Advertisers Optimize Campaigns For Better Leads

Advertisers may find that their campaigns are generating many leads, but the sales team reports that the quality of these leads is declining, Search Engine Journal reported. This discrepancy can occur when the platform's performance metrics, such as cost per acquisition, appear satisfactory, while the sales team's experience suggests otherwise. The two perspectives are not necessarily contradictory, as the platform may be doing what it was asked to do - finding more conversions.

The issue arises when every conversion is treated as equally valuable, without considering whether it led to a meaningful sales opportunity. To address this, advertisers need to redefine what constitutes a successful outcome and provide the platform with this information. This process involves identifying the characteristics that distinguish high-quality leads from low-quality ones.

Defining a better conversion requires understanding what makes one lead more valuable than another for a particular business. This may involve segmenting leads into categories, such as marketing-qualified or sales-qualified leads, to determine which ones are more likely to result in a successful customer. The goal is to track outcomes that are as close as possible to the actual business goals, such as generating revenue.

Once the desired outcome is defined, the next step is to provide the platform with information that distinguishes high-value actions from low-value ones. This can be achieved by passing real-world qualification and revenue data to the platform, which helps it direct budgets effectively. Conversion value rules can also be used to adapt the conversion value based on the probability of value, making it easier for the platform to deliver high-quality leads.

In some cases, the ultimate outcome may not occur frequently enough to provide sufficient signal for conversion-based bidding. In such situations, an earlier but still meaningful conversion can be used as a proxy. For example, a lead becoming marketing-qualified or sales-qualified can indicate higher quality than an unrelated engagement metric. A sufficient volume of conversions is necessary for automated bidding to calibrate effectively.

To build a feedback loop, advertisers need to pass information about the desired outcomes back to the platform. This can be done using mechanisms such as offline conversions or Conversions APIs, which allow advertisers to connect outcomes that happen after the initial website experience to the original ad interaction. The quality of the signal being sent is crucial, and advertisers should ensure that they trust the data being automated.

The mechanism used to pass conversion data is not as important as the strategy behind it. Advertisers should focus on providing high-quality signals that accurately convey the value of each conversion. This requires careful consideration of the conversion definition, lead qualification, and CRM progression to ensure that the data being passed is reliable and meaningful.