How have those cross-device digital campaigns been going? Didn’t start?! Don’t worry, I’ve got your back if you need a refresher (because it’ll be important to keep in mind as you’re reading!) Here’s a link to my previous blog on the importance of these campaigns and things to consider during the customer journey in a cross-device digital campaign.
Now that you’re a cross-device campaign pro, it’s time to look at the next step is to take your campaign reporting to the next level and to measure how digital devices influenced conversions.
But first, what is a conversion? A conversion is the point where a prospect responds to your ad’s call-to-action. It consists of one the following:
- Phone Calls – tracking calls to your place of business
- Form fills – track form submissions to a newsletter or subscription
- Downloads – number of downloads to a coupon, app, etc,
- Other – tracking actions such as purchases, sign ups and other specified actions
The beauty of digital conversions is that results can be tracked and attributed to different factors, devices being one of them.
Why the emphasis on device? Research shows that 40 percent of consumers will start their online search via mobile but make their final purchase (aka the conversion) on desktop.
There’s a wealth of data insight to analyze what is driving conversion in your digital campaign – including how devices influence that. Here are some of the measurements you should look at and some pro tips.
Determining How Certain Devices Are Performing
Whether you’re running text ads or display through Google or a third-party vendor, you likely have access to an insights dashboard. The information is instant, but overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking at.
By selecting device category, you can see what devices are driving those call conversions or form fills. For example, you may have an ad designed with a purchase now CTA on all three devices – mobile, tablet and desktop – but only see conversions happening on desktop.
Wouldn’t it make sense to adjust your budget and allocate a higher percentage toward optimizing desktop? Want to get more specific? Well, you can even see what operating systems (OS) and browsers (like Firefox or Chrome) are generating the most traffic. Browser and OS information can give insight to your audience as each browser contains its own audience demographics.
Pro Tip #1: Once you’ve analyzed which device is generating the most traffic and conversions, you’ll want to make bid adjustments on the device level placing more dollars towards the device yielding the most ROI.
Is Your Ad Leading to Conversions on Mobile?
It’s important to look at mobile and its performance as most engagement and research is being done on smartphones. You’ll want to look at acquisition including the percentage of web sessions that are contributed to mobile compared that to the number of new users across all devices. This will let you know how mobile is either boosting or hindering your conversions.
Today, a consumer’s attention span is much shorter than ever and 53 percent of mobile visitors will leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. If you’re seeing that mobile is not performing that well, and your campaign is highly mobile driven, you might want to look at your page bounce rate and your average page session duration. This can help you determine if people are leaving too soon before being able to complete the action on that page.
There may be some web enhancements needed to support a mobile campaign. If your website isn’t mobile friendly, it could use a little TLC.
Pro Tip #2: Allocate a smaller budget to an A/B test campaign, changing up your messaging and selecting dayparts per device optimization. This will allow you to do some testing without directly affecting your current running campaign performance.
Analyzing Behavior Flow on Your Website
A step marketers often overlook is the consumer behavior trends on their website and how they influence conversions. Every display and text ad, once clicked, directs the consumer to a specific page on the website. The goal is to have the consumer complete the specified conversion in that landing page: register for an event, submit an appointment, download a coupon, etc.
Too often, consumers will leave the page without completing the CTA. It’s important to know that not every single person will convert but the goal should always be to generate the most qualified conversion.
Google Analytics has a great tool allowing you to take a look at your website’s behavior flow. This tool shows how consumers move across your website, where they are disengaging the most, and what their next action is after their initial page visit. If you notice there are too many drop-offs (disengagement) on a specific landing page, it’s likely the device they’re viewing that page on does not support the type of conversion. If you set up a call conversion and people are clicking on the ad from a desktop, you’ll want to be sure your campaign is set on a tablet and mobile device only.
Pro Tip #3: Evaluate the consumer behavior flow on the website, especially the landing page, and take a look at the device views, sessions, and duration to see the correlation between the type of conversions per device.
The methods of measuring and optimizing your digital campaign are always evolving. There are many factors to look at such as device type and how they influence your conversions.
Ready to get started? Contact us to learn more!
