Futureproofing your measurement – what to implement.

If you work in digital marketing, you’re probably aware of the need to “futureproof measurement” – but how do you do this? And how do you get started?

With so much change happening, and new products being introduced, it is essential that you research and identify the right approach for you. In this article, we explore some of the key measurement tools out there, to help you ensure you are understanding your digital marketing performance.

GA4

Google’s successor to Universal Analytics still feels new and scary, even though it was launched in October 2020.

Setting up conversion events in a GA4 property is step one. This will allow you to measure when key actions take place on your website, in a similar way to goals in the current Google Analytics setup.

Google have recently launched a migration tool which should make the transition smooth. However, the accuracy of your setup is key. If marketing measurement is not correct, you could be wrongly attributing credit (or not) to certain channels. Setting them up from scratch is advised and, of course, testing them to ensure accuracy is imperative.

To find out more about GA4, we have written an FAQ guide.

Click here to read the article.

Consent Mode

This is another Google product, which tells the Google tags on your website how to behave, depending on whether someone has opted to be tracked or not.

The main idea is to inform whether a user’s behaviour can be tracked or measured, or if conversion modelling will be activated to estimate if a conversion has taken place or not.

Google Ads Enhanced Conversions

Taking advantage of enhanced conversions allows your campaigns to use the maximum amount of available data to optimise effectively. Over time, as website cookie policies become more robust, and users’ choice of consent status means you cannot measure their online behaviour as you once could, testing this is a must.

This can be used for Google Ads goals (not imported goals from Google Analytics), which capture someone’s email address where the global website tag is used. It will involve setup both within the Google Ads platform and Google Tag Manager (if used). There is an automatic setup option but it is rarely available, so manual setup is preferable.

Google Ads Offline Conversion Imports

This helps you to build a more comprehensive picture of which campaigns, keywords, etc., drove valuable results for your business. If you generate leads online but the lead follow-up and sales take place offline, this helps to indicate high-quality leads. This enables a better understanding of your attribution modelling and allows a stronger focus on the parts of your campaign which drive meaningful results.

There are a few different types of import, either directly with the Google Ads platform, Salesforce integrations, HubSpot events or using Zapier. There are several nuances with this, so working closely with your development team or agency will ensure you take full advantage of each available solution.

Meta Conversions API

Post iOS 14, conversion measurement on Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) has only become more of a challenge!

The conversions API is designed to connect marketing data from your CRM to Facebook to help inform the ad targeting, and measure the results of your campaigns more effectively. It can also be used in the same way as offline conversion tracking for Google Ads, measuring high-quality leads too.

This is to be used in conjunction with the Facebook pixel. Most of the big ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, have simple integrations with Facebook, but there are other partner integrations (with Google for example) or a custom option, for more bespoke solutions.

Which option you need will dictate how simple (or complex) this may be.

Next steps

With any changes related to measurement and tracking, liaise with your digital marketing and development teams/agencies to ensure setup is addressed correctly and accurately in all cases.

There are multiple ad platforms out there, so do not stop at just Google and Facebook – now is most certainly the time to get your measurement house in order. Start with a gap analysis to understand where you are now and where you would like to get to, then get stuck in!

Please note use of the above tools will need to be referenced in your website’s privacy policy.