What do we mean by monetizing
By monetizing your conversions we mean putting a revenue tag on all your conversions, tracking the dollars or euros each specific conversion generate to your business. However obstacles for calculating or visualizing the monetary values of your conversion can be many:
Missing insight through the value chain
If you have full insight in your value chain monetizing the conversions should be simple. Unfortunately full insight into the complete value-chain is rare in most companies. Often the chain is broken between the web analytics system and the CRM system – typically when it is not possible to close the sale online. My advice is to use the data you have to try do your best calculation of a monetary value for your conversions. A way to do it would be to use an estimated sales % to calculate backwards through the chain. If you are not able to track sale conversions on a given marketing activity you probably know or have an estimate on your total sale conversion on the online channel. Then use this sale conversion in your calculation of monetized online conversions.
Intangible conversions
Another typical obstacle is when conversions get to intangible. Putting a prize on a sale is easy but what if the conversion is a download or a video? My advice is that if no data based calculation make sense then use your gut feeling. Always remember that in your current marketing effort you are already indirectly setting a prize on your conversions. When you for example put a bid limit of 2$ to your adword you set that prize in some sort of either calculation of expected return or gut feeling. Use this gut feeling the other way around as a more powerful tool.
As stated above excuses for not monetizing your conversion exist, but I argue that even if your initial valuation may not be 100% precise the power of monetizing your conversions outweigh this inaccuracy. I have listed above some of the major gains from monetizing your conversions
More detailed insight in value – instead of just conversions
One of the first findings you will discover is that you will get a far more nuanced insight in your value- and cash generating content. Instead of just counting conversions with equal weight your differentiated monetary values will make the most valuable content visible. An example: If you drive a bank there is a big difference in converting a student loan in comparison to acquiring a private banking customer. If you don’t have the monetary metric you would in your KPI report the 2 conversion as having the same value. In regards to your online marketing your keyword “cheap loan” could possibly be doing a lot of conversions but let’s say all the conversions are student loans. In comparison you might get fewer and more expensive conversions on “reliable bank” but if all these conversions are private banking customers these conversions outweigh your “cheap loan” conversions by far. An insight you would miss in an old non-monetized conversion world.
Top management attention
When you are able to report dollars or euros to upper management instead of pageviews, sessions or conversions the interest in the web channel will rise significantly. Having this focus will help you get the resources to improve your system integrations to do an even more exact prizing and hopefully more top level engagement in general to the online channel
Quick way to evaluate marketing efforts
If you have monetized your conversions and implemented them into your webanalytics, marketing campaign evaluation have never been easier. Weighing your campaign cost with your revenue (through your monetized conversions) equals a true ROI on every campaign. Furthermore you will soon be ready to take the next step towards automated marketing campaigns where the rules you set up based on required ROI automates your keyword bidding, display creatives etc.
So where are you in the proces of monetizing your conversions?
