Category Archives: Blog

Back in the day, share of voice was THE key metric in marketing. It influenced budget allocations and strategy. 

But with the dawn of the digital age, share of voice has fallen out of use, and in its place, we now have Share of Search—the most important metric you’ve probably never heard of. 

At this point, the skeptics among you might start to wonder why they should care about, let alone track this new, and seemingly meaningless metric. 

Well, in the words of Strategist James Hankins, “… can become a powerful and extremely useful source of long-term time series data.” 

He holds that the information from Share of Search will have applications in analysis and predictions for long-term business success. But Hankins isn’t the only believer.

Marketing Week columnist and Mini MBA founder, Mark Ritson, suggested in one of his columns that instead of focusing solely on the link between share of voice and share of market, we should also compare online searches for different brands—Share of Search.

According to Ritson, because of its position further down the marketing funnel, Share of Search can be “more predictive than share of voice.”

Clearly from this preliminary introduction, Share of Search sounds like it’s definitely worth considering. But you may still be on the fence, or perhaps looking for a bit more information to get you across the line. 

So join us as we take an OnDigitalMarketing-style deep dive into Share of Search, including:

• Its impact on your digital marketing strategy
• How to work it out and maximize its benefits
• How to quantify its effect on your content strategy 
• How to stay in the know with all things Share of Searc

But first, let’s get you better acquainted with your new favorite analysis metric.

What is Share of Search?

Share of Search is a metric that measures the percentage of total search volume for a specific set of keywords that your website, brand, or product receives in comparison to your competitors. 

Your Share of Search metric allows you to better understand your online presence and visibility in the context of the larger market, thereby providing you with valuable insights into your competitive position.

Role of Share of Search in Digital Marketing

When talking digital marketing, understanding your brand’s Share of Search is essential for several reasons:

• Competitive analysis: Understanding your Share of Search will help you identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses so you can craft a more effective digital marketing strategy, based on their successes and avoiding their mistakes.
• Brand awareness: A high Share of Search indicates greater brand awareness with your target audience. This can lead to increased web traffic, more significant customer engagement, and ultimately, higher conversion rates.
• Market share: Your Share of Search is directly related to your brand’s market share. A high Share of Search usually correlates with a larger market share, suggesting that your brand is well-positioned in the industry.
• Customer insights: Analyzing your Share of Search will reveal valuable customer insights, such as their preferences, needs, and search behavior. You can leverage this information to refine your digital marketing strategy and tailor it to better serve your target audience.

Importance of Share of Search in SEO

Share of Search is a critical component in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it provides with you valuable insights and opportunities for your digital marketing strategy. For instance, Share of Search will help you identify your keyword opportunities. 

An understanding of the keywords that drive the most traffic to your website and the ones currently dominated by your competitors helps you focus your SEO efforts, boosting your online presence. 

Analyzing your Share of Search will also help you optimize your content by giving you an idea of where you have gaps in your content. This way, you can create new, valuable content that resonates with your audience and improves your organic search performance. 

Through this process, you will be able to tailor your content to your target market, driving more traffic to your website, and ultimately increasing your brand visibility. 

Monitoring your Share of Search further allows you to track the progress of your SEO efforts. Regular assessments will give you a clear measure of the success of your initiative, informing you when you need to adjust or pivot your strategy to achieve your desired results. 

Indeed analyzing your Share of Search gives you a data-driven approach to ensuring your SEO tactics and other paid search campaigns remain aligned with your strategy contributing to your digital marketing success. By comparing your organic and paid search performance, you can make informed decisions to optimize your ad spending and ensure that your marketing budget is allocated effectively.

Key Takeaway: Analyzing Share of Search boosts online visibility, attracts traffic, and informs SEO strategies for improved brand awareness and market share.

For more on how you can take advantage of Share of Search to maximize your return on investment and drive more traffic conversion and revenue for your business, check us out OnDigitalMarketing. 

Here you will find a collection of digital marketing resources and case studies from the top minds in online marketing, guaranteed to transform your marketing efforts. 

Share of Search: A Powerful Indicator of Brand Awareness, Market Share, and Online Presence

Share of Search provides valuable insights into several aspects of your digital marketing strategy. Let’s take a closer look at how you can leverage it to make data-driven decisions and optimize your marketing efforts to build your brand awareness, market share, and online presence. 

Impact on Brand Awareness

Consistently appearing at the top of organic and paid search results builds familiarity, leading to higher brand recall and recognition.

You see, when your brand dominates the search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords, it demonstrates your brand’s authority and expertise in your industry. A strong Share of Search is also a key indicator that your content resonates with your target audience. 

It places your site as a reliable source of valuable information, making users form an association between your brand and the solutions they need.

The table below highlights various techniques that can enhance your brand’s visibility, reach, and credibility, ultimately strengthening your brand awareness and recognition.

Strategy	Description	Benefits
Influencer partnerships	Collaborate with influencers or industry experts to increase your brand’s visibility and reach through their established networks	Expanded reach, credibility, and engagement
Online reputation management	Monitor and manage your brand’s online reputation to ensure positive customer sentiment and enhance brand awarenes	Building trust, brand credibility, and positive online presence
User-generated content (UGC)	Encourage users to create and share content related to your brand, leveraging their social influence to increase brand visibility	Amplified brand exposure, authentic engagement, and loyalty

Connection to Market Share

There is a strong connection between Share of Search and market share. Research has shown that companies with a higher Share of Search tend to have a larger market share since they are more visible to potential customers. 

If you’re able to dominate the search landscape for relevant keywords, you will be able to capture a larger portion of the market and, consequently, generate more revenue.

Additionally, a higher Share of Search will lead to increased word-of-mouth marketing—happy customers are more likely to recommend your brand to friends and family—further boosting your market share. 

Role in Improving Online Presence

Share of Search plays a crucial role in improving your online presence. As we’ve established, when you dominate search results, your brand becomes more prominent in the digital landscape. 

This increased visibility helps you reach a wider audience, attracts web traffic, and generates engagement on your website and social media channels.

Additionally, by leveraging the information you get from analyzing your Share of Search, you can focus on targeting the right keywords and optimizing your content, so you can maximize your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, and improve your SERPs ranking.

Optimization Tip: Leverage Share of Search data to identify target keywords and optimize your content for improved search engine rankings and enhanced online presence.

Expanding Your Knowledge With Additional Resources

For an in-depth analysis of how Share of Search can improve your brand awareness, market share, and online presence, check out OnDigitalMarketing’s textbook “A Beginners Guide to Digital Marketing and Social Media.” 

Chapter 12: Strategy and Trust shines a light on the importance of building trust with your target audience. Share of Search is a crucial component in this trust-building process, as it helps establish your brand as an industry leader and a trustworthy source of information.

This trust-building process is essential for fostering long-term relationships with your customers, leading to higher retention rates, and a sustainable competitive advantage in the digital marketing landscape.

Calculating and Tracking Share of Search

Calculating and tracking your Share of Search involves several steps that allow you to accurately analyze your brand’s performance in terms of search results compared to your competitors. 

Here’s the low-down on how you can track and calculate your Share of Search:

1. Identify your relevant keywords: First, compile a list of keywords relevant to your industry, niche, and target audience. Focus on keywords that cover the main topics and search queries related to your business.
   You can use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to identify popular keywords and their search volumes.
2. Identify your competitors: These are mainly the businesses and websites that compete for the same keywords and target audience as your brand.
3. Analyze search results: Perform a Google search on each keyword on your list and analyze the search results. Take note of the top-ranking websites as well as any paid ads appearing on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
4. Calculate your Share of Search: Do this by dividing the number of times your website appears in the top search results (organic and paid) by the total number of times any website appears in those same results, then multiply the result by 100 to get your Share of Search percentage.
   Do this for each keyword and calculate the average across all keywords to get an overall
   Share of Search percentage.
   Share of Search = (Brand Search Volume / Total Industry Search Volume)
   Share of Search Percentage = (Brand Search Volume / Total Industry Search Volume) x 100
5. Track competitor performance: Repeat the above calculation for each of your competitors to get their Share of Search percentages.
   This information will allow you to compare your brand’s performance and identify areas where you need to improve your search visibility.
6. Monitor regularly: The Share of Search metric is dynamic and changes over time as search algorithms update, competitors adjust their strategies, and new content is published.
   Monitor your Share of Search regularly (e.g., monthly or quarterly) to track your progress and adjust your SEO and digital marketing strategies to stay on top.

Additionally, you can use tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, and Google Analytics to automate your process. These will save you time and provide more accurate results by continuously monitoring search rankings, keyword performance, and competitor analysis.

To complete your digital marketing arsenal and set yourself apart from your competition, check out our digital marketing courses and resources on OnDigitalMarketing. 

Here you’ll find all the latest and most effective ways to elevate your marketing strategy and transform your digital content, as prescribed by some of the greatest minds in the online marketing space. 

Interpreting Share of Search Results and Identifying Areas for Improvement

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

— Sun Tzu

Analyzing your Share of Search results is a crucial step in understanding your brand’s position in the market and the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. 

In the previous section, we covered how you can calculate and track your Share of Search. Now let’s decipher and interpret the information you got from your calculations, and explore how you can identify areas of improvement from that data. 

So then, here are some steps you can take to help interpret your Share of Search results from the previous section.

1. Benchmark against competitors: Compare your Share of Search results with that of your main competitors. This will help you gauge your brand’s relative performance within the industry, and most critically, against your biggest competition.
2. Analyze trends: Examine the historical trend of your Share of Search and take note of any seasonal fluctuations or significant changes over time. This will help you identify potential opportunities or challenges in your marketing strategy.
3. Evaluate keyword performance: Break down your Share of Search results by individual keywords or keyword groups. This will clarify the search terms driving the most traffic and contributing the most to your overall Share of Search.

Identifying Areas for Improvement

Once you have interpreted your Share of Search results, it’s time to identify areas for improvement. Here are the steps you’ll need to follow to do this:

1. Optimize underperforming keywords: Identify underperforming keywords and develop targeted strategies to improve their Share of Search.
   This may involve optimizing your website content, adjusting your paid search campaigns, or conducting further keyword research.
2. Focus on high-potential keywords: Determine what keywords have the highest potential for driving traffic and conversions, and prioritize them in your marketing strategy. You may need to reallocate resources to focus on high-potential search terms.
3. Analyze competitor performance: This will help you identify areas where they may be outperforming you, highlighting opportunities to enhance your digital marketing strategy and gain a competitive edge.
4. Refine your content strategy: Identify gaps in your content based on your Share of Search analysis, and revise your content strategy to address the needs and interests of your target audience.
5. Continuously monitor and adjust: Regularly review your Share of Search results and make necessary adjustments to your marketing strategy to stay competitive.

Enhancing Customer Understanding and User Experience

The success of your digital marketing strategy depended on your understanding of your customers and their needs. Analyzing your Share of Search results is one of the most effective ways you can build this knowledge. 

It helps you narrow down your potential areas for improvement and gives you valuable insights into your target audience and their search intent. Share of Search can also be a tool for refining your user personas so they accurately reflect your target audience’s needs and preferences. 

Another important aspect of understanding your Share of Search is how it helps improve your content strategy. An analysis of your Share of Search will help direct adjustments to your content strategy so better aligns with your audience’s search intent through targeted keywords. This is one of the major ways through which you can build and retain a customer base.

Take Action: Start analyzing your Share of Search data today to gain insights, improve your user experience, and drive your digital marketing strategy forward.

Clearly, Share of Search is integral to your business success, so how can you make the most of it? Well, here’s how …

Tips and Strategies for Improving Share of Search

The competitive digital landscape demands that you constantly adapt and optimize your strategies to maintain and grow your online presence. Here are some of the methods you can use to improve your Share of Search to effectively compete in the market.

• Perform thorough keyword research: Seek out highly relevant keywords for your niche, focusing on search trends and long-tail opportunities to improve your ranking.
• Optimize on-page SEO: Make sure that your content, titles, headings, meta descriptions, and image alt tags are optimized for target keywords, and create engaging content for your audience.
• Build high-quality backlinks: Build authoritative and relevant backlinks through guest posting, content partnerships, and other strategies to strengthen your domain authority and boost your search engine ranking.
• Leverage social media: Share content on social media platforms to increase visibility, drive traffic to your website, engage with your audience, and identify trending topics through social listening tools.
• Monitor and measure your progress: Regularly track website performance using analytics tools, adjusting strategies as needed. Keep an eye on keyword rankings, organic traffic, and conversion rates to ensure your efforts yield results.

The table below provides a comprehensive overview of key performance tracking metrics for monitoring the success of your marketing efforts.

Metrics	Description	Key Tools	Benefits
Organic Traffic	Measure the number of visitors from organic search results	Google Analytics	Evaluate SEO effectiveness
Conversion Rate	Calculate the percentage of website visitors who convert	Google Analytics	Assess campaign performance
Click-Through Rate	Determine the ratio of users who click on a specific link	Email marketing platforms	Optimize email campaigns
Return on Investment	Measure the profitability of an investment or marketing effort	Marketing analytics tools	Assess overall marketing effectiveness

There you have it—an in-depth look into the Share of Search metric and how you can use it to boost your market share, establish your online presence, and potentially turn your content strategy into profit. 

But to give yourself and your business a leg-up, you’ll need a bit more …

Unlocking the Power of Share of Search: Elevate Your Digital Marketing Strategy

With its insights into your brand awareness, competitive analysis, and market share, Share of Search is arguably one of the most essential aspects of a successful digital marketing strategy. 

But how do you make the most of your Share of Search? Well, this is where OnDigitalMarketing comes in. 

At OnDigitalMarketing, we provide a comprehensive range of courses and resources geared towards helping you make the most digital marketing strategy, including through optimizing your Share of Search. 

These resources are compiled from the latest and most effective trends in digital marketing, and a cohort of experts from Google, MailChimp, and Meetup, including our founder, Jake, who has about two decades of experience.

In addition to these resources, we also offer the textbook “A Beginners Guide to Digital Marketing and Social Media.” A comprehensive digital marketing asset that covers:

• Foundations of digital marketing
• Research fundamentals
• Strategy development
• Campaign management
• Online analytics

So if you’re ready to master online marketing, and learn how to make the most of your Share of Search, visit OnDigitalMarketing to get started. You can also get in touch with us at [email protected] with any questions or comments, and sign up for our newsletter to stay on top of the latest developments in the world of digital marketing.

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, staying up-to-date with the latest trends and tools is essential to maintaining your competitive edge and driving meaningful results for your business. 

For example, did you know that solely relying on good old click-through conversions (ctc) as a means of tracking your ad campaign effectiveness is no longer good enough? No?

Well, this is just one example of how previously foolproof techniques are steadily getting less effective as metrics to ensure the success of your digital marketing strategy. 

Thankfully, there’s an easy fix to this. So, if you’re looking to update your marketing arsenal so you can stay ahead of the curve, you’ve come to the right place.

Today we take a look at View-Through Conversions (VTC), an emerging digital marketing metric that helps you analyze your conversions beyond traditional click-through conversions. 

You see, VTC helps you track your user behavior after a user views your ad but does not click on it, and provides valuable insights into your user behaviors and ad impact. 

Indeed, incorporating VTC into your digital marketing strategy will give you insights into your campaigns, like never before, and help you optimize for better results. 

Join us as we dive into the world of View-Through Conversions as we explore:

• What it means to your digital marketing strategy
• How it will help you drive long-term conversion
• How to use VTC and CTC for the ultimate strategy

In addition to all these, we’ll also put you on to one of the best resources to broaden your digital marketing knowledge, so you can always stay one step ahead of your competition. 

But first, an introduction to the star of the show—View-Through Conversion….

What Is View-Through Conversion?

View-Through Conversion is a metric used to indicate the effectiveness of your display and video advertising campaigns. It represents the number of users who saw your ad but did not click on it and later completed a desired action on your website or app. 

View-Through Conversion is valuable because it helps you understand the impact of your ads beyond immediate click-through conversions. It accounts for the influence of your ads on user behavior, even if they don’t immediately interact with your advertisement.

“The success of a page should be measured by one criterion: Does the visitor do what you want them to do?“

— Aaron Wall

How View-Through Conversion Differs From Click-Through Conversion

There are two primary types of conversions in digital advertising: click-through conversions and View-Through Conversions. 

Click-through conversions are the traditional metric used to measure the success of an ad campaign. They represent the number of users who clicked on an ad and then completed a desired action, perhaps making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.

View-Through Conversions, on the other hand, measure the number of users who saw an ad but did not click on it, and later completed the desired action. 

This is typically attributed to the ad’s influence on user behavior, even without direct interaction. 

View-Through Conversions (VTC) and click-through conversions differ in three main key ways:

• User interaction: Here the interaction is direct since the user actively engages with your ad by clicking on it.
  This is unlike with View-Through Conversions where the interaction is indirect since the user doesn’t actively engage with your ad, although the ad still influences their behavior.
• Conversion attribution: A click-through conversion is attributed to a user clicking on an ad, which in turn leads them to complete the desired action. However, with VTC, conversions are attributed to the ad view within a predefined attribution window.
  With VTC, it’s hypothesized that the ad’s presence influenced the user’s decision to complete the desired action, even without direct interaction.
• Influence on user behavior: Click-through conversion has a strong, direct influence on user behavior since the user actively interacts with your ad and immediately performs the desired action.
  However, with View-Through Conversions, the influence is more subtle. The ad influences the user’s decision-making process over time, even if they did not click on the ad.

For clarity, here’s a table comparing click-through and View-Through Conversions.

Aspect	Click-Through Conversion	View-Through Conversion
User Interaction	User clicks on the ad	User views the ad without clicking
Conversion Attribution	Attributed to the click on the ad	Attributed to the ad view within the attribution window
Brand Awareness Impact	Strong direct influence (immediate action)	Strong indirect influence (subtle, longer-term effect)
Measuring Difficulty	Easier to track and attribute	More challenging to track and attribute accurately

How View-Through Conversion Works

Typically, in digital advertising, click-through conversions are the go-to metric for showing the effectiveness of an ad campaign. But there’s just one problem, click-through conversions alone don’t provide a complete picture of how well an ad is performing. 

But this is where View-Through Conversions come into play, and outshine click-through conversions. So let’s take a closer look at the mechanics behind View-Through Conversions, how they work, and what makes them the better option for your conversion tracking.

Ad Impressions and Ad Viewability

At the heart of View-Through Conversions are ad impressions. An ad impression occurs when an advertisement is displayed to a user on a webpage, app, or other digital platforms. 

Ad viewability, on the other hand, measures whether the ad was visible on the user’s screen and for how long. 

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), an ad is considered viewable if at least 50% of its pixels are visible on the screen for a minimum of one second for display ads and two seconds for video ads.

Understanding ad viewability is crucial for gauging the effectiveness of your ads. If users cannot see your ads, they are less likely to engage with them, leading to poor campaign performance. 

Attribution Window

The attribution window, also known as the conversion window, is a crucial aspect of View-Through Conversion tracking. It refers to the time frame during which conversion may be credited to an ad impression. 

For example, if the attribution window is set to 24 hours and a user sees your ad, then makes a purchase within that time frame, the conversion will be attributed to that ad impression.

Different platforms, such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or programmatic ad networks, allow advertisers to customize their attribution windows based on their specific business needs and campaign objectives. 

The ideal attribution window may vary depending on factors such as the sales cycle, user behavior, and the type of product or service being advertised. 

User Behavior and Post-view Conversions

View-Through Conversions rely on understanding your user behavior and the interactions that occur after a user has viewed an ad. 

In our textbook “A Beginners Guide to Digital Marketing and Social Media,” we emphasize the importance of empathizing with your target audience’s online habits and leveraging user-centric marketing strategies. 

This is extensively covered in the second section of the book, “Research Fundamentals for Online Marketing” from Chapter 5 through Chapter 11, where we turn the spotlight on your customer and how you can win them over. 

By analyzing user behavior, you gain valuable insights into:

• How users engage with your ads 
• Actions they take after viewing your ads
• Factors that influence their decision to convert

Post-view conversions refer to the actions your users take after viewing an ad without clicking on it. These conversions are harder to track and attribute since they may involve multiple touchpoints and indirect interactions with your brand. 

However, they are still valuable because they indicate that your ad made an impression on your users and influenced their decision-making process.

Expand Your Conversions Knowledge

View-Through Conversions provide a more comprehensive picture of your ad campaign’s effectiveness by considering both direct and indirect user interactions. 

VTC helps you stay on top of your ad impressions, ad viewability, attribution windows, and user behavior, so you can optimize your marketing efforts for better performance and higher return on investment. 

To maximize your View-Through Conversion metrics and the insights it offers on your users, check out OnDigitalMarketing’s textbook. 

Chapter 5: Getting to Know Your Customer, for example, is a great place to start if you wish to enhance your understanding of user habits and foster trust online, ultimately creating a more effective and user-centric digital marketing strategy. 

The Significance of View-Through Conversion in Digital Advertising

“In the world of internet customer service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.“

— Doug Warner

To stay ahead of their competition, more businesses are now leveraging the power of digital advertising to reach their target audience and drive conversions. 

Digital advertising involves a wide range of ad formats, including, display ads, video ads, social media ads, and more. However, measuring the effectiveness of these ads can be a challenge. 

For a while, click-through conversions had been the standard metric for measuring ad impact. But with digital advertising, click-through conversions don’t paint a clear enough picture of how well your campaigns are performing. 

To fill this gap, View-Through Conversion, with its multi-pronged, long-term series data has emerged as the better option for evaluating the performance of display and video ads. 

To paint a clear picture, let’s zoom in on its specific significance to your digital advertising efforts.

Assessing the Impact of Display and Video Advertising

Display and video advertising are essential components of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. They help build brand awareness, attract new customers, and drive engagement. 

However, to truly understand their impact, it’s necessary to measure the success beyond click-through conversions (CTC).

VTC offers a more complete picture of the overall performance of display and video advertising campaigns by accounting for users who don’t immediately click on an ad but still convert later. 

For example, a user might see a display ad for a product but not click on it. Later, they may remember the product and visit the advertiser’s website directly to make a purchase. 

In this case, the display ad still had a significant impact on the user’s decision to buy, even though they didn’t immediately click on your ad.

Gaining Insights on Ad Creatives, Placements, and Formats

VTC data also provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of different ad creatives, placements, and formats. 

By analyzing your VTC, you can determine which ad designs resonate with your target audience, which placements generate the most engagement, and which ad formats perform best in terms of conversions.

For example, you may find that your video ads have a higher VTC rate than your display ads, indicating that video content is more effective at driving conversions for your particular audience. 

Similarly, you might discover that ads placed on specific websites or within certain content categories generate more View-Through Conversions than others, allowing you to optimize your ad placements and formats for better results.

These insights will help you refine your ad creatives, placements, and formats so you can maximize the impact of your advertising campaigns and improve your ROI.

Understanding User Behavior and Interactions With Your Ads

Another critical aspect of VTC is its ability to provide insights into user behavior and interactions with ads. 

Through an analysis of your View-Through Conversion data, you’ll be able to identify the patterns in user behavior that influence their decision to convert. You can then use this information to create more targeted and effective ad campaigns. 

For example, your VTC data may reveal that users who engage with a specific type of ad content, say interactive video, are more likely to convert than those who view static display ads. 

This insight will inform future ad campaigns by encouraging you to invest more in interactive content as it may drive higher conversion rates.

Additionally, understanding user behavior will help you identify potential areas for improvement in your campaigns. For instance, if a higher percentage of your users view an ad but don’t convert, this may indicate a need to adjust your ad creative or messaging. 

Understanding your View-Through Conversions is essential to your marketing campaign optimization efforts. But to make the most of the insights you get from your VTC, you need in-depth knowledge of the metric and the impact it has on your marketing strategy.

For more on how you can build your View-Through Conversions, visit us on OnDigitalMaketing. Here you’ll find the tools, resources, and information you need to maximize your VTC and, as a result, your conversions. 

Key Takeaway: Implement proven techniques to improve user behavior and increase conversion rates, such as providing incentives, enhancing user experience, and leveraging remarketing tactics.

Implementing View-Through Conversion Tracking

“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.“

— Tom Fishburne

Once you have a solid understanding of your VTC, you can implement tracking to gather valuable data and optimize your campaigns, let’s look at what this might look like.

Overview of Conversion Tracking Tools

Conversion tracking is essential for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns so you can make data-driven decisions. 

There are many conversion tracking tools you can take advantage of, each with its own set of features and benefits, so here are some popular options you might want to consider:

• Google Ads: this offers comprehensive tracking and reporting, and integrates with other Google tools
• Facebook Ads Manager: this tracks a range of actions, and offers customizable attribution windows for Facebook and Instagram ads
• Google Analytics: which tracks various online actions, offers detailed reporting and integrates with Google Ads
• Adobe Analytics: offers you real-time tracking and analysis for multiple channels, advanced segmentation, and data visualization tools
• HubSpot: a suite of marketing automation tools, conversion tracking, lead capture forms, and management with detailed reporting, integrates with other HubSpot tools

Configuring View-Through Conversion Tracking in Google Ads

Google Ads is the most popular choice for conversion tracking, including VTC tracking. Here are the steps you’ll need to take to configure your VTC tracking in Google Ads:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account: Log in to your Google Ads account and navigate to the “Tools & Settings” menu in the upper right corner.
2. Access the conversion tracking settings: Click on “Conversions” under the “Measurement” section to access the conversion tracking settings.
3. Create a new conversion action: Click the “+” button to create a new conversion action. Select the appropriate category for your conversion, such as “Purchase” or “Sign-up.”
4. Configure the conversion action: In the “Conversion action settings” section, choose “View-Through Conversions” as the conversion source. This will enable View-Through Conversion tracking for your display and video ads.
5. Set the attribution window: Specify the attribution window for View-Through Conversions, which is the time frame during which a conversion will be counted after a user has viewed your ad.
   The default window is 1 day, but you can adjust this based on your campaign goals and user behavior.
6. Save your settings: Click “Create and continue” to save your settings and complete the setup process.

After successfully completing these setup processes, you’ll be able to track and analyze the performance of your display and video campaigns in terms of View-Through Conversions. 

But setting up your VTC tracking in Google Ads is just the first step. For more accurate insights, you need the right attribution model. So let’s consider what that might look like. 

Choosing an Appropriate Attribution Model

An attribution model determines how credit is assigned to different marketing channels for driving conversions. Popular attribution modeling techniques include:

• Last-click attribution: this assigns all credit to the last touchpoint before a conversion
• First-click attribution: this assigns all credit to the first touchpoint in the customer journey
• Linear attribution: this assigns equal credit to all touchpoints in the customer journey
• Time decay attribution: this assigns more credit to touchpoints closer to the time of conversion
• Data-driven attribution: this uses machine learning to analyze conversion data and assign credit based on the impact of individual touchpoints

To find the right attribution mode for you, consider your business goals and the length of your sales cycle. For instance, if your sales cycle is long, you may want to use a data-driven attribution model to account for the impact of touchpoints across the entire customer journey. 

But if you have a short sales cycle, you may want to look into using a time decay attribution model to give more credit to touchpoints closer to the conversion.

Drowning in data? Get in touch with us at OnDigitalMarketing with your questions or comments, we’ll be happy to help. 

You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter to stay on top of the latest tips and trends to maximize your conversion tracking and improve your marketing strategy.

Analyzing and Optimizing View-Through Conversions

“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

— W. Edwards Deming

Analyzing and optimizing your View-Through Conversions is crucial to building a successful digital marketing strategy as it helps provide valuable data about your ads’ impact and reach.

To interpret your VTC data, you’ll need to understand the total number of View-Through Conversions, which represents the users who converted after seeing your ad but not immediately clicking on it. 

This number is compared to the total click-through conversions, providing insight into the influence of your ad impressions. 

The VTC rate, which is the percentage of ad impressions leading to a conversion, is also essential. However, interpreting these numbers should be contextual, considering campaign goals and industry benchmarks.

To identify your high-performing ads and placements, examine the VTC rates of each ad creative and placement. Those with higher VTC rates are more effective at driving conversions. 

This comparison should extend to different ad placements, like websites, apps, or social media platforms.

Additionally, there are some other techniques you can employ to optimize your campaigns. These include strategies such as A/B testing, which is an effective method for optimizing your ad creatives and formats by testing multiple versions of your ad simultaneously to identify the most effective one.

The different variations can include design, copy, or format changes, with each version allocated an equal number of ad impressions.

You can also try remarketing campaigns targeting users who’ve previously interacted with your brand, increasing your likelihood of conversion. 

To optimize remarketing campaigns, analyze the VTC rates for different audience segments, identify the most responsive ones, and allocate higher advertising budgets accordingly. 

Use A/B testing to improve your remarketing ad creatives and formats. Consider adjusting the frequency and timing of your remarketing ads to optimize VTC rates. 

With both these strategies, remember, experimentation is key to finding a balance that drives conversions without overwhelming your audience.

Balancing Click-Through and View-Through Conversions

Balancing click-through conversions (CTC) and View-Through Conversions (VTC) is the secret to an effective digital marketing strategy. Instead of focusing exclusively on one, successful campaigns nurture both immediate actions and brand awareness.

To evaluate your campaign performance, you’ll need to examine key performance indicators (KPIs) like conversion rates, cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on investment (ROI). 

But equally important to these are qualitative factors like audience engagement, sentiment, and brand perception. These provide context for understanding campaign performance and guide future marketing initiatives.

Optimizing your marketing strategy for better ROI involves:

• Tweaking ad creatives and placements to boost engagement
• Reallocating budgets to high-performing channels
• Refining your target audience

The aim is to strike a balance between CTC and VTC. While CTCs often indicate immediate sales, VTCs suggest long-term impacts on brand awareness and customer loyalty. 

If your ads have a high VTC rate but a low CTC rate, consider adjusting your ad creatives or incorporating more compelling calls to action.

A comprehensive approach to conversion tracking monitors both CTC and VTC across all channels and provides you with an accurate understanding of your campaigns’ impact. 

This will require setting up appropriate tracking mechanisms, like conversion pixels, Google Analytics goals, and custom event tracking. Also, use an attribution model that accurately reflects each marketing channel’s contribution to your conversions.

Expert Tip: Consider the customer journey and the role of various touchpoints in driving conversions. Align your CTC and VTC strategies with different stages of the customer journey to create a seamless and impactful user experience.

Enhance Your Marketing Strategy Through Innovative Conversions

So there you have it—an in-depth look into the View-Through Conversion and the various ways it can impact your marketing and campaign optimization. The only thing that’s left is implementing VTC into your strategy. 

But to do that successfully, you’ll need to keep abreast of all the developments and techniques to maximize your View-Through Conversions, and this is where OnDigitalMarketing comes in. 

With our comprehensive range of courses and resources on all things digital marketing and analytics, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better source of marketing information. 

Our digital marketing content is compiled by leading practitioners in the field, including a cohort of experts from top companies like Google, MailChimp, and Meetup. 

It also includes insider tips from our founder, Jake Cook—a Montana State University Professor, with almost two decades of experience in marketing. 

Thanks to the impactful knowledge gained from our lessons, some of our course alumni have gone on to do incredible things in the digital marketing world. 

For example, Ben and Carlee now work embedded at Google as part of an agency relationship with R/GA in San Francisco and Tokyo. Abby works with the Fortune 50 on customer experience management software implementations… and the list goes on. 

So, if you’re ready to master digital marketing and join our community of expert online marketers, visit us on OnDigitalMarketing to get started. 

Alternatively, you can check out our book “A Beginners Guide to Digital Marketing and Social Media” and start growing your practical knowledge on View-Through Conversions and other digital marketing concepts today.

With over a billion websites on the net and another one being built every three seconds, there is no guarantee that your website will rank at the top of search engines like Bing or Google. It can be even more frustrating if you’ve recently launched a new website for your business.

Google and Bing prioritize the highest-quality content, and as a new player in the field, your website may not have established the necessary credibility to rank well.

Luckily, through effective digital marketing resources and tools like search engine optimization (SEO), you can elevate your website to the top of search engine rankings, attracting more traffic and conversions.

Search engine optimization is an online marketing strategy that involves refining a website or webpages to enhance their visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). 

This is achieved through techniques such as keyword research, quality content creation, and optimizing for mobile devices.

However, manually implementing SEO optimization can be time-consuming, tedious, and prone to errors. 

This is where SEO software comes into play; providing a solution to streamline and automate these tasks, making the SEO optimization process more efficient and effective.

SEO software refers to any type of tool or software application designed to assist website owners, digital marketers, and SEO professionals to optimize their websites for search engines.

By utilizing SEO software for your website, you can enjoy multiple benefits such as: 

• Saving time, since tasks that would have taken hours, such as keyword research, site audits, and backlink analysis, can now be completed within minutes
• Conveniently accessing the data and insights you need to make informed decisions about your website, since the software can track your site’s performance, analyze your competitors, and identify areas for improvement
• Optimizing your content for the right keywords and attracting targeted, organic traffic
• Identifying high-quality backlink opportunities and tracking the effectiveness of your link building efforts

In today’s article, we’ll discuss different ways to utilize SEO software as an effective digital marketing tool to achieve better rankings for your website or webpage.

By implementing these strategies, you can rest assured that your website is optimized for success.

1 – Optimizing Your Web Content

When users demonstrate a desire to stay on your website, it increases the likelihood of achieving higher rankings. Google naturally perceives such sites to be meeting users’ expectations effectively.

However, randomly generating content for your website will hardly improve your ranking in the search engines. You’ll want to switch to a more consistent content SEO practice that will satisfy your target audience and persuade them to stay on your site.

This can be accomplished in three major ways: 

1 – Optimizing Page Speed

Source: portent.com

Every second counts when it comes to page speed. Research shows that most online buyers expect a website to load within two seconds. Each additional second of load time increases their chances of leaving the site.

This can result in higher bounce rates, reduced page views, and ultimately lower SEO rankings.

“Unfortunately, most mobile pages take much longer to load than their desktop counterparts, and mobile users expect pages to load much faster on their mobile devices. If the page takes too long to load, users will immediately bounce, causing your site to lose out on a large number of potential customers.”

— Jillian Streit, website strategist at Blue Frog

Fortunately, you can take advantage of available SEO tools to increase your page load speed. 

A notable example is the Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI), a free tool that tests your website’s performance. It helps identify areas that are slowing down your website and suggests ways to improve them.

Another useful free SEO software tool is the WebPage Test, which has partnered with Cloudflare. It provides free speed tests and offers a detailed breakdown of how fast the various elements of your page load.

The tool also allows you to run customized page load time tests based on different user conditions, such as location, connection, time, and browser. This helps you understand how different visitors experience your site.

There is also Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), a coding standard that enables websites to load faster on smartphones. It’s a Google feature that makes heavy desktop websites more compatible for mobile phones, ensuring faster loading times.

Adopting AMP has proven to be an effective method for boosting rankings, with up to 80% of publishers reporting increased visibility and click-through rates after adopting the software. 

Furthermore, a study revealed that Google AMP pages offer loading speeds four times faster and consume eight times less data compared to conventional mobile-optimized pages.

2 – Optimizing Content Visibility

Source: quicksprout.com

When it comes to content for your website, there’s no substitute for quality. The key driver for your search engine ranking is relevant, authoritative content. 

The quality of your content will highly influence your site’s dwell time (the amount of time that visitors spend on your site) and ultimately affect SEO ranking.

Visitors who find rich, unique, and useful content on your site will stay longer to consume it all. This improves your website’s traffic, enhancing its relevance and authority.

There are several ways to further optimize your content’s visibility: 

• Identify and target particular keyword phrases
• Use keywords and metadata strategically, such as placing them in titles and alt tags 
• Constantly monitor your rankings with ranking tools to make adjustments accordingly
• Strategically link to relevant sources

High-quality long copy can also help to increase your content’s visibility. According to a past study, long copy ranging between 2,000 and 2,500 words ranks highest in search engines. 

While SEO ranking doesn’t entirely rely on content length, long copy provides a better opportunity to offer more value, add keywords, incorporate backlinks, and increase dwell time.

Websites that produce rich content tend to get more links than those with short copy content. In a previous study by Moz that aimed to see the correlation between backlinks and word count, the results showed that people are more willing to link to in-depth content than they’re willing to link to short-form content.

Fun Fact: On average, a webpage that secures a first-page ranking on Google contains more than 2,000 words of content.

3 – Improving User Experience 

When users can’t find what they need on your site right away, chances are that they’ll leave and never return.

There’s a simple concept that Google follows: if you can’t offer an excellent good user experience, then you don’t deserve any promotion in search engine rankings. 

A positive user experience not only leads to increased user satisfaction but also improves metrics such as bounce rate, dwell time, and conversions, which can positively impact your rankings.

One way to create a better user experience is through mobile optimization. 

More and more online buyers are consuming content on their mobile phones. A recent report from Hitwise revealed that nearly 60% of all web searches come from mobile phones, with sectors like food and beverage reaching 70%.

“According to our analysis, 62% of searches resulting in a visit to the Hitwise Retail 300 (a collection of the top 300 retail websites) now come from smartphones or tablets.”

By optimizing your site for mobile users, you can provide a seamless experience across various screen sizes and improve user satisfaction. The more mobile-friendly your site is, the more time your visitors will likely spend there.

Ensure your website is mobile-friendly using SEO tools that offer mobile-friendly testing. This helps you identify any responsiveness or usability issues specific to mobile devices, allowing you to optimize your site accordingly.

Below are popular SEO tools to consider:

• Google mobile-friendly test: A free SEO tool from Google that allows you to test how mobile-friendly your website is.
  Simply enter your website’s URL, and it will analyze the page and provide feedback on its mobile-friendliness, highlighting any issues that need to be addressed.
• WebPage test: A performance testing tool that includes a mobile-friendly test feature.
  It analyzes your website’s mobile performance, including rendering and usability, and provides insights for optimizing the mobile experience.
• HubSpot website grader: A free tool that provides an overall website analysis, including a mobile-friendly assessment.
  It tests your site’s mobile responsiveness and offers recommendations for improving the mobile experience.
• Moz: A widely-used SEO tool that includes a mobile-friendly testing feature.
  It assesses your website’s mobile-readiness, identifies potential issues, and offers suggestions to optimize your site for mobile devices.

Another way to improve your site’s user experience is by enhancing its readability. You don’t want your audience to stop reading your content halfway and leave your site because they find it too difficult to digest.

Consider SEO software tools that can assist you in assessing and enhancing the readability of your website’s content; such as Textmetrics, Hemingway Editor, The Readability Test Tool, Yoast SEO, and Readable.

These software will analyze factors like sentence structure, paragraph length, word choice, and readability scores.

Pay specific attention to the readability scores, since they indicate the reading level required to understand your content. Aim for a lower readability score to make your content more accessible and easier to comprehend.

Some of these SEO software will even flag instances of passive voice or complicated language that may make your content difficult to read. Opt for active voice and use plain language to make your content more engaging and understandable.

Furthermore, the SEO software tools will ensure that your headings and subheadings are appropriately structured and tagged, helping both visitors and search engines understand the hierarchy and organization of your content.

Expert Tip: A well-organized and intuitive navigation menu can greatly enhance the user experience. Ensure that your website’s navigation is clear, easy to follow, and allows visitors to find what they need quickly.

2 – Conducting Keyword Research 

Once you have a user-friendly website in place, the next crucial step is to research key phrases and words. This helps you to determine precisely what your clients and target customers are looking for on Google and other search engines. 

Failure to conduct a proper keyword analysis may lead to creating content that your target audience may never read.

Fortunately, there are several keyword research tools that can help you determine the most common words and phrases relating to your content, and your competitors using these terms. 

When used correctly, these keyword research tools will simplify and streamline your workflow, making it easier to target the right keywords and provide you with the data you need to rank for them.

They include: 

• Keyword Generator to find popular keyword ideas
• Keyword Difficulty Checker to check the difficulty of a keyword ranking
• QuestionDB to find question-based keywords
• Keyword Surfer for lightweight keyword research
• Google Keyword Planner to research paid keywords

If you’re new to SEO, a free keyword research tool will help you discover some great keywords for your website.

However, as your website continues to grow and your time becomes limited, paid keyword research tools are a more convenient option. They provide more data and allow for more efficient workflow, helping you find the right keywords in less time.

Good examples of paid keyword research tools are Ahrefs and Semrush, which can also assist in local SEO research.

3 – Analyzing Your Website Performance

SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. The top ranking websites are as a result of months (or even years) of hard work, optimizations, and consistent content uploads while fixing technical SEO and improving internal links.

Therefore, while content is king when it comes to boosting your search engine rankings, you need to analyze your website’s performance to ensure it’s reaching its full potential. 

You can do this through various steps: 

1 – Conducting Competitor Analysis 

Compare the content, design, and overall presence of your website to your competitors, and identify areas for improvement.

Software SEO tools like SpyFu, cognitiveSEO, and Semrush offer robust competitor analysis features, including keyword analysis, banklink analysis, traffic analysis, rankings and visibility, social media analysis, and content analysis.

Through these different analyses, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors’ strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. You can see what keywords they’re targeting, the backlinks they’re building, and the type of content they’re creating.

You can also monitor their SEO campaigns by tracking their link building activities, keyword rankings, and website changes. 

With all this information, you’ll be able to make effective, data-driven decisions, refine your own SEO approach, and stay ahead in the competitive landscape.

2 – Tracking Your Website’s Ranking

You need to track your website rankings over time to see if your SEO efforts are paying off. 

With the right analytic tools, you can monitor your results to give you a better understanding of how your website is performing. You can track the number of visitors, page views, and other important metrics to get an idea of how successful your efforts are.

Google Search Console (GSC) is an excellent free SEO tool that can track your site’s Google search engine data. Moz is another great paid tool that can measure multiple search engine metrics for your site.

Other SEO software tools to consider include Google Analytics and Wix Analytics.

They’ll help you closely monitor your website’s visibility in search engines, make data-driven decisions to optimize your SEO strategies, and provide valuable insights into keyword performance.

You’ll also be able to identify what works and what doesn’t for your website, which will help you fine-tune your SEO marketing strategy and make improvements that will help boost your rankings.

Features to Look For in an SEO Software Package

When you work extra hard to produce quality content for your audience, you want to ensure that it gains maximum exposure and draws visitors to your website.

SEO software can be a powerful online advertising tool to make this happen. 

The right SEO software will help you analyze the effectiveness of your content in the best way possible, so that it surfaces higher and more frequently in search engines. 

Below are some of the top key features you should look for when selecting an SEO software package:

• Rank tracking: Rank tracking is arguably the most critical feature in an SEO software.
  Choose a software that offers accurate and up-to-date rank tracking across different search engines and locations. Semrush or AccuRanker are great choices.
• Social media integration: Search engines will analyze various aspects of your social media activity to gauge your online authority and relevance.
  Consider SEO social media marketing software like HubSpot and Hootsuite that will allow you to track social media mentions, analyze engagement metrics, and monitor social media performance alongside SEO efforts.
• Banklink analysis: Backlinks are among the key drivers of search engine rankings, so it’s important to choose software that offers backlink analysis capabilities.
  This includes monitoring your own backlinks, analyzing competitor backlinks, and identifying opportunities to acquire high-quality links.
• Keyword research and analysis: A good SEO software package should offer robust keyword research and analysis tools that will reveal target keywords you can use to drive traffic organically.
  Opt for SEO software with keyword research tools that can also reveal the monthly search volume of a particular keyword on Google, the SEO competition of the keyword, and the cost per click for the keyword on Google Adwords.
• Site auditing: A great SEO software package should provide site auditing tools to identify technical issues that may affect your website’s performance in search engines.
  This includes checking for broken links, duplicate content, crawlability issues, and other factors that impact SEO.
• Competitor analysis: Choose software that allows you to analyze and compare your website’s performance against competitors.
  This can include monitoring their rankings, backlinks, and overall SEO strategies to gain insights and identify areas for improvement.

With several options available on the market today, selecting the right SEO software for your website typically boils down to the one that offers the most features with the fewest limitations.

We recommend choosing an SEO tool that’s within your budget and won’t impose limitations (such as the number of keywords you can research and competitors you can analyze) that prevent you attaining maximum SEO optimization. 

As long as you select an SEO tool that provides as much functionality as you need, it will serve as a valuable asset to your business’s online promotion efforts.

If your budget allows, you may even choose to subscribe to different SEO tools simultaneously, since they can each offer different insights. 

Check out this detailed guide to top SEO tools and their features, including both paid and free versions.

The table below compares a selection of different SEO software packages based on their key features:

SEO Software Package	Social Media Integration	Backlink Analysis	Site Auditing	Competitor Analysis
Semrush	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AccuRanker	No	No	Yes	No
Ahrefs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Moz Pro	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Google Search Console	No	No	No	No
Serpstat	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Raven Tools	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SpyFu	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

SEO Software: The Digital Marketing Tool You Need to Outrank Your Competitors

From improving a website’s structure and content to tracking progress and analyzing results, the potential for success with SEO software is almost limitless. 

It can lead to unprecedented levels of success and exposure in the world of digital marketing.

This is why businesses or digital marketers cannot afford to operate without solid knowledge in SEO software tools.

At OnDigitalMarketing, it’s our mission to educate aspiring entrepreneurs and digital marketers on the different ways to leverage social media, the internet, and analytics to grow their brands and successfully promote their products or services.

We provide learning materials that cover a multitude of digital marketing topics, including SEO learning. 

If you’re just starting your journey to digital marketing, then our Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing and Social Media (written for an absolute beginner) is a perfect place to start. 

It covers key topics in digital marketing, including how to produce high-quality content to rank for SEO. The book also comes with a free SEO PDF from Moz that’s ideal for all SEO beginners.

Check out our Digital Marketing Syllabus to see in detail all the classes we offer.

Bonus Tip: Incorporate high-quality images, videos, infographics, and other visual elements into your content to make it more visually appealing and engaging for your audience.