Google Analytics and Indirect Action Tracking
If you’re a marketer, or own a business, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with Google Analytics. In fact, you may live and breathe by it. This helpful tool not only provides valuable web insights, but it can help track and improve the overall success of your online presence. Of all the data provided, one of the most important pieces of information is how people are getting to your site. When we look at traditional Google Analytics, it is easy to just assume that the data we view is accurate. (Specifically, when we are looking at measuring ROI on our various marketing ventures.) However, we have never really felt that this data truly supports any company’s marketing efforts, specifically when it comes to tracking the value of social media.
What happens when you put out a social ad directing a user to perform a desired action, but that user performs said action one day, one week, or even one month later? Maybe the initial brand or product awareness came from social media, but depending on actions taken after the user sees the initial ad, Google Analytics may give credit to a different channel. That doesn’t seem fair, does it?
Well, it’s not. But we have developed a way to utilize Facebook pixels to determine a more accurate way to track, analyze, and report web referrals.
Here you will see how Google Analytics breaks down its Acquisition tracking. As you can see, it only breaks this down into five channels, and we all know that this doesn’t account for many different variables, which I will go into later.
Previously, the only way marketers could track the direct impact of social ads was by studying engagement-based metrics (number of likes, comments, shares, etc.), impression-based metrics (how many times your content was shown for three seconds or more), direct website clicks (the user saw the ad and then clicked to the website), and social referrals reported by Google Analytics (the number of users who came directly from a social media site.) The problem with this level of tracking is that it only accounts for the consumer fulfilling your exact expectation in the exact manner you want, without taking human nature into account. Often, a consumer’s need for services may not be immediate, but the need doesn’t dissipate, it pivots. One hour, one day, one month later, the need may still be there.
We now have the option to take the Facebook pixel (a line of code that goes on your website to help report conversions and build targeted audiences) and permanently attach it to every Facebook ad. Using cookies (a small text file that a website creates in order to recognize and keep track of a user’s preferences), we are able to track whether a consumer clicks on the ad or takes an action at any point in time over the next 28 days. Pretty powerful, huh?
For example, let’s say you’re a restaurant owner and you have a social ad that has a call-to-action, directing users to go to your website to make a reservation. When this is shown to a consumer, several things could happen. Ideally, the consumer clicks to make the reservation. However, there are many factors that could prevent this. Maybe he or she doesn’t know what time they will be able to make it, or how many people will be with them, making the need to click irrelevant. Do you see the dilemma here?
In reality, the consumer would call the rest of the party to figure out the details, then go back to your website, (direct referral) or Google keywords around your restaurant (search referral), before actually booking that reservation. Google Analytics would credit this to a “direct” or “search” referral, leaving the social referral by the wayside. But, by having this pixel installed on your website, you are able to tell if this person, who initially saw information about your restaurant on Facebook, went back to your website anytime within 28 days of seeing your ad, as long as they returned to your site from one of their devices in which they originally viewed your ad.
Take yourself into consideration. How many ads have you viewed, but did not click on due to life happening? From work to family, life has a way of distracting us, but it doesn’t mean that the need for a new product or service does not exist.
Now we can utilize this data and give credit where credit is due. Without proper tracking and data analysis, how will marketers make informed decisions on where to place those ever-so-valuable ad dollars next quarter? Utilizing this type of indirect action tracking will help to take human nature into consideration.
Finally! We can now start reporting humans with a more human approach. We can now take into consideration that sometimes, life just gets in the way, but ultimately, it doesn’t hinder the marketing process. This, my friends, is what makes marketing so great. We can take people, above all else, into consideration.