“I am seeing a spike in site traffic….and I have no idea where these visitors are coming from…”
Have you seen t
his happen at your company? You see fresh site traffic on your weekly website analytics reports, but you are unsure which marketing program is causing a spike in activity. You then find out that you have several retargeting and display programs actively running. Does this increase in traffic have anything to do with the programs you’re running?
It turns out that–more often than not–the answer is YES. What you are seeing are view-throughs. Many marketers underestimate or fail to attribute value to view-throughs. Let us get into view-throughs a bit more here – and hopefully by the end of this post we will convince you that view-throughs are well worth tracking for all of your display programs…
What are view-throughs anyway?
As a marketer, you may have heard of view-throughs at least in passing at conferences, presentations, or peer gatherings. Here is a quick summary of what view-throughs are:
Why do view-throughs matter?
One word. Attribution. Without tracking and reporting of view-throughs your analytics are incomplete. View-throughs provide additional insights into which ads are driving website visits and on-site conversions. Sure display programs provide information on clicks and leads captured, but did you know that many of the leads generated by display ads occur directly on your company website? Capturing ad engagement and direct lead capture in ads alone is not enough.
Some real life insight into view-throughs…
We have had some clients express concern from time to time, about the effort required to place view-through pixels on their website. Yes, it takes a bit of work to setup, but the returns are well worth it. Here are a few case study examples to make our point:
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Site Visits – The Display Ad Effect on Site Traffic
Display ads can significantly impact website traffic. If you are not measuring view-throughs, you are guaranteed to miss out on the effect ads have on driving prospects to your website. See for yourself with the real-world metrics for a B2B company below.
In a recent campaign, a B2B client saw over 5% of ad impressions served resulting in website visits and a 30% increase in website visits over the same time period the year prior – simply by adding display advertising to their mix of outbound marketing programs.
This same client was also able to track and attribute an additional 36% of campaign conversions that occurred on the company website during the campaign. This information would have been completely missed if they had not tracked view-throughs.
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Conversions – Each One Matters…So Count Them!
Display ads can also generate a significant number of onsite conversions. Some audiences simply prefer to complete forms on a landing page rather than within an ad unit while others prefer to complete forms at their own pace. Every conversion matters and being able to track how prospects converted is important for marketing. The case study below demonstrates the importance of view-through tracking when it comes to conversion attribution:
This non-profit client ran an event promotion campaign (as a combination of site and search retargeting) with strong success – where they saw a large number of event sign-ups. Their view-through tracking made it possible to see exactly where these prospects originated.
98% of the conversions that occurred as a result of the display campaign actually happened ON THEIR WEBSITE. Without having view-through tracking pixels in place, proper attribution of these leads would have been impossible.
Only tracking engagement and direct lead captures is a gua
ranteed way to miss out on a big piece of the puzzle. Make sure you get the whole picture by tracking where website visitors and onsite conversions are coming from. Do both your marketing and sales teams a favor–include view-through reporting as a standard marketing practice and give attribution where it is due.