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“For any e-business websites running pay per click campaigns, it is important to setup conversion tracking to track the number the conversions, cost per acquisition, and other useful data.” I am almost 100% confident that no one will disagree with me on this statement that I’m willing to bet my dog’s life on it (if I have a dog).

What I want to talk about today, though, is not the importance of conversion tracking. Instead, what I want to talk in brief today is where one should insert the conversion tracking code.

Setting Up Conversion Tracking

In general, the tracking code should be inserted on the last page of your “conversion funnel”. For online retail stores, the code can be inserted on the “Thank You for Your Business” page where all the shipping details, billing information, credited card information, and etc had been filled and submitted in the previous pages.

This makes perfect sense. The conversion is not completed as long as the payment (credit card information) has not been processed. The tracking code should be inserted on last page where everything else has been completed.

This general guideline will hold true most of the time, but there are exceptions.

Imagine an online community; whether it’s for meeting friends, or share tips on how to make home-made bombs, the main purpose is to have as much member registration as possible. In this case, each member registration can be counted as one conversion.

Anyone who’s familiar with online communities will agree with me that almost no registration is a “single page, one step” process. They usually start with the basic information page, then the next page asks for profile picture, and finally it will ask for friend referrals.

With this type of “conversion process”, it doesn’t make sense to place the tracking code on the last page because, technically, the process is completed after the basic personal information has been submitted. The profile pictures and friends referrals are totally irrelevant. And because a lot of times people will just simply navigate away during this long and boring process, only a small percent of the people who registered will reach the last page of the registration process. If the code is inserted on the last page, the tracked conversions would be way less than the actual number of conversions. VERY BAD!

Some of the logics sound very intuitive, but a lot of advertisers are still inserting conversion tracking code at the wrong places. I’ve encountered clients who had inserted their tracking code on the “please fill out your information” page of the registration process, and to make things more interesting (yes I’m being sarcastic), that page is also their landing page for their ads. So they ended up with hundreds of conversions every month but they were still wondering how come they had so little new members.

So what’s the moral of this story?

Think before you act, or better yet, think before you track!

Pitstop Media offers ROI based internet marketing services. If you need help with PPC management or PPC optimization please contact us for a free, no obligation quote. We’ve helped companies reduce their paid advertising cost by as much as 48% and increase AdWords conversion rates by as much as 410%. See our internet marketing case studies.