Archive for the ‘Tracking and Analytics’ Category

 
When I ask business owners if they could waive a magic wand and solve their biggest problem with online marketing, then I typically get this answer – “More website traffic.”

More traffic means more exposure to your product or service, and that naturally leads to more sales. It’s completely logical and most marketing consultants, tools, and even the news is focused on where to get the best traffic to your website.

But that doesn’t mean traffic is your best opportunity to generate more sales and revenue. It’s possible you should instead work on increasing your website sales conversion rates.

In this video, I’ll walk you through a process I use with Private Clients to identify the biggest opportunity to boost revenue from your online marketing. And you’ll see if your time and resources would be better spent on improving your sales funnel versus investing in more traffic.

If you liked this video and you want to learn more about how I can personally help you improve your marketing results, then email moc.iorteertsniamnull@hguorhtkaerb. You’ll receive an email with details about our Marketing Breakthrough program so you can see if it’s a good fit for you.

On a Marketing Breakthrough call a few weeks ago, I was speaking with a business owner about online advertising, and I recommended display advertising as a new channel that she had not yet tested.  I knew there were relevant websites online for her business and at the time she was only advertising in search engines like Google.

Her reply caught me off guard because I didn’t realize there was such a misconception about Search vs. Display advertising.  She said, “We don’t have the budget for branding ad campaigns.  We need to focus on lead generation ads.”

I couldn’t agree more with focusing on lead generation vs. branding ads.  But that’s not what I suggested.  Display advertising is NOT just a channel for branding.  No more than TV, radio, billboards, or print ads are only for branding.  All can and should be used for direct response advertising.

I believe the misconception stems partly from to the pricing models.  With many display advertising networks, you’ll pay for impressions rather than clicks.  So unlike search advertising where you’re paying for an actual click (or visitor), you’ll pay for an ad impression (or ad view) on display networks.  That leads people to believe display ads are for brand impressions rather than traffic.

Makes sense until you realize you can easily convert ad impression costs into click costs.  Just divide your total cost by total clicks.  Bingo! Now you’re back to a cost per click model and you can analyze and optimize just like your search campaigns.

Let’s use one of my clients as an example.  And we’ll take this a step further and use YouTube video ads as the example.  I imagine there are plenty of folks who believe YouTube video ads are exclusively for branding on a big budget.  But that’s simply not true.

My client’s goal was to generate webinar subscribers.  This is a classic lead generation campaign where we measured conversions based on the number of actual webinar registrants.

Here are the numbers for the video ad:

• 8,200 = unique video views
• $0.24 = cost per view
• 970 = total clicks (or visitors)

Based on those numbers we can easily calculate our cost per click to be $2.03.  So we were able to generate relevant traffic for $2.03 per visitor.  110 people registered for the webinar so our cost per registrant was $17.89.  Not very good, but this was our first test and we have a lot of room to improve the sales funnel.  Plus, this particular client is selling products priced at $250,000 so 1 sale will easily make this campaign profitable.

My hope is you can see with this example that display ads can be used for direct response campaigns.  Just because you’re paying per impression or per video view, that does not limit your options.  It just creates a little more work for you to calculate the cost per click and cost per conversion.

When Craig Ballantyne from Early To Rise interviewed me last week, I found myself coming back to the same point again and again.  He was asking me to explain how to be successful with online advertising, or media buying.  We covered a lot and you can click here to listen in to the live webcast.  (My interview starts around 2:28:00 and last time I checked, the audio/video was not in sync. Hopefully they fixed that.)

If you watch the interview, you’ll see the main point I kept making was the importance of focus.  With marketing and advertising you have two options.  You can:

1. focus on finding and testing strategies you can afford
2. focus on improving your lifetime customer value

Of course, these are not mutually exclusive activities, but your focus should really be on #2 above.  In this article, we’ll look at both options.

Focus On Marketing Strategies You Can Afford

This is typically where businesses spend their time and energy.  You take a look at an opportunity like online advertising and you run the numbers to see if it makes sense financially.  In other words, you figure out if you even have a chance to generate ROI.  Then you make a yes or no decision based on your existing customer value and existing conversion rates.

For example, if a new customer is worth $200 and it’s going to cost you $1,500 to  generate 200 website visitors, then you know you need a conversion rate greater than 3.8% to be profitable.  If your conversion rate on average is about 2%, then this is not an attractive option for you and you’ll most likely stop right there.

Can you see the flaw in this thinking?  It’s based on a fixed mindset.  You have accepted that your customer value and conversion rates will not, and can not change.  (If you’re not familiar with fixed vs. growth mindset and you’re a Main Street Inner Circle member, then go read my introduction to April’s newsletter.  If you’re not a member, then click here to join and gain access to our archives.)

This advertising option may not be attractive right at this very moment, but if you can find ways to increase your customer value and improve your conversion rates, then you can certainly make it profitable.   That brings us to the main point I made in my interview with Craig…

Focus on How To Increase Customer Value

I used the advertising example above because the costs are so obvious.  However, this lesson applies to ALL of your marketing – SEO, affiliate/JV partners, TV, radio, print, etc.  Every marketing activity has time, resources, and monetary costs associated with it and that’s typically how businesses calculate which ones they can afford.

I’m not saying you should ignore your current situation.  I’m recommending you don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can never advertise or use some tactic because the numbers don’t make sense right now.  Again, that’s a fixed mindset and successful businesses have a growth mindset.

If you can not afford a certain tactic, then your goal is to find a way to make the numbers work.  Most likely by increasing your customer value.

Here’s a quick example.  When I started working with one of my private clients they were selling a product for $27 with no back-end revenue model.  We had extremely limited marketing and advertising options.  We basically had both arms tied behind our backs…

But rather than focusing on ways to get cheap traffic and cheap sales, we instead focused our energy on building up that $27 value.  Through a whole lot of testing and optimization, we slowly increased the customer value from $27 up to over $150 in 4 years.  As we increased the value, we were able to expand our marketing options and the business growth snowballed as a result.

So if you’re not happy with your marketing and you’re frustrated with the high costs of advertising, then you now know what to do.  Quit whining and get to work increasing your customer value! :)

I heard something interesting on a call with Pete the other day.  He said one of the members in his mastermind does not want leads.  He’s not interested in lead generation for his business.  He only wants customers.

I doubt this business owner is alone.  In your business, do you want leads or do you only want customers?

In my mind it’s a huge red flag if you do not want leads at all.  That means an important piece of your marketing system is broken and I’ll explain how to fix it in this article.

Why Businesses Do Not Want Leads

We’ve all read studies that show people who inquire about products or services tend to make a purchase in the not-too-distant future.  That’s the big argument for follow-up marketing.  We know this, but businesses still say they do not want leads!  Why?

Well if you’re involved in sales, then you know most leads do not convert into customers.  It’s just the nature of the game.  And it can be physically and mentally draining to comb through your  list of “leads” each and every day praying for one to close.

Typically there’s a love-hate relationship with leads.  Every new lead comes with a rush of excitement like opening up a gift.  But then as the lead “ages” and does not buy right away, we tend to lose interest like children discarding old toys in favor of the new shiny object.

Leads can equate to frustration and failure, which is the main reason why businesses don’t want them in the first place.  But the solution to not generate leads is ridiculous!  That’s not solving the right problem.

The Real Problem Is Your Marketing

The real problem is that you do not have a practical, working marketing system to follow-up, nurture, and convert leads into customers.  If you had a system, then leads wouldn’t be so bad.  In fact, with proper tracking and a good marketing system, you can actually put an average dollar amount on each and every lead that comes into your sales funnel.

With technology today, the system can (and should) be almost completely automated using tools like Infusionsoft or AWeber.  Both can be set up to automatically follow up with leads via email and send alerts to your sales team to make calls or send letters.  This sort of automation makes leads a whole lot less frustrating because you no longer need to manually do a lot of the repetitive work.

Let’s say you do this, and you find that every lead who requests some information online is worth $5 to your business.  What happens then if you can advertise and generate a lead for $3?  Instead of advertising to generate sales immediately, you advertise to generate leads via an online request form.  If that’s the case, then you just opened up your sales funnel… and you can profitably scale up advertising and grow your business so much faster!

Remember, if you’re down on lead generation, then that means your marketing is broken.  Create an effective marketing system with automated follow-up, and you’ll see leads in a whole new light.

I recently put the finishing touches on our new Online Marketing Action Plan, which is now available to Main Street Inner Circle members.  In the marketing action plan, I go into detail about the 3 Pillars of Online Marketing Success: Traffic, Conversion, and Tracking.

(Important: If you’re not a member and you want to grab a copy of the online marketing action plan as well as 25 bonus gifts, then click here to sign up during our anniversary celebration.)

In this article I want to cover that 3rd Pillar, which is usually the “ugly duckling” in businesses: Tracking.  Tracking isn’t as sexy as Traffic or Conversion so it’s rarely discussed and often overlooked.  Sometimes you’ll only remember Tracking AFTER you’ve launched a marketing campaign and at that point it’s too late.  Sound familiar? Don’t worry, it’s happened to all of us.

Unfortunately, you can’t retroactively add tracking mechanisms to measure your campaign performance.  So you need to think about this stuff before you turn your ads on, before you click send on an email blast, and before you invest time and money into any traffic or conversion optimization strategy.

Why Tracking Is So Important?

Everyone says tracking is important, but have you ever really thought about why it is?  Couldn’t you get away with just focusing on driving more traffic and more conversions and be successful?

The truth is no, you can’t.  You absolutely will not be successful with online marketing without proper tracking in place.  Here’s why…

First, you need tracking so you can “cut the fat” and ditch any campaigns that are losing money.  Not every campaign you launch will be successful.  And since that’s true, you need a way to determine which campaigns are wasting your time and money.

Second, you need tracking so you can reinvest more of your budget into the campaigns that are generating positive ROI.  One of my private clients was able to boost profits by 50% simply by turning off an unprofitable ad campaign and reinvesting the same ad budget into a profitable campaign.  No change in ad spend.  Just 50% more profit in my client’s bank account.

That’s why tracking is so important.

The 5 Elements You Need

OK, hopefully now you’re convinced you need tracking — but what does that mean in practice?  Well, it means you need the following tracking systems in your business:

1. Website Analytics
2. Phone Tracking
3. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tracking
4. Split Testing (aka A/B Testing)
5. KPI Tracking

Website Analytics

This one should be obvious.  You have to track how much traffic you get from all of your marketing and advertising campaigns.  Plus, how many of those visitors convert to leads via webform submissions.

Phone Tracking

I’m always surprised  by how many businesses do NOT have phone call tracking in place.  It’s such a simple tactic to track how many phone calls are generated from each of your marketing and advertising campaigns.  For example, you can use a different phone number for each of your campaigns and then you’ll easily know how many calls came in from each one.

CRM Tracking

This one is a little more complicated.  As you see I listed these in order of complexity, but they are all necessary nonetheless.  A customer relationship management (CRM) system is simply a database to store your leads, sales, and any other business contacts.  Popular CRMs are Salesforce and Infusionsoft.  You can also use an Excel file or a Google Spreadsheet to get started.

CRM tracking is critical for non-eCommerce businesses.  eCommerce businesses can track all of their sales using Website Analytics since the sales all occur online.  However, non-eCommerce businesses make sales over the phone and in-person where website analytics can not help you.  As long as you track the source of traffic and how many leads and sales were generated then you can measure the effectiveness of each of your campaigns.

Split Testing

Split testing, or A/B testing, is really a conversion optimization tactic.  However, I include it here because split testing is worthless unless you are tracking everything correctly.  For example, if you’re split testing a webpage, then you need to measure how that impacts the number of phone calls (phone call tracking), the number of webform submissions (website analytics), and the number of overall leads and sales (CRM tracking).

KPI Tracking

The four elements above are all tracking systems you need to measure performance.  KPI tracking is how we bring it all together into a concise list of metrics that will give you X-ray vision into all of your marketing campaigns.

A KPI is a key performance indicator. So any data point that gives you insight into your marketing performance could be a KPI.  As the business owner or marketing manager, it’s your job to monitor the correct KPIs and then make data-based decisions to improve your overall marketing performance.

I was asked an interesting question the other day: “Is search, social media, or mobile more important for your business?”

Do you know which of those you would say is #1 for your business? Are you using any one of them?

Well my answer is that you can not really separate them anymore. I predict the days of relying on just search or just social or just mobile will be over by 2015. Don’t believe me?

Let’s take a look at some facts:

Can You Rely On Search Alone?

Search engine optimization (SEO) and search advertising are both great ways to generate high quality prospects for your business. But can you rely on search while ignoring social and mobile? Unfortunately, not anymore. Here’s why…

Google now incorporates social media signals into their search engine algorithm. And most experts agree social will become more and more important in the years ahead. The reason is quite simple: Social media gives Google almost immediate feedback on what people like and dislike online. Google’s goal is to provide their users with the content they want and social media signals are a great way to ensure the results at the top are going to satisfy the searcher.

Now let’s take a look at mobile. Mobile internet traffic is estimated to eclipse desktop traffic by 2015. When that happens, I predict a big shift in the Google rankings as mobile friendly websites move up and other businesses that ignore mobile move down. Again the reason is pretty simple: Google uses user behavior signals in their search algorithm. So when people start bouncing (clicking the back button) on mobile unfriendly websites, then Google will move those websites down in the rankings and the mobile friendly websites will replace them.

I focused on SEO here, but a similar convergence is happening in advertising. Google AdWords now has social extensions that allow popular businesses to include Google+ data on their ads to increase click through rates. And I’ll get to advertising to mobile devices later.

Can You Rely On Social Media Alone?

I’m doubtful any business can rely solely on social media, but in case there are some out there let’s talk about why it’s not a good idea to ignore search or mobile.

In January, 2013, Facebook announced Graph Search, which is Facebook’s search portal. Clearly Zuckerberg believes search and social will converge and he already built the tool for Facebook users. When Graph Search graduates from Beta, it’s going to be important to optimize social media content for this new search engine.

Also, take a look at Google’s search results when you’re logged in to your Gmail or Google+ account. For many searches, Google now incorporates the webpages you and your friends have +1′d. So Google has already merged social and search and the lines will blur even more as Google+ grows.

Again, mobile traffic is on the rise and that means more and more of your social media traffic will come from mobile devices. If you do not post mobile friendly content and have a mobile friendly website, then you’ll soon lose some of your loyal followers.

Can You Rely On Mobile Alone?

Google recently published the results of a study on multi-device behavior. According to that study, 90% of the 1,611 responders said they use multiple devices to complete a task online. 98% of them completed that task in the same day. And here’s why all of this is important: Consumers rely on search to switch between devices!

So that means if you’re targeting mobile devices, then you simply can not ignore search. Otherwise you’re going to lose prospects who can’t find you once they switch to another device. This is also why you can’t ignore different devices if you’re relying on search advertising. Again, you’ll lose prospects when they switch to another device you may not be targeting.

But what about social media? Well according to a recent Nielson study, the most popular app activity on mobile devices is social networking. So ignoring social is not a great idea if you’re looking to capture the attention of prospects on mobile devices.

I hope you can see at this point how search, social media, and mobile are converging and the lines between them are becoming more and more blurry each day. If you don’t have your eye on all three, then your marketing campaigns will surely suffer.

If you’re in business for yourself, then you know how critical marketing is to the survival and long-term health of your business. You MUST have a steady flow of customers coming into your business, or else you’ll struggle to keep the lights on.

Unfortunately, a lot of businesses struggle with marketing. And today, I’m going to simplify the 3 main reasons why marketing fails.

Cause of Failure #1. Not Enough Traffic

This one’s pretty obvious. You can’t make sales without traffic. (By “traffic,” I mean new website visitors.)

Question: Where’s the best place to start getting traffic?

Answer: We almost always recommend starting with search engine marketing because you can get in front of people who are eager to buy what you’re selling.

Question: Should you start with search engine optimization (SEO) or pay per click (PPC) advertising?

Answer: Either is a good choice, but it depends on your situation.

If you have a budget to work with, then we suggest using PPC right away (and specifically, we recommend Google AdWords) because you’ll get traffic faster. The advantage of advertising is speed.

Meanwhile, we also recommend you invest in SEO, as early as possible. SEO is one of the best marketing investments you’ll ever make. Just know that it will take some time before the traffic starts to accumulate. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll most likely be waiting at least 30 days before seeing significant increases in your traffic.

Here’s another key point: NEVER rely on just 1 source of traffic, or you’re putting your business at risk.

But of course, traffic is only one aspect of effective marketing…

Cause of Failure #2. Not Enough Conversions

No matter how much traffic you’re getting to your website, your marketing efforts will fail if you can’t convert website traffic into paying customers.

If your conversions are really low, then the first thing to assess is the quality of your traffic. You need to focus on attracting people who are able and ready to buy what you’re selling.

Assuming you’re getting quality traffic, then the next thing you should look at is your offer. Take a look at what your competitors are offering and make sure that your offer is competitive or superior. How does your pricing compare? Can you offer a stronger guarantee? Etc.

However, even if you’re generating a lot of leads and sales, your marketing will still fail if you’re making this common mistake…

Cause of Failure #3. No Tracking

Do you know which of your marketing efforts are working to attract new customers and which aren’t?

In other words, do you know what marketing investments have the highest and lowest return on investment (ROI)?

If you answered “No” to either of those questions, you’re not alone. As far as we can tell, most businesses do NOT track their marketing properly.

And it’s easy to understand why… Tracking sounds kind of boring. It sounds like hard work.

However, tracking is essential to effective marketing. Plus, there are tons of tools that make tracking easy. And I promise you that tracking becomes a lot of FUN when you start actually making money with your marketing.

The 3 Pillars of Effective Marketing

So, in summary, if you want to generate a consistent stream of qualified leads and new paying customers, you MUST have all 3 pillars in place.

1. Traffic: You need new visitors to your website

2. Conversion: You need to convert visitors into qualified leads and paying customers

3. Tracking: You need to know what’s working (and what’s not), so you can maximize your return on investment (ROI)

If you’re lacking any of those 3, then  you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Help Is On The Way…

If you’re frustrated with your online marketing results, or if you’re looking to take your online marketing to the next level, we’re developing a NEW resource that I think you’re going to love.

This new resource will help you clarify your very best marketing opportunities, so you start getting more traffic, converting more leads, and increasing your sales ASAP.

I can’t say much more at this point because Phil and I are still working hard on developing it  for you — it’s still “under construction.” But we’re really excited to share it with you.

(In fact, I’m so excited about it that I’m going to spend a good chunk of this weekend working away on it for you.)

We’re hoping to have it ready for you in about a week.

Stay tuned…

Google AdWords search advertising can be one of the best investments for your business for 2 very good reasons:

1. Highly targeted - Your ad only appears when people are searching for
   your product or service in Google.  So you get in front of your ideal customer
   at the exact time she’s looking to buy.
2. Low risk - Since you only pay per click, search advertising can be much less risky than other forms of advertising like media buying.  You’re essentially paying for performance.  If you’re ad does not resonate and no one clicks on it, then you don’t pay a penny.  You only pay if your ad attracts prospects, and they click on your ads to go check out your website.

So it’s no wonder why businesses flock to Google AdWords to see if they can make it work. But unfortunately, too many businesses end up LOSING money because they go about advertising with AdWords all wrong.

And part of it is Google’s fault…

Reason #1

You see, one the best things about AdWords is you can get started in a matter of minutes.   Google has made it so brain dead simple to get started that all you need to do is click a few buttons, enter your credit card info, and voilà! Your ads will start to show to your prospects and hopefully you’ll get qualified traffic.

So AdWords is one of the fastest ways to start generating new customers for your business.  However, that is precisely the reason why so many businesses lose money! Unfortunately Google’s default settings almost guarantee you’ll spend MORE money than you need to because that’s what Google wants.  Google is in business to make money from advertisers so of course it’s in their best interest to encourage businesses to spend more.

So that’s the first reason.  Many businesses lose money with AdWords simply because they don’t realize some of the default settings (like advertising in both the Search and Display network in the same campaign) almost guarantee you’ll lose money.

Reason #2

The second reason is because many businesses don’t fully understand how successful AdWords campaigns really work.  A lot of people think AdWords success is all about quality scores, bidding tips and tricks, and automation tools.  But success with AdWords really comes down to advertising fundamentals and best practices.

I’ve audited countless Google AdWords accounts where businesses were wasting hundreds and even thousands of dollars because they weren’t following direct response advertising best practices. And usually it’s not specific to AdWords… it’s much more basic than that.

By far the #1 mistake I see over and over again is when businesses send their advertising traffic to their homepage.  One of the most basic principles of advertising is to precisely match your message to your market/prospect.  Your homepage explains everything you do and addresses every single type of prospect that may visit your website.  So by nature, your homepage will never perfectly match your prospect who just typed in a very specific question into Google.

Reason #3

The third reason why many businesses lose money with AdWords is because they do not have a checklist.  When I audit AdWords campaigns I go through a very thorough checklist and I’ve never seen an account that was not wasting money because of a very simple account setting.  Here are some basic things to check before turning on your ads:

• Are you targeting the Search and Display network in the same campaign? This is a mistake because the search network is completely different than the display network, and usually requires different ads and landing pages.  So make sure you’re only targeting one network within a single campaign.
• Are you sending traffic from your ads to a laser targeted landing page or are you using your homepage?  Per advertising best practices, you never want to use your homepage.  Make sure you precisely match your message to your market.
• Do you have conversion tracking so you can calculate your return on investment for every campaign, ad group, and keyword in your account?  This brings us to Reason #4…

Reason #4

And finally, the fourth reason why most businesses lose money with AdWords is because they do not track leads and sales from their campaigns.  I am always shocked when customers tell me they have no way to measure the effectiveness of their AdWords campaigns.  Or they are measuring the wrong numbers!

For example, a private client I worked with a year ago was only focused on the cost of his ad campaign and he had no way to measure the revenue.  Each keyword was judged solely by the cost.  He would pause high cost keywords and only focus on low cost keywords despite the fact he had no idea which keywords were driving sales!

Think about that for a minute.  Advertising is not an expense where the goal is to drive down costs.  Advertising is an investment.  And the only way to optimize an investment is to accurately calculate the return.  Would you ever compare two investment portfolios purely on how much was invested in each of them?  Obviously not…  You would look at the return and compare the profits!  And that’s how you must treat your AdWords campaign if you want to be successful.

I hope by reading these 4 big AdWords mistakes you can avoid them altogether and start reaping the benefits of Google’s very large market.  When set up correctly, AdWords can generate leads and sales like a vending machine!

What would happen to your business if you could double your profits generated from Google AdWords advertising? Well, if you’re not advertising in AdWords, then I admit that wouldn’t have much of an effect. :)

However, the tactics I’m about to share in this article are not specific to AdWords. So what would happen if you could double your profits from ALL of your advertising?

That would be a game-changer. Doubling profits could instantly convert a flailing business on the brink of bankruptcy, to a growing empire on pace to acquire or eliminate all competitors. Of course, it also means more money in your bank account, which everyone loves (except that baby in the Capital One commercials…).

But do you honestly believe me when I say you can double your profits with only 20% improvements? That’s a bold claim so I expect some skepticism. I mean how can small 20% improvements possibly double your overall profits?

Well let’s take a closer look at the numbers. I promise if you bear with my brief math lesson, then you’ll have the keys to unlock massive profits from all of your advertising, including Google AdWords.

First, let’s define the 4 critical areas in any advertising campaign:

1. Response Rate = Your click-through rate for online ads.  This is how many people respond to your ad campaign.
2. Conversion Rate = Number of sales divided by number of responders/clicks on your ads.
3. Avg. Transaction Value = Average dollar amount of revenue per sale
4. Avg. 90 Day Value = Average dollar amount of future sales revenue within a 90 day period.  This is sometimes called lifetime value or backend value.

It turns out, if you improve each of the four areas above by a mere 20%, then you will double your profits.  This isn’t theory.  I’m talking about basic, elementary school arithmetic here.  And I’ll give you an example so you see this in action.

Below is a chart with an example Search Google AdWords campaign on the left, and another campaign with 20% improvements in the four areas.

As you can see, all we did here was improve the 4 areas of the campaign by 20% and we went from $2,500 profit to $5,400.  That’s MORE than double! And you can run this analysis with any numbers you want on the left hand side.  You’ll always double your profits if you improve each of the 4 areas by 20%.

20% is not very hard.  Here are some ideas for each of the 4 areas.

Response Rates:

• Use a benefit focused headline in your ad
• Promise to answer a question you know your prospect is seeking to answer

Conversion Rates:

• Create scripts for in-bound phone calls to ensure every call is handled properly
• Make your offer irresistible by shifting the risk from your prospect to your company

Avg. Transaction Value:

• Raise your prices by highlighting the true value you provide to your customers (i.e. time savings, long term money savings, future profits, etc.)
• Offer additional products or services at the point of sale that will make your customer’s life even easier/better

Avg. 90 Day Value:

• Offer additional products or services after your customer is satisfied with the first purchase
• Set up a referral system so that every new customer is worth at least one more customer.  That can quickly double the 90 day value.

Those are just a few ideas to get you started.  Now that you know you can more than double your profits, you should have all the motivation you need to start systematically improving your ad campaigns.  Good luck testing!

Phil

P.S. If you’re just getting started with Google AdWords, and you want to avoid costly mistakes…

Or, if you’re already advertising with AdWords and want expert shortcuts to increase your profits…

I’m inviting you to apply for my upcoming AdWords Jumpstart class.

Class starts Monday, January 7, 2012. Limited to 10 students, by application only.

Sign up to learn more and apply:
http://mainstreetroi.com/adwords-early-bird

“Early Bird” Discount Ends Soon!

We’re offering a special “early bird” discount when you apply early.

Click here to learn more and apply

Think back to when you were in kindergarten and your friends asked you to play a new game.  What was the first thing you asked before you agreed to play?

I’m sure you asked, “how do you play?” in order to determine the rules and the measurement to determine who wins.  You had to know this information before you started to play or else you’d have no chance to win.

Now think about the decision to invest or reinvest in search engine optimization (SEO).  Do you know “how to play” and how to measure success?  If not, then you’re like a kid trying to win a game without first knowing the rules.  Sounds ridiculous right?

There are really only 4 key metrics you need to track to measure the success or failure of your SEO campaign:

1. Relevant keyword rankings
2. Clicks or traffic (from your rankings)
3. Revenue (from your rankings)
4. ROI (from your rankings)

Relevant Keyword Rankings

First things first – you need to track your rankings in the top search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo).  If you’re not ranked on the first page, then you’re not going to get any traffic.  And without traffic you certainly will not generate any sales from your website.

But all rankings are not created equally.  One of the most common SEO mistakes is to get your website ranked #1 in Google for an irrelevant keyword or one that is never searched.  For example, if you’re a plumber and you get ranked #1 for the keyword, “schools that teach plumbing,” then you’re not going to get qualified leads and sales from that ranking.

The most important metric in SEO is relevant keyword rankings.  Luckily Google Analytics makes this very easy to track once you link your Webmaster Tools account with Google Analytics.

Clicks = Traffic

The second most important metric to track is clicks or traffic from your rankings.  Just because you’re ranking high in Google, doesn’t mean you’re driving traffic to your website.  Do a quick search in Google and you’ll see your prospect has a lot of options… she could click on the ads at the top or the right side of the page or she could click on any one of the other websites listed on the first page of Google.

According to a recent study by SlingShotSEO, about 18% of people click on the #1 ranked website (not advertising).  So even if you’re number one, you’ll only get about 18% of all the available traffic.  If you’re ranked lower down the page then you’ll get much less.

To track how many clicks you’re getting, you can again use Google Analytics.  There are many different ways to view your data, but one quick method is to go to Traffic Sources > Search > Organic.  From there you’ll see all of the traffic from your organic, or non-paid keywords.

Revenue

Now we’re to the good stuff.  Cold hard cash coming in from your rankings.  Obviously this is an important metric to track if you want to determine your return on investment.  If you’re spending $1,000 per month to get ranked #1 for some keywords, then you want to see more than $1,000 coming back from sales right?

If you’re taking orders online with a shopping cart, then you can track this easily using Analytics eCommerce tracking.  With eCommerce tracking you’ll see exactly how much money EVERY keyword is generating.  Very cool technology and a must-have for any eCommerce website.

However, most businesses do not take orders online.  Instead the sales process is over the phone or in the store.  That makes revenue tracking pretty tricky, but not impossible.  Check out How to Track Online Advertising ROI for Offline Sales for a few ideas to track revenue from online campaigns.

ROI

Finally, we come to the mother of all metrics – return on investment (ROI).  This is the metric that trumps all other numbers.  You can be ranked #1 for every keyword and generating tons of sales, but that doesn’t mean it’s profitable for your business.  To truly calculate the ROI from SEO you need to factor in all of your costs:

• Monthly SEO fees if you’re outsourcing to an SEO company
• Monthly salary if you hire an in-house SEO expert
• Monthly cost of any SEO tools
• Your time to manage the SEO company or your in-house expert/team

It’s important to remember SEO is a long term investment and you should not expect a positive return for up to 6 to 12 months. So you may go in the hole initially, but as long as the metrics above are all trending upward and your costs are holding steady, then you will eventually earn a positive ROI.

Note that with local SEO (i.e. Google+ Local) you can see results much faster – for some businesses in as little as 30 days.  To learn more about how to get your business ranked #1 in Google+ Local, check out The Local SEO Formula 2.0.

So now you know the 4 key metrics to “win the SEO game.”  The final step is to methodically track this data every month to make sure you’re making the best use of your online marketing budget.