How Can I Use Conversion Funnel Analysis To Understand My Customers Better?
I use conversion funnel analysis in a different way than most. As the owner of a digital marketing agency, I am often asked, “how many people search for X?” and using google analytics and search data along with funnel analysis, I can help business owners understand the different interest levels across their business’s products or services. And more importantly, I can help guide them in how much they should be spending in Google Adwords for different segments of their funnel.
First, I break your conversion funnel into 3 distinct area: Top of the funnel (brand awareness), Middle of the funnel (the interested ones, but looking for guidance), Bottom of the funnel (the ready to buy group).
Targeting the Top of the funnel, brand awareness, we can find keywords that are more categorical in nature – people may be searching for a solution to their problem but they have no clue what the answer will be. A good example of this may be a business that sells athletic shoes in Portland, OR and a person searches in Google for “running shoes”. The search does not contain any qualifiers with regard to the location of a store, the price of the shoes, the brand, or functionality features. At this point in the funnel, we may target these keywords for SEO, but likely they are going to be a keyword that we want to target with Google Adwords – but not spend too much on Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).
The Middle of the funnel is filled with people that “sort of” know what they are looking for but need some direction. This is a sweet spot. If someone searches for “Portland Running Shoes Store,” we now know the category of business, the type of product that they are looking for, and the location. As a marketer, this is a qualified visitor for a Portland Running Store that sells shoes, and I may be willing to spend more on a CPA perspective. This also may be a keyword that I identify is critically important for us to “own” in Search Engine Optimization and we are willing to spend money each month to achieve good rankings within Google.
The Bottom of the funnel is gold – if someone were to search for “Altra Zero Drop Running Shoes Portland, OR” – we know the searcher is looking for a specific shoe with a quality that is unique, and they want to find it where my local store is located. In Google Adwords, my Cost Per Click is going to likely be higher, perhaps $5-$8 per click because if I introduce this visitor to my store location and they come in and spend $180 on shoes + accessories, I will make a healthy margin.
The key to knowing what your Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Click should be for certain keywords in Adwords is driven by understanding where those keywords are in the funnel.
Learn more about how we can use conversion funnel optimization strategies for your business.