how to measure ad-words succes if you are selling services?

almer · #1 (**permalink**) 03-10-2004, 06:30 AM

It's probably easier when you are selling products direct via the web. In my case however I am offering to organize your bussiness-event or wedding etc. This makes it harder to measure the income we might generate with Google ad-words.

Q: how do you measure ad-words succes if you sell services instead of products?

You can look at my website here. www.stadsavonturen.nl
Don't worry, it's in English as well as Dutch.

Duncan Pollock · #2 (**permalink**) 03-10-2004, 11:06 PM

I think you have to go by the click-through rate. It has to be sufficiently high so that Google doesn't disable your ad -- and the figure seems to vary depending on the keyword, although Google says it has to be at least better than .5% -- but it does mean people are going to your site, which is what you essentially want to happen.
With all services -- such as mine, which is real estate -- it's usually going to take time before people who've become aware of you will end up buying. Thus, it's perhaps going to take six months before you're able to see the pay-off. Meantime, however, you're likely to get an e-mail saying "I saw your site and am interested in ...." This could, of course, simply be because someone found you via your search engine free listings, but it's just as likely to be because your AdWord brought them to you.

Duncan

Pcheck Guru · #3 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 10:53 PM

We face a similar problem, since we provide a service online http://www.papercheck.com. I think it is a bit easier for us to determine our conversion rate, since the majority of our business (96%) is completed online. You may want to set up a contact us form for serious inquiries, or maybe a survey page of how likely someone is to use your service. The key thing that you want to get out of this interaction with your potential customer is for them to contact you online. Google provides a free conversion tracking tool, you can place this on your confirmation page after they have contacted you either with a survey or an email form.

This would give you a rough idea of how successful your pay-per-click campaign is with Google. I would try to get potential customers to contact you through your website. People are lazy, and if they have to pick-up the phone to contact you, they may not do it at all. It doesn’t take much effort to set up a email form using asp, and it can’t hurt.

Pcheck Guru

Duncan Pollock · #4 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 12:07 AM

One other thing you can do is invite your site visitors to "Join my mailing list".
You need the necessary sign-up box and follow up acknowledgement pages (or subsequent e-mails) and you do need to have an ongoing program of sending information out to people. But it does increase your chance of turning them into customers. It's all a case, as one marketing guru likes to put it, of going "Drip, drip, drip ..." until people think of you and no one else.

Duncan

hmng · #5 (**permalink**) 03-17-2004, 09:09 AM

I would measure it the same way as if I were selling hard goods, i.e. Revenue/Cost = Profit ratio.

You set your goal for the profit ratio or return on investment and measure your result against that goal. The ultimate thing it boils down to is that your revenues should exceed your cost.

cline · #6 (**permalink**) 03-17-2004, 11:18 PM

You've got a common problem. Use conversion tracking to measure vists to destination pages, such as your contact us page. It's not an exact match of who inquires, but it's a reasonable proxy.

almer · #7 (**permalink**) 04-15-2004, 07:51 AM

Yes, Conversion Tracking should be the thing to do. Although I don't like the idea of spying on my visitors and shoving cookies up their hard drives.

brucemcc · #8 (**permalink**) 04-21-2004, 12:13 AM

If you were selling groceries in a real store, wouldn't you watch your customers and learn their patterns around your store so that you could better market to them? Wouldnt you want to know where you should put your dislays to get the most bang for your buck? Would you call that 'Spying on your customers"? Or just GOOD BUSINESS?

Same thing on a web site. It is not SPYING.

AussieWebmaster · #9 (**permalink**) 05-03-2004, 05:53 PM

If you do not want tracking then you will not be able to measure... it is that simple.... you need to be able to see what words are working and which are not, not just the spend...

you could create separate landing pages for each event and a sign up for more info... there ultimately has to be a measureable (an email address etc.) to continue otherwise you are just buying visitors without knowing if it is effective... you may as well give the equivalent away in free trips and have word of mouth get you more business