The 1% Rule Of Content Marketing

Content marketing is a tough sell for many businesses. Why? Because it isn’t a quick win.

It takes time, effort, and serious persistence to play the long game, not the short game.

It takes courage to give away something of value without the expectation of immediate return. And even though this is the case, it’s been proven again and again that content marketing really does work.

But let’s assume the strength of your courage is starting to fade and your confidence that content marketing will bring you more business is waning. Maybe you’ve been doing content marketing for a while, and you’re just not seeing results you want.

How can you fix this? How can you make content marketing work for you like it has for hundreds of other businesses out there?

Why Your Content Marketing Fails

Let’s play a little game to get to the bottom of it. It’s called the “Five Whys,” and it will help us break down the issue and ask a series of five iterative questions that will reveal the root cause of the problem:

Issue: Our content marketing isn’t working.

1. Why? — Why is your content marketing not working?

We haven’t seen any positive results.

2. Why? — Why haven’t you seen any positive results?

Our content isn’t increasing traffic to our site so we aren’t getting more leads or customers.

3. Why? — Why isn’t your content increasing traffic to your site so you get more leads and customers?

We don’t have a consistent content production schedule that helps us generate traffic.

4. Why? — Why don’t you have a consistent content production schedule to help you generate more traffic?

We’re struggling internally to align our priorities and resources to keep up a content calendar.

5. Why? — Why are you struggling internally to align your priorities and resources to keep up a content calendar?

We don’t have an internal process that facilitates successful implementation of our content marketing strategy.

This game could go on for more than Five Whys, but it tells us pretty quickly that the root cause of our issue is a process problem. I’ve seen this time and time again with businesses new to content marketing, or even mildly experienced: They have not set themselves up for success.

Why? They’re looking at things the wrong way…

Systems, Not Goals

Goals are great. I love goals, and so do you. But I think you can agree, what we most likely love so much about goals is reaching them. We did it! Gold star! Pop the champagne! And that’s all great — it never hurts to dream big, especially when we have an ROI to prove or revenue numbers to meet.

The problem is that we set goals for the far-off imaginary future and forget about the time in between — that empty space, the “boring” stuff before the shiny object at the end of the path.

We forget about all the hard work it will take us to reach our goal and the incremental actions we must start taking now so that in one year’s time, we have that ROI proven or those revenue numbers met. We don’t create a system to help us reach our goals.

Content marketing isn’t a rotisserie oven; we can’t “Set it, and forget it!” We must inject a little Zen into our business and embody the idea of kaizen, or continuous improvement that moves us towards our goals with consistent dedication.

Athletes already know the power of systems. They understand that if they are to reach a physical goal, setting benchmarks and small improvements must be taken over a span of time. Adding one pound every week over the course of a month to their lifting schedule means they just graduated to the next notch of the weight machine.

We, as content marketers, can learn from this approach. Because unlike goals, incremental system-based change is:

• realistic and attainable;
• encourages consistent progress;
• can lead to significant results over time.

As we saw in our Five Whys example scenario, the root cause of poor results was a process problem that could be fixed with a shift to system-based thinking. We need a process for making content marketing progress, not just thinking about it.

We’re all good at setting goals, but we must remember, content marketing isn’t really about content at all. It’s about aligning our priorities, processes, and people to create a system that produces tangible results.

Read more on systems vs. goals in this great article from James Clear’s blog.

1% Rule Of Marginal Gains

Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.

Seth Godin

Ah – that’s one of the best quotes for content marketers right there. It’s also the perfect complement to a system-based, internal content marketing strategy.

Progress is what systems are built on, and perfection is why they die. How can you make progress if you’re waiting for things to be just right? Get out of your heads, do the best you can, and get that content out into the world.

Of course, make sure what you’re producing is quality, but don’t sacrifice consistency for perfection. After all, the sweet spot for content marketing to start showing results is aboutsix months in, so you want to be producing content consistently over that time period.

Progress is what systems are built on and perfection is why they die.

By being consistent and dedicated to getting your content out there over time, you’re making small marginal gains every single time you press Publish.

After all, content marketing is as much of a numbers game as it is a human one. The more pages and posts you have on your website, your traffic and leads start to exponentially grow as seen in the Hubspot graph below. You’ll see a hockey stick effect on the graph right around 300 total published blog posts, which doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen over time with progress, not perfection.

This strategy of small margin gains is often referred to as the 1% rule. The thinking is that if you can make 1% progress every single day, it can result in a significant impact over time.

One percent may sound small, but it adds up to be a lot, especially in a business environment. Most businesses involved in a content marketing strategy can benefit from shifting their thinking to a system-based strategy based on 1% marginal gains made every day.

Many businesses don’t think this way, and that’s one glaring reason they aren’t seeing results; they aren’t setting themselves up for success.

What are incremental changes you can make in your organization to help your content marketing system reach your goals? Here are some ideas:

• Connecting with one influential person on Twitter every day;
• Having your staff contribute one topic idea a week for content;
• Encouraging your team to engage with one, then two, then three social posts from your brand each week;
• Trying an A/B test of your email subject lines to see which is opened more;
• Ensure you’re optimizing everything correctly on your website, even images;
• Setting up a content@yourdomain.com email so anyone can send content ideas at any time;
• Writing 150 words more on that blog post to includes a call-to-action;
• Testing your form fields to see what produces higher completions;
• Shifting your content production schedule from one time a week to two times a week.

These things sound tiny, don’t they? But the fact of the matter is — that’s the point. Tiny little actions taken consistently add up to progress. Tiny little actions not taken consistently subtracts to stagnation.

What this also means is there are no excuses.

As you can see on the graph above, simple positive decisions and simple errors in judgment are level at first. But over time, just as compound interest increases the value of our investments, the positive decisions skyrocket while the negative judgments plunge.

Keeping up a consistent content calendar in the case of our Five Whys example is imperative toward making these 1% improvements that grow over time. There can be no excuse for letting one week slide, because you know the importance of that one week in the grand scheme of things.

Without those simple decisions taken every moment and every day, you’ll either stay the same or fall away. Which path will you choose?

The Importance Of Tracking

Marathon runners know how fast they run their route now and how fast they want to run it. They then plan out benchmarks to reach their personal records and track their time every single run. They are aware of their baseline, progress and goals simultaneously so they can speed up when they need to.

With content marketing, there are plenty of ways to track your baseline, find avenues for improvement, and carve out a system to help reach your goal.

With content marketing, there are plenty of ways to track your baseline, find avenues for improvement, and carve out a system to help reach your goal.

The worst type of marketers set a nebulous goal without knowing where they currently stand. You can’t say you want 20 leads a month within 60 days if you’ve only ever averaged five. You must set a realistic timeline and take incremental actions to increase your traffic, then your conversions, then your leads.

Maybe it’s about making 1% improvements to your submission forms, your site navigation, your content, and so on that makes the difference in producing those leads. If you track your progress all along, you will see what you can tweak for the better.

Maybe you’ll find your goal was unrealistic, but that’s OK. You didn’t lose yet. Adjust your goal based on real-world data and see about gaining small successes consistently rather than fighting the bigger battles.

What this all comes down is a lesson found in the children’s fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare.” The Hare was confident in his ability to win the race against the Tortoise, but took a nap before he crossed the finish line, never thinking the Tortoise would beat him as he ended up doing.

Creating a system based on 1% gains may feel like you’re moving at a turtle’s pace, but crawling slowly yet steadily will truly win the race when it comes to content marketing. Naps are nice, but winning is better.

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Everything Marketers Want To Know About Social Media Marketing But Are Too Afraid To Ask

More often than not, marketers and the companies they work for have limited resources. Unless you have an infinite amount of time or money, driving success on every single social channel is simply unrealistic.

So, what should you focus on as a marketer? Today, I’m addressing real business questions that every marketer should consider.

I was recently on a panel with speakers from LinkedIn and Facebook where we discussed social channels available to businesses and how to optimize your presence on them.

Over 1,000 marketing professionals attended the event, and there were hundreds of great questions. I’ve compiled a list of the the top questions that every marketer wants to know but is too afraid to ask — these are the actual questions (and paraphrased answers), simply stripped of any personal information (name, company name, etc).

Q: What Are The Two Social Media Platforms I Should Be On?

A: It really depends on what type of business you are and your objectives for the campaign. If you are selling to other businesses (i.e. you are B2B), then LinkedIn is an absolute must, and I’d couple that with Facebook or Twitter in conjunction with a Google AdWords campaign.

You should always have Google AdWords or Bing Ads running alongside your social efforts. Similar to display, social can generate awareness, while Google/Bing will help you capture intent.

Q: I Would Love To Use Social Media, But I’m Worried About Negative Feedback. What’s The Best Way To Get Around This?

A: Be engaged with your audience. Address all feedback diplomatically. When running social ad campaigns on Twitter, for example, you can actually filter out negative sentiment as part of campaign setup.

See this example of how Chipotle handled negative feedback.

 

Q: Should I Invest In LinkedIn Or Facebook? How Will I Know Which Platform Is Better Or A More Productive Use Of Time?

A: There are great reasons and use cases to invest in both. LinkedIn is highly accurate and where most individuals keep their professional profiles up to date. Many do not keep their personal information as up to date on Facebook.

If you are targeting B2B or business professionals, while LinkedIn may be more expensive (for pay-per-click advertising), it is the route to go from what we’ve seen. B2B on Facebook should not be written off, as it does work — but your approach from a targeting perspective may be different.

On Facebook, using the standard job title or job function targeting isn’t necessarily ideal. Be creative using custom audiences, lookalikes and overlap targeting. Keep in mind that Facebook is where most people are keeping in touch with their friends and family. Leverage that mindset in your creative or targeting (i.e. interest targeting).

Q: What Advantages Does Pinterest Have Over Facebook?

A: Pinterest is very new, so it is hard to know from a paid perspective. That said, here is additional information on Pinterest Promoted Pins.

Keep in mind that Pinterest is a highly visual network. It is great for retailers, makers, etc. Leverage attractive creatives on Pinterest that people are likely to re-pin to their pages; that is how you’ll get inherent virality.

Q: Will Facebook Or LinkedIn Provide Services To Help Launch My Digital Campaigns?

A: Unfortunately, at lower budgets, Facebook and LinkedIn do not have account managers who are going to build your campaigns for you or manage them.

That said, both companies are great in terms of documentation, tutorials, onboarding webinars and account managers who will help you with advice and early strategy.

Q: What’s The Best Solution For Small Companies That Go Global? Should They Have One Facebook Page For All Markets Or Separate Pages With Targeted Content?

A: That’s a great question. It depends on if you plan to promote in different languages or really appeal to those different international cultures with your content. It would be recommended to do both of these, in which case, a separate page per major international presence is not a bad idea at all and likely preferred.

That said, if you are stretched thin, a single page is fine. Just be mindful to target your paid channels/ads to the audience that will appreciate the content the most.

Q: I Am Looking To Build Our Profile And Followers / Fan Base. Any Suggestions?

A: Be sure to start by creating a Twitter handle, Facebook Page and perhaps LinkedIn Company Page for your organization. (Below is what AdStage’s social media presences look like.)

From there, create content your audience will engage with and begin building up a presence. Once you have started creating a reasonable treasure trove of content, start promoting that content using paid ads so that you can target new followers who may be interested in your brand.

Q: How Do You Manage Content On Multiple Channels Like Facebook And LinkedIn?

A: There are tools available to help you manage your campaigns on multiple networks including LinkedIn and Facebook.

That said, from a strategic standpoint, keep in mind what each network caters to. LinkedIn is more focused on B2B professionals whereas Facebook is where you mingle with your friends and family. Thus, your content should adapt to the different environments.

Q: How Often Is Too Often To Post? And, What Time Of Day And What Day Of The Week Do You Recommend?

A: It depends on the type of content and what network you are posting to. At AdStage, we post a few times per day on the hour. Our content is all help/how-to content that our followers learn from.

If you are posting promotional content, I’d recommend a slower cadence.

Q: What Types Of Posts Work Best? I Was Told A Picture With Words Performs Better Than An Ordinary Picture.

A: What I can tell you are types that don’t work well: random stock photos or photos of your logo.

Focus on something engaging, with minimal text, that shows the value they’ll get from the product/service/content. Here are some examples.

Q: I Have Read That Content Should Be 20% Product Related And 80% “You” Related — Do You Agree?

A: I do agree — though I would always recommend to be as much “you” related as possible. By this I mean that it should speak to the users and their needs rather than just extol your product.

Help your readers become better at their trade and get value, they’ll then respect the brand that created the content.

Q: If I Use My Facebook Page To Post Offers, I’m Wondering What I Should Be Doing Next To Get The Most Out Of It?

A: Facebook has “Offer Ads” that you can explore using. This way, you can extend offers to users who are not just following your page.

The reason you want to use paid is that at some point, your organic reach will be maximized. Paid allows you to target and capture net-new audiences.

Q: Can Social Media Be Used As A Tool To Ask For Feedback Rather Than Using A Survey Tool Or Our Website?

A: Absolutely. Some of the largest brands tend to post questions to drum up user engagement on the given post.

You can see this use case often on Twitter. Many brands even promote the organic post to reach a much broader audience and entice them to answer the question or join the conversation(s).

Q: How Do I Get People To Engage With Something That Isn’t Inherently “Sexy”?

A: Imagery can make a big difference, and that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Also, people are fascinated with gaining knowledge. Why not create content that peels back the curtains on the science, process and technique behind the trade? Then, target audiences that tend to have an overlapping fascination.

Q: What Metrics Should I Consider For A “Successful” Post? Does Number Of Likes Matter?

A: The answer totally depends on your goals. I don’t think Facebook would recommend just going for post engagement necessarily (likes, comments, etc.). Your piece of content should have a material goal.

Some other metrics to consider are conversion rate, time spent on the article, sign ups, email captures, and purchases. A successful post is one that leads to the achievement of your overall business goal. 

Q: What Is The Maximum Or Minimum Audience Size That We Should Target Per Ad?

A: Your goal should be to maximize your target audience. Don’t go too broad where you start targeting people who are not in your intended target audience.

Q: How Do I Target People From Our Database On Social Media?

A: If you have an email, phone number or Facebook/Twitter ID for the people in your database, then you can use Facebook Custom Audiences and Twitter Tailored Audiences to target these users.

Here is a guide on how to remarket to these folks on Facebook. Twitter has a similar tool called Tailored Audiences and it uses a Website Tag or Twitter ID.

Q: When Should We Use Retargeting?

A: We strongly recommend you are always running retargeting campaigns alongside your native PPC campaigns.

Retargeting is limited as it only runs off of your website or mobile app visitors / traffic. So, your inherent reach will be limited.

Use PPC to bring new visitors into the funnel who will then be retargeted. PPC on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, etc. should be used, at a basic level, to “fill the funnel,” and then retargeting is used to “nurture” that funnel of users you’ve brought in.

Q: What Do You See As The Next Big Platform In Social? What Will It Do Differently?

A: We aren’t yet sure which new social platform will emerge for the masses. Some are speculating Pinterest will do well, while others are focusing on more niche networks that cater to much larger brands like Snapchat. I think exciting platforms to keep an eye on right now are: Pinterest, Amazon and Apple.

How to Grow Your Blog Traffic by 20,000 Visitors a Month

Around eight months ago, I started a new blog in the marketing realm. When I first started out, my traffic was flat.

But around four months ago, I figured out a process that has allowed me to grow my traffic consistently—a process I could replicate. I am now at a point where I am adding about 20,000 new visitors each month.

Best of all, I’ve been doing it without spending a dollar on marketing.

The tactics I’ve been using will work for anyone. They work so well that the results I’m experiencing with my nutrition blog are even better, which is crazy since I don’t have a brand in that space and I don’t have many assets I can leverage to help it grow. (I’ll be updating you in a week on my journey to $100,000 monthly income).

So, how did I achieve those results, and how can you gain similar ones? 

Collect emails

I’ve mentioned this in the past, but chances are you still aren’t collecting emails from your blog. Other than search traffic, it’s the most consistent form of traffic you can get.

Just look at NeilPatel.com. Here is the email traffic I’ve received over the last 30 days:

That’s not too bad, considering my list size is currently at 3,612.

So, how do you collect emails? The simplest ways are through page takeovers, interstitials, sliders, and bars. The beautiful news is you don’t have to be technical to use any of those features…you can just use Hello Bar, which is free.

In addition to using Hello Bar, you should consider using Thrive Leads, which allows you to offer bonus content.

For example, if I wrote a blog post on 11 marketing tips that will double your traffic, the bonus content could be two extra tips that weren’t mentioned in my post. In order for you to receive that bonus content, you would have to give me your email address.

Sure, this type of email collection takes a bit of time, but it will account for 50% of the emails you collect.

Once you have a list, every time you write, email to your list subscribers letting them know about your latest post. Here is the email template I use:

Subject: Title of your blog post

Hey,

I just wanted to share with you the latest [Insert your blog name – and make this a link to your post] blog post. Let me know what you think.

[Insert the title of your blog post – and make this a link to your blog post]

[Insert the first paragraph from your blog post]

[Insert the second paragraph from your blog post] Click to continue [make the “click to continue a link]

Thanks.
[Insert your name].

P.S. [Add a promotional message here]

Just in case the template is confusing, here is an example of a recent email I sent out, based on this template:

Hey,

I just wanted to share with you the latest Quick Sprout blog post. Let me know what you think.

Why You Need a Social Media Calendar and How to Create One

You’ve heard of social media calendars before, but do you know what they are and how to use one?

Chances are you don’t. And that’s okay… I didn’t either when I entered the realm of social media marketing. But once I learned about it and how to use it, it change how I marketed my businesses on the social web. [click to continue]

Thanks,
Neil.

P.S. If you want to see how I can help you grow your traffic and revenue, go here.

Write extremely detailed content

The average blog post on my NeilPatel.com blog ranges from 4,000 words on the low end to 8,000 words on the high end.

I know what you are thinking: that’s a lot of text. And it is.

On top of that, each post contains tons of screenshots and images. If you don’t have time to add images, you can always pay someone to do it—like I do.

But just look at my search traffic for the last eight months:

• September – 2,017 visitors
• October – 3,952 visitors
• November – 4,087 visitors
• December – 5,572 visitors
• January – 9,029 visitors
• February – 13,783 visitors (only 28 days in this month)
• March – 20,543 visitors
• April – 24,540 visitors (projected)

How have I been able to increase my search traffic on a consistent basis? Is it link building?

Nope!

It’s purely by writing extremely detailed content. This allows me to get ranked for thousands of long tail keywords that aren’t competitive.

If you are going to write content, consider writing extremely detailed content. Write something so detailed that people wouldn’t dare to copy you—that’s when you’ll know you have done a good job.

Building a fan base

Fan base? I know what you are thinking: why would anyone want to be your fan, right?

Well, you need to stop thinking that way. Everyone has fans.

How do you build a loyal following? You can start by trying to help everyone out. I know I’ve mentioned this in the past, but are you actually responding to each and every comment you receive on your blog?

Probably not…

And when your readers email you, are you taking the time to email them back? You should care about your readers and do whatever is in your power to help them out. And they will keep coming back.

Just look at Randy, who comments on every single NeilPatel.com blog post:

He continually comes back because I truly care to help him. And sometimes he helps me out by pointing out things I wasn’t familiar with.

Strike partnerships

Business development may not sound sexy, but it works well. There are already people in your space with whom you can potentially work because they are not your direct competitors.

For example, I just struck a deal with Cyberchimps, who provide WordPress themes. Some of their themes are paid, while others are free.

Together, we will be offering more marketing-friendly themes—not just from a code perspective but also from a design perspective. It will take six months for this deal to fully go live, but once it does, it will help me generate more traffic.

This partnership will allow them to attach “marketed by Neil Patel” links to the bottom of each of their themes. To ensure that I don’t get penalized by Google, the links will be “no-followed,” but they still should drive good referral traffic.

How did I get this deal? And, more importantly, how can you get a similar deal? Well, I emailed around 30 people in the space telling them that I have an idea that will help them grow their businesses faster.

Some people responded, while others didn’t. I got on the phone with those who responded and pitched my idea to them. I broke down how it would separate them from other theme providers, and I even explained the benefit to me.

Once I had all the conversations and a few people said yes, I decided with whom I wanted to work.

Write more often

I used to publish blog posts on NeilPatel.com once a week. Over time, I ramped it up to twice a week.

Here is my monthly traffic when I was posting once a week:

And here is the traffic after I started posting twice a week:

As you can see, the more frequently you post, the more search traffic you will receive, assuming your content is high in quality. My goal is to ramp up my personal blog to three posts a week as that will help me hit the 100,000 monthly visitor mark really fast. The only issue is finding the time…

Conclusion

Growing your blog traffic doesn’t have to be rocket science. Follow the steps above, and you too will be able to get more traffic.

Sure, your growth rate may not be as rapid as mine (as I am able to leverage my name to get certain deals done), but still—you should see more traffic.

If you had to pick just one thing to follow, consider writing long, detail content. What I learned by blogging on NeilPatel.com is that content that’s between 4,000 and 8,000 words does extremely well in search engines.

How else can you grow your blog traffic?

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These Are the PPC Metrics That Actually Matter

If you’re anything like me, you’ve participated in a couple of DIY home 
improvement projects. At the beginning of these projects, with YouTube 
training videos as my sidekick, I have an irrational sense of confidence 
in my handyman abilities.

When I’m tracking down my supplies at the local hardware store, I often 
find the products priced and displayed as “good,” “better” and “best.”

The frugal side of me tries to argue that “good” is good enough, but is 
there something about the “best” product that will secure my DIY 
victory? With PPC advertising, we often face the same dilemma; we 
need to decide which metrics are “best” to measure the success of our 
campaigns. There’s a wealth of content and opinions on how to measure 
PPC success, which can get confusing. This post will help you understand 
how different metrics can paint very different pictures of PPC campaign 
performance.

I’ll show how traffic-focused metrics can be a good starting point, how 
conversion-focused metrics are even better and how ROI-focused 
metrics provide the most complete picture for making meaningful 
changes to your campaigns.

Let’s dig in.

Good PPC metrics are traffic-focused

Many advertisers will default to looking at the click-through rate or cost 
per click when determining the success of a campaign. AdWords provides 
a lot of traffic-focused metrics that are incredibly useful, including 
underused gems like device segmentation and impression share.

And while those are definitely a good start, it’s important not to get 
so distracted that you lose sight of your basic business goals: 
generating a profit.

My agency has serviced or audited over 1,000 AdWords accounts. Believe 
it or not, almost half of them had not set up conversion tracking.

Conversion tracking allows you to measure conversion actions like a 
purchase or a lead submission in your ad platform, usually by placing 
a code snippet on a thank you or order confirmation page.

Without that piece of code, the only metrics you can measure are related 
to traffic, such as search impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Let’s 
look at an example to see why this is problematic.

What traffic-focused metrics tell you

Imagine you’re a mortgage company and each new paying customer is 
worth on average $3,500 in revenue with 50% in gross margin.

If you haven’t set up conversion tracking, you’ll mostly end up looking 
at reports like this:

If we’re only looking at traffic-focused metrics, our top campaign seems 
to be Campaign 5, which has the most clicks, the best click-through rate 
and the lowest cost per click. Meanwhile, Campaign 4 has expensive 
clicks – which looks like a red flag! But the truth is this data alone can’t 
really tell us whether the campaigns are successful to a company’s 
bottom line. For our mortgage company, we need to know whether the 
clicks are actually translating into useful leads.

Better PPC metrics are conversion-focused

If you’re already using conversion tracking, pat yourself on the back: 
you’re better off than much of the competition.

If you’re not, then get conversion tracking set up immediately. It’s 
easy to set up on most platforms like Google AdWords and Bing Ads 
(and if you’re using Unbounce you can put the tracking code right on a 
built-in thank you page).

Think beyond web conversions

Conversion tracking is more than just web leads and sales: among new 
accounts I’ve audited or onboarded, I’ve found that approximately 75% 
of advertisers who take phone leads don’t track them as conversions. 
For many industries, phone calls are the main source of leads, so it’s 
critical to include calls in your conversion tracking! Many call tracking 
platforms have built-in ways of setting this up, and Google has a 
solution for AdWords advertisers here.

Call leads are more valuable for some businesses than for others, so 
you’ll want to keep in mind that not all types of conversions are 
necessarily equal – but the first step is making sure everything is 
tracked and measured.

What conversion-focused metrics tell you

Let’s say our mortgage company joins the big leagues and sets up 
conversion and call tracking. Here’s how that report looks:

Now we can track how many people are actually signing up for the 
service, not just clicking our ads.

Now we can start identifying our top-performing campaigns using cost 
per lead data (cost per conversion in Google AdWords). You’ll notice 
that Campaign 5 has the best cost per conversion, so it still looks like 
our top performer. Campaign 4 still looks like trouble.

But while conversions are great, at the end of the day what really 
matters is whether leads became paying customers.

Conversions tell us how many leads our company got, but not how 
many actually signed up to refinance their homes or how much revenue 
they brought in.

'Your PPC campaigns aren’t just about clicks. Don’t lose sight of what 
matters: generating a profit.' 

The best PPC metrics are ROI-focused

For marketers who want to use the most meaningful data, let’s move 
to the golden metric: actual ROI! That means tracking leads from click 
to close and measuring revenue on a per-lead basis. When you 
understand which campaigns, ads and keywords are actually generating 
revenue, you’ll be way ahead of competitors who have no idea where 
they’re making or losing money.

What ROI-focused metrics tell you

Let’s say our mortgage company decides to figure out exactly which 
leads are earning revenue. We can track specific leads in our CRM back 
to each campaign, set up separate phone numbers for each campaign 
and record which calls led to sales.

Using our customer value numbers from above, we can calculate the 
following report:

We calculated revenue by having our CRM capture the Campaign ID in 
Google Analytics, then created unique phone numbers for every 
campaign so we could track every sale back to its source. Then we 
calculated the revenue value of every customer attributed to a PPC 
campaign. Suddenly Campaign 4, which looked so bad before, is now 
our hero! Not only does it have the best ROI, it brings in the most 
revenue and the most sales — and that’s with the fewest conversions 
and second-fewest clicks. Now we know something much more useful 
than cost per conversion — we know how valuable a conversion is. We 
know where to focus our marketing efforts to maximize revenue, and 
where we can make improvements that impact the bottom line.

We could then respond by allocating more budget to Campaigns 4 and 5.

Meanwhile, Campaign 3 gets a lot of traffic and conversions but has a 
poor ROI, so we can get to work at rewriting ads and landing pages to 
better qualify those leads.

Those are the kinds of changes that have meaningful results!

3 simple ways to track and measure your PPC ROI

The example above mirrors what we often see in the lead generation 
space:more expensive leads can often be the most qualified and produce 
the most revenue. But without breaking down campaign ROI you never 
know. 

'Costly PPC leads are often most qualified. Break down campaign ROI 
before you do anything drastic.'

So how do you move beyond conversions and start focusing on ROI?

Here are a few simple ways to get started:

Call tracking: As mentioned above, get a call tracking solution that 
lets you track PPC calls independently and preferably at the keyword 
level. AdWords has a feature that lets you set it up on your landing 
pages here. Then make sure you’re reviewing calls to see which 
incoming leads are converting into sales.

CRM integration for lead generation: A good CRM will integrate with 
any PPC platform, so you can look at customers and know which 
campaigns brought them to you. To determine ROI, compare sales data 
to the metrics in your PPC campaigns to get cost vs expected revenue.

Getting this set up depends on your specific CRM, but here’s how to 
get started with Zoho, Infusionsoft, Salesforce, and Hubspot. 
Unbounce also has built-in hooks for integrating with most CRMs.

Dynamic revenue tracking for ecommerce: The nice thing about 
ecommerce is that platforms like AdWords allow you to set a 
conversion value for specific products, so you can compare revenue 
and learn your ROI right from AdWords. Don’t miss out on this if your 
site includes a customer checkout process.

Every metric matters

PPC marketing leaders know that all the metrics we’ve discussed are 
valuable – they work to improve the three categories over time, while 
focusing most of their efforts on ROI to move their profitability in the 
right direction.

Traffic data like impressions, clicks and cost per click tell you how 
much search demand there is for your service and how many people 
are responding to your ads. Better metrics like conversion data tell 
you how effective your ads and landing pages are at generating leads, 
as well as how much your leads cost. But nothing tops actual ROI 
data: how much conversions are worth to your company’s bottom line. 
As we’ve seen, that kinda of data lets you focus on making changes 
where you can make the biggest difference!

At the end of the day, the key is to look at the right metrics for the 
right situations and use that data to make the most meaningful 
changes to your campaigns.

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