conversion point clear and is it “above the fold” on desktops/laptops?
  • Is it easy to navigate to on mobile?
  • Does the conversion ask the client to jump through too many hoops?
  • Is the conversion something a prospect will be interested in? If you are talking with your client about the conversion strategy and you are thinking, “I wouldn’t do that, that is too hard” speak up now and steer them towards some alternative points to track as well.

There are loads of ideas on way to get more conversions. Here are a few of our favorites!

  • Having testimonials on the landing page increases conversions
  • Offering a money back guarantee on the landing page increases conversions
  • Having a discount offer on the landing page increases conversions
  • Having a video (explaining the product, service, company philosophy, demonstration, etc.) on the landing page increases conversions
  • Add Live Chat to the website!
  • Speed up the load times on your landing page and website overall.  A one-second delay in load speed can reduce your conversions by 7%
  • Reducing the number of boxes on a contact us form from 6 to 3 increased conversion rates an average of 66%.
  • Don’t track form fill-outs as your ONLY conversion…“The average contact page converts a measly 1% of visitors” (share this stat with your client!)
  • Google can penalize websites for “intrusive pop-ups” if they: Cover the main content immediately after the user navigates to a page or display as a standalone “interstitial” (pop-up notification) that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content. Pop-ups for age verification or privacy notices are exempted.

And finally, one of the most important tips! If the conversion is filling out a form – ask your client what happens after the person hits the button and converts? Fill it out the form yourself as a test and see if you are contacted. Research shows only 7% of businesses respond to leads in the first five minutes after a form submission. More than half do not respond within five business days.

If the most important conversion to your client is getting phone calls you should warn them “You probably will NOT get a lot of phone call conversions.”  Why?

Most people do not stop what they are involved in on the internet (reading an article, playing a game) to make a call at that moment.  Also, many people don’t like to call, they prefer to text, chat or email.  (Suggest Live Chat!)

Another thing we have noticed is that mobile ad impressions do not lead to a lot of on the client’s website conversions.  Why?

For example, our Mobile Conquesting™ product is great for clients that have a physical location and want to track on-site visits. For form fill-outs, comparison shopping, reading detailed info, etc. people typically do that on larger devices.

Caution your clients PRIOR TO THE CAMPAIGN that they may not see many website conversions on their reports.  For client website conversions it may be best to add in display or video ads that run across all devices.

What if you are tracking conversions and feel like you have an excellent call to action and still aren’t getting any conversions?

  • Have us double check that the Container Tag hasn’t been moved or taken off.
  • Are we tracking the best conversion points – things the user is interested in?  Or, do we need to change/add conversion points?
  • Look at the website on a mobile phone and see if the conversions are easy to get to (not just on desktop).
  • Do we have access to their Google Analytics?  If so, we can look at reports like the Page Timings Report. This report shows the speed at which the landing page loads into the user’s browser and we can see if the website was taking too long to load and people were leaving because they were frustrated.  Google found that more than half of visits are abandoned if a website page takes more than 3 seconds to load.