This is a follow-up article to our article titled: Measuring and Bidding on Value from Leads. Our goal for this article is to provide a high-level overview of benefits — enough for a marketing manager or business owner to direct their internal team or agency to take appropriate action on secondary conversion tracking and integration.
Summary
For businesses that rely on lead generation – rather than direct purchases of products or services on their website – there are currently multiple choices of tactics to track raw leads through to the final stage of purchase or no purchase. The step after that is to feed specific data from successful conversions (purchases) back to your paid traffic sources so that more new purchasers like your highest value past purchasers can be targeted and bid upon. These tactics, features and benefits go by many names. Even so, calling this the current gold standard of lead generation, or a make-or-break competitive decision is not too strong a statement.
Remember: Not all leads have value, and those leads that have value are often not created equal! A key benefit: advanced lead tracking can increase the overall ratio of successful ad spend and higher ROI or ROAS.
Using Google Ads as an Example
We will focus here on Google ads, but the general concept applies to other ad providers too. In Google ads there are two types of advanced lead tracking: (1) Offline Conversion Tracking (OCT) is the earlier and broader category for integration of leads from a website and sending later-stage lead outcomes back into Google Ads. CRM integration describes a specific subset where a customer relationship management system is involved. (2) Enhanced Conversions for Leads (EC for leads) is a newer, more automated offline-import that uses hashed first-party data like email or phone number to improve attribution and match rate.
Each one of the above two categories has practical and technical fields, or lead minimums to meet. Typical examples are a minimum number of leads per month, and average lead-to-purchase maximum time length. Check on requirements first before committing resources to advanced tracking.
Both of the above tactics are used to measure lead quality beyond the initial form fill and both help Google Ads optimize for lead quality or value. Both typically involve importing conversions after the lead is captured, rather than firing only an initial website chosen action. Think of OCT as the business process of getting a lead, qualifying or rejecting it, and whether or not the lead eventually completed a purchase. EC for leads is one of the best matching methods for that process because it helps Google connect the offline outcome back to the original ad interaction more reliably.
Rather than being competing methods, these two features are designed to work together as part of an upgraded offline conversion tracking (OCT) framework. However, assuming its data requirements can be met, each can be deployed separately in circumstances where both are not possible.
Next Step: Get a Complimentary Review
Send us your website address and current business growth goals or pain points, and we’ll provide a thorough and complimentary review of your lead generation process. Our agency has been generating leads and helping businesses grow for 20+ years. If you are already running Google Ads, we will review your ad campaigns too. TopSide Media will help you transform your raw leads into measured sales growth and a competitive advantage.