A Conversion is So Much More Than Just The Final Click – Do Your Homework Properly!

Website owners often only concern themselves with analysing the last click, i.e. the conversion. In an excited state they want to know the ad clicked, the keyword responsible and from where the user was referred. But this is actually a bad place to start. The likelihood is that the person who made the purchase had been to your site a few times beforehand, perhaps they stalled on the sale checking out the competition, or perhaps they forgot completely and were prompted by a second advertisement to come back again. It is rare that a person buys straight away, and for that reason the picture is usually bigger than it first looks.

Only analysing the conversion could lead to poor SEO target marketing decisions because valuable information will be ignored. What needs to be established is where that user came from initially, what banner add did they click on for their first visit, what editorial content did they click on to arrive the second time, and what made them finally come back a third time to purchase. In short, look across your entire website promotions network to understand the pathway taken to the conversion.

It is important to focus on the chain of events that led to the sale because we can build an impression of how trust was achieved and how the perceived risk was lowered for the user through particular marketing channels. If we only look at the last click, we immediately eliminate the importance of the click history – not good analysis at all and unhelpful for future SEO target marketing.

Always look at the complete picture, analyse the entire profile of the transaction, not just the conversion. The conversion represents the last action but not the thought process and the encouraging factors triggering the consumer activity. What is the point of implementing numerous website promotions if you aren’t going to establish the part each one played in a conversion? Do your homework properly and reap the rewards.