What good is a system for measuring your online ad results if you have to crunch all the numbers yourself?

Before you read about the new ROI Report from Wicked Reports, ask yourself a couple of questions.

Last week we talked about why online marketers need to prioritize return on investment over cost per click. Today we’re discussing the relative importance of open rates.

If you’re like most online marketers you evaluate your ad campaigns by measuring their cost per click. Not only has this been best practice since, well, forever. it has also been the only way you could get a quantitative handle on advertising effectiveness.

Here’s the last conversion path our Facebook lead, Maximus, followed before purchasing from the Wicked Good Juice company. Six months after Maximus first became a lead, he buys from a webinar that was promoted on Facebook and email but opts in with a different click than the one described in the previous conversion path. Maximus is 20 years old, male, and likes the Boston Red Sox.

A lead for six months buys from a webinar that was promoted on Facebook and Email.

To follow up on our last post we’ll examine some typical customer click paths and demonstrate the challenges of traditional last-click conversion tracking. We’re going to follow a lead called Maximus for a fictitious company, “Wicked Good Juice (WGJ).” Their online marketing efforts will convert Maximus across four possible customer journeys from prospect to buyer. Maximus is a young man, 20 years old, who likes the Boston Red Sox. Today we’ll examine the first customer path.

In our last post we met a lead called Maximus and followed him along a Facebook conversion path through multiple marketing offers from the Wicked Good Juice Company. In this post we track him through a second set of marketing contacts before he finally makes a purchase. Maximus is 20 years old, male, and likes the Boston Red Sox.

Last year Facebook upgraded to a new way of tracking that offered a significant improvement. The new tracking allows you to define which URL means a conversion. When the Facebook tracking code detects that defined URL loading up for a person who clicked or viewed one of your ads, it awards that ad a conversion. That seems clear enough.

You probably know that Facebook advertising is one of the best ways to get more sales for your business. In fact 3,750,000 online business owners now use Facebook to acquire their customers. One issue with Facebook Advertising data, however, is that it’ doesn't give you the “complete picture.”  Let me explain.