Tracking the user journey and recording conversions

A floodlight tag is a piece of code generated in Campaign Manager that is placed on a website’s individual pages, allowing marketers to track what a user is doing when visiting their site.

For every floodlight tag that is created, Campaign Manager requires you to pick a counting method to specify exactly how that floodlight activity should measure the conversion or event; the two options are Counter or Sales.

A counter activity will track the number of conversions associated by a specific event, for example, a floodlight tag set to count the number of times a user visits a particular webpage. A sales activity will either track the number of sales or the number of item purchased per sale.

To put this into an example…

A user was served an ad promoting a ‘50% off sale’ at a famous clothing boutique. From this, the user clicked on the ad where they were taken to the homepage of the site. Within the hour that user had filled their basket and was taken to the checkout page where they then completed the purchase. Below is a breakdown of where floodlight tags could be utilized within this user’s journey. A floodlight tag can be placed on any page of a website where you feel a conversion or an action needs to be tracked:

·         Homepage floodlight (counter activity) – although your display advertisement would typically already have a click tracker in place, by also placing a floodlight on your homepage, you can identify what traffic is coming from your display ad and what is coming from another source (i.e. organic search/e-newsletter click through)

·         Checkout page floodlight (counter activity) – this allows you to identify if a large percentage of your users are dropping off before converting. You may see that you have 100 users reaching the checkout page, but only one conversion reaching the confirmation page. Floodlight tags would highlight the issue and allow you to investigate why your users aren’t completing the transaction and dropping off before converting. It also gives you the option to retarget these users with a display ad promoting another 10% if they come back to the site and complete their purchase

·         Order confirmation page floodlight (sales activity) – this activity records all monetary conversions of users who completed a sales transaction and were served the order conformation page

By tracking the users’ journey, you are provided with a valuable insight into which of your campaigns are most effective and are providing you with the most conversions.

Want to know more about Campaign Manager and floodlights? Contact your GMP Account Manager today to arrange training for you and your team!