Tracking paid search offline performance 'a challenge'

10 December 2007

Using phone calls to track paid search performance is particularly challenging for small businesses, it has been observed.

According to search marketing blog Finding the Sweet Spot, the pressures of day-to-day business on call centre staff means that market research is often sidelined for sales.

For this reason, it can be difficult to track offline conversions, despite the fact that the majority of sales are made in places other than the web, it was noted.

Blogger Scott Clark advised adopting a hybrid method comprised of a number of different tactics when attempting to measure offline paid search conversions.

Asking the customer questions at the point of sale can be made more useful by linking offers or discounts with codes retrieved from particular sources, though this entails added expense, it was suggested.

Using a different phone number displayed for paid search was also said to be useful, as was modifying part of the number for this source.

In related news, comScore recently released a report asserting that reviews read online influence sales generated offline.

Category: Paid search