Posted on August 25, 2010 by Ever since Google Analytics launched, a big criticism has always been its focus on the last click in the customer journey.
As any marketer knows, a business usually reaches potential customers a few times before they finally buy. So to reward the marketing channel with the final touch point takes value away from all those other channels.
Robust, detailed tracking solutions (we use DC-Storm) provide hard evidence of these multiple touch points. Using lifecycle reports you can drill into all the keywords someone used before they finally bought from you. And if you can see these touch points, you can attribute some marketing value to them all.
Finally, AdWords and Google Analytics have wised up to this, with their recently introduced AdWords Search Funnel Reports (ASFR).
And there’s something a little bit special about AdWords Search Funnel Reports. Whilst other tracking solutions can tell you which keywords generated clicks on the customer journey, the ASFR can tell you which keywords created clicks and impressions on the customer journey. So this report can tell you when a customer saw your ad even if they didn’t click on it.
Here’s some new metrics that the ASFR reveals:
Assist clicks: These are clicks that did not lead directly to sale, but occurred in the lead up to a sale.
Assist impressions: The same as assist clicks but for when your ad appeared but was not clicked on, and did not appear immediately prior to a sale.
Path length (clicks): The number of ads clicked before a sale.
Assisted conversions: The number times a keyword or campaign played a role in the journey to a sale.
Last click conversions: The traditional metric – when a campaign or keyword was the last one before a sale.
So what are the most useful reports to look at?
To start with, try the ‘Assist clicks and impressions report’:
With this, you can find out how many times a keyword or campaign assisted a sale, whether it generated a click or an impression.
If you’ve got keywords that are great for assists, then these are good keywords to target for expansion.
Then try looking at the ‘Top Paths report’:
With this report you can identify the particular combinations of keywords or campaigns that led to a conversion. You can quickly see the customer journey that often moves from generic keyword to brand keyword.
That’s it for now
The AdWords search funnel reports can highlight much greater depth to your data. If you want Barracuda Digital to use AdWords Search Funnels in your PPC Search marketing, get in touch.
