Distribution: Internal Only Topic: Conversion Tracking and Troubleshooting Authors: aurko.chatterjee@haystak.com, anthony.balbo@haystak.com, david.goldstein@haystak.com Date Published: Jan 28, 2014 Date Revised: BASIC TERMINOLOGY Conversion - A conversion is defined as any meaningful action taken by a user after clicking on an ad and going to a dealership's website while on desktop / tablet devices or when a user takes a meaningful action when a user interacts with a mobile ad. At Haystak, we have 3 primary conversion types. Calls, Emails and Click to Calls. Conversions in dealer speak are also known as leads. Calls - The user physically calls a number present on the dealerships website. Emails - The user fills and submits a form on the website either via the contact us page or any other opportunity provided on the website to contact the dealership via emails. Click to Call - A click to call is a conversion type where a user clicks the call button on the dealerships mobile ad. An image of a click to call button has been shown alongside. Tracking - Software implemented for two primary reasons. i) To determine and attribute a conversion to our advertising efforts ii) To understand which source ( search, display etc), campaign, ad group, ads and keywords are contributing towards conversions. Tracking is usually achieving by tagging unique parameters to a URL, for ex. www.haystak.com/ vsrefdom?._345 where vsrefdom?._345 is a unique parameter appended to the existing URL. It is also achieved with the installment of a code at the back end of a website. At haystak we also use other tools that help us track conversions like reverse proxies and server-sideswaps which have been explained below. Reverse Proxies - Think of reverse proxies as a mirror image of the original website. These websites are generally created to give us larger control over the placement of codes on a dealer's site. This is necessitated especially in cases where other web providers either cannot install code correctly or in certain cases refuse to install the code altogether. A prime example of this is Cobalt. Over the last couple of months, we have increasingly started using reverse proxies as we have seen far more accurate tracking as a result of its implementation. To 1
determine if a website has been reverse proxied you will need to go to the.calls.net variant of the website. For ex: chinohillsford.com vs. chinohillsford.calls.net CONVERSION TYPES IN DEPTH A. Call Tracking - Provided by Marchex a Third Party Vendor. We execute number swapping. This allows us to swap the numbers on a dealers page to a trackable phone number. This only happens to users that click on our ads. This is done by the following methods. Code Placement - A code is placed on every page of the website. This code is received from an accounts Management Tab > Call Tracking > Check box the number > Select Number Replacement Code Every account has a specific vsrefdom =p.###. This number ties the dealer site to their Kenshoo profile which sets the numbers to the appropriate call tracking number Reverse Proxy - We use a proxy server to copy the dealers website exactly and then it scans the website and it swaps the numbers it finds with the call tracing number. Keep in mind if a provider names its images similar to a phone number (EX. 1235431234.jpg) the reverse proxy my cause img breaks because it tries to swap the number. If this is an issue Tech can fix this. B. Form Submission- Provided by Kenshoo This is done by code placement that is found in the Management Tab > Profile settings > and in advanced Tab. This code is placed on the form confirmation pages on the dealers website or our reverse proxy site. When someone fills out a form and hits submit, the code on the confirmation page fires to track that conversion. We only track form submissions when you have ad set at the tracking level. ( In Kenshoo - Pull the column from the Ads section and in AdWords, if you hover over the ad headline - you will see the server - 1177 or 119. ) C. Click To Call - Provided by Google This is done by adding a call sitelink to the account. You can do this in adwords or by checking the campaign > select edit > go to the call extension tab > and putting the number. This puts a call button next to mobile ads and the actual phone number in desktop and tablet ads. This allows someone to call the dealer directly.the information is provided to us through google and not by any tracking code we place. This metric is not trackable in the dealers dashboard.
TECHNICAL TROUBLESHOOTING BY CONVERSION TYPE A. Call Tracking On a RP site (calls.net) you should see the numbers swapping already on the page if not you need to put in a ticket On a non RP site you will need to go through an ad in Adwords to see if the numbers swap. If they do not. Right click and view the source code CTRL-F and search for Voice-star or the server number. If this is found it should match the code that can be found in that particular Kenshoo accounts call tracking information If it is not the code it will need to be provided to the website provider to get it placed. This code should be found on every page of the website. B. Form Submission The pixel must trigger when a confirmation page is loaded. This can be tested on either a reverse proxy or non proxy website. The easiest place to look for this would be on a contact us page Fill out the form information on the page with generic information. Before you press submit hit right click > inspect element > switch to the network tab the press submit. Confirmation page should load and the inspect element tab will flash with resources being retrieved from the server. In the resources column - CTRL + F - find redir that will show the pixel in its entirety. If this not located on the page then this could be the issue If the code is located there it should match the code in your dealers Kenshoo account this code would need to be found on every form confirmation page C. Mobile Click To Call This should work as long as the call extension is in place in google within the Adwords profile for the account. Another element that you want to make sure you have enabled is the Google forwarding number. A forwarding number is a tracking number provided by Google which forwards to your call extension. This will also help you identify manually dialed calls - these are calls made by users without necessarily clicking on your ads. This is a great set of data that is not reported by Kenshoo but can show added engagement to the client.
CAMPAIGN ANALYSIS ( ONCE YOU CAN T FIND A TECHNICAL ISSUE ) - SIX CHECKS. Average position - Again, check the benchmarks matrix in order to ensure that your campaign avg. position is where it should be. As a ground rule we gun for position 3, anything below is a red flag. Why this is important to note is that low positions mean that your ad is unlikely to get clicked on very frequently. The lower the traffic to your website the lower your chances to get a conversion to your site. This is applicable for both desktop and mobile ads. If your average position is OK - Take a look at your CTR. If you find that your CTR is low even at high average positions investigate why using the following flowchart. If your average position and CTR are OK - Its time to take a look at how your account is spending on a daily basis. Its now time to run a report via the dimensions tab in Adwords. Go to the dimensions tab in your account: What we re trying to do here is to see how quickly you are running out of budgets in a given day on average. A lot of times you will find that a campaign doesn't convert because it has spent out by 11 am. We usually find that the largest number of conversion come during a dealerships operating hours. If you aren t showing then - you re likely never to get a qualified lead via the phone. Once you re in the dimensions tab go to the view tab and then select day > hour of day. Please view the below screenshot for clarification. Make sure you choose the campaign that you are currently investigating for accurate results and data. Now go ahead and click on the columns tab > customize columns > competitive metrics and add the search impression share, Lost IS Rank and Lost IS Budget column. What this will do is
bring up hour by hour data that shows you your impression share every hour. Note that if your impression share isn't consistent in a dealerships business hours there is a problem. Not showing up enough times or consistently when the dealership is open results in the likelihood that your campaign is going to miss potential clicks, visits and as a direct result conversions. You should now see the following - Make sure that you sort this data by hour of the day in ascending order, ie, 0100 Hrs to 2400 Hrs. Typically, once you ve reached this step you will find one of two things - your impression share is solid across all hours that you have chosen to run your campaigns or your impression share is nowhere near sufficient in hours that are critical to the dealership. Case in point is the image below: Whether you lose to rank or budget is critical. If you re losing to rank - make sure your quality is solid and your bids are high enough to bring you into a better position. If you have a lack of budgets - ask the dealership for more explaining to the contact at the dealer that your campaigns are suffering due to a lack of budget. In scenarios where you re losing largely due to low budgets or limited budgets - it might be a good idea to day part your campaigns and deliver ads within a timeframe that is more conversion friendly for the dealer., typically the hours the particular store is open.
The last step in the process is to find out if your geo s are too wide or too narrow. Per autotrader.com, high conversions are typically seen upto 20 miles. In rural / semi -urban/ low population areas this can increase to 30 miles. In urban areas however anything over 20 miles is a huge risk. Dial up or dial down your geo s based on where your dealership is located. An advanced concept discussed later is how you can actually use market intelligence to determine accurate geographies. An advanced step in conversion analysis is mapping and utilizing sales data to draw targeting decisions - splitting out campaigns etc. This has been covered in a separate document. A QUICK LOOK AT CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION AND WHAT WE CAN CONTROL PART I : ADS IN OUR CONTROL Right ad, right place, right time Correct messaging with good ad copy Directing to the right page Directing to a working page PART II : THE WEBSITE IN OUR CONTROL Correct Tracking Parameters Deep Linking to appropriate pages Directing calls to the right numbers NOT IN OUR CONTROL Page Layout and Design Number of conversion points PART III : THE DEALERSHIP IN OUR CONTROL Accurately communicating our tracking practices NOT IN OUR CONTROL Inventory and Pricing