Mapping Adwords Conversions to Revenue Model

[Morgan_Corbett]

Hi! We connected Marketo and Google Adwords through launchpoint services. A few questions below regarding best practices...

Question 1: When setting up "New Conversions" for Adwords, what conversion points (and how many) do you recommend and which stages do you map them to?

Example:

Marketo Revenue Stages mapped >> to Adwords conversions

MCL >> Net new lead

MEL >> Known lead

MQL >> Marketing qualified

SAL >> Sales accepted

SQL >> Sales qualified

Customer >> New customer

Customer Nurture >> Existing customer

Question 2: Is it best practice to map to stages after someone becomes a customer? (MQC, SAC, SQC, WON UPSELL)

Question 3: How would existing and net new customer contacts be tracked in Adwords conversions?

Example: Someone clicks through our paid ads as a net new lead. Our inside sales associate review new lead because it was flagged as someone on our Named Account list. We're actually already working with this Named Account, so the new lead is then converted and added to an Account that is already a customer; thereby moving them to "Customer" in our Revenue Model. How would this reflect in Adwords?

Question 4: How does the automated "optimization setting" in Adwords work? Specifically, how does it work once we've defined our conversions in Adwords?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi Morgan,

The answers to question 1 and question 2 are completely dependent upon what you want to be able to report on. Typically, I advise clients to map conversions to all of the stages on the Success Path (the light green background) up to Customer. The reason for this is that we have to keep in mind our goals related to running an AdWords campaign. Typically, AdWords campaigns are run to acquire new leads, which turn into first-time customers. If that's my goal, then that's what I want to report on. This means that my conversions will run through the Customer stage and focus on the Success Path. That being said, if you also want to know which campaigns lead to the most leads/contacts that become disqualified--or those you should deprecate--you could also create conversions for your disqualified stages, provided you have those.

Question 3: How would existing and net new customer contacts be tracked in Adwords conversions?

Example: Someone clicks through our paid ads as a net new lead. Our inside sales associate review new lead because it was flagged as someone on our Named Account list. We're actually already working with this Named Account, so the new lead is then converted and added to an Account that is already a customer; thereby moving them to "Customer" in our Revenue Model. How would this reflect in Adwords?

Answer 3: If you have an AdWords conversion set up for "Customer", then AdWords would reflect that this lead was converted to a Customer. Depending on your organization and your business process, this may be accurate for you, or it may not be. I would want to review this within the context of your business process and reporting requirements to determine if you should refresh the triggers/rules that move someone into the "Customer" stage.

Question 4: How does the automated "optimization setting" in Adwords work? Specifically, how does it work once we've defined our conversions in Adwords?

Answer 4: I don't have any experience with the optimization setting in AdWords, so can't really provide any guidance on this one.

If you have any follow-up questions or would like to discuss more, you can reach out to me at drew@leadmd.com.

Thanks!

Drew

[Morgan_Corbett]

Drew,

Thanks for the insight - very helpful. Follow-up questions below:

Follow-up questions 1 and 2:

To confirm, you advise your clients to create conversions in Adwords that mirror the Success Path? This may be a silly question, but do you do anything with the Anonymous lead?

Follow-up question 3:

Our definition of Customer: Leads who are attached to opportunities that we have closed. The triggers in the smart campaign are "opportunity is updated" or "added to opportunity". Any other advice for Question 3?

Follow-up question 4:

Do you have any advice on how to use this information for reporting and optimization? 

Question 5:

I'm wondering how the integration works in this example:

Someone is already in our system as a MCL.  They click through an ad and convert to become a MEL. When their lifecycle status is updated to MEL, that's when and what is mapped back to Adwords (or is MCL given the conversion credit)?

Thanks so much for your help!

[Anonymous]

Hi Morgan,

Responses to your follow-up questions are below.

Follow-up questions 1 and 2:

To confirm, you advise your clients to create conversions in Adwords that mirror the Success Path? This may be a silly question, but do you do anything with the Anonymous lead?

Answer: That is correct, yes. You can't actually do anything with the Anonymous stage. Start with your MCL stage.

Follow-up question 3:

Our definition of Customer: Leads who are attached to opportunities that we have closed. The triggers in the smart campaign are "opportunity is updated" or "added to opportunity". Any other advice for Question 3?

Answer: If this is the case, then the net new lead in the scenario above wouldn't necessarily move to the "Customer" stage. If they are added to an Opportunity, then they would, but if they are just converted to a Contact and associated to the Account, then they wouldn't. I would need a bit more information on your business process and your various stages to provide additional guidance on this one.

Follow-up question 4:

Do you have any advice on how to use this information for reporting and optimization?

Answer: The benefit of the AdWords integration is that you get to see which AdWords campaigns are actually moving the needle, outside of just filling out a form. For me, I want to be able to see which campaigns are driving people furthest into your sales funnel. Example: I'm comparing two AdWords campaigns. Campaign M has a spend of $1,000 per month and Campaign C has a spend of $750 per month. If Campaign M is generating MQLs at a rate of 10% of conversions and Campaign C is generating MQLs at a rate of 25% of conversions, I may want to redirect my budget to transition more of the budget to Campaign C. This is really helpful when you're doing A/B testing of specific keywords or terms.

Question 5:

I'm wondering how the integration works in this example:

Someone is already in our system as a MCL.  They click through an ad and convert to become a MEL. When their lifecycle status is updated to MEL, that's when and what is mapped back to Adwords (or is MCL given the conversion credit)?

Answer: In the above scenario, this AdWords campaign would have a MEL conversion as a result of this record moving from MCL to MEL.

Let me know if you have additional questions. Thanks!

Drew

[Morgan_Corbett]

Drew,

Thanks again for answering my questions in such detail.