Here’s the last conversion path our Facebook lead, Maximus, followed before purchasing from the Wicked Good Juice company. Six months after Maximus first became a lead, he buys from a webinar that was promoted on Facebook and email but opts in with a different click than the one described in the previous conversion path. Maximus is 20 years old, male, and likes the Boston Red Sox.
Long-term Facebook Conversion Tracking
- November 1 2015: Maximus goes on Facebook and triggers a Wicked Good Juice ad because he likes the Boston Red Sox. The ad is “[Free Report] – How Juice Made Me More Handsome”. He clicks on the ad, goes to Wicked Good Juice’s landing page, and joins the email list.
- November 1 2015-February 1 2016: Maximus goes through a 60-day automated email sequence. He occasionally opens and clicks, but he never buys anything.
- April 10 2016: While on Facebook, Maximus triggers a Wicked Good Juice ad because he is part of a custom audience on the “Wicked Good Juice Email List.” A video ad, “20% off great juice,” tells him how great the juice is and that a 20%-off sale is running right now. He just has to click on the link in the ad. Maximus does not click but he watches the video.
- April 25 2016– Maximus returns to Facebook and a Wicked Good Juice ad gets triggered because Maximus is part of a custom audience of “Wicked Good Juice Email. He sees an ad for a “Super Juice Webinar on April 30th.” Maximus clicks on the ad and opts in for the webinar.
- April 28 2016: Maximus gets an email “Super Juice Webinar on April 30.“
- April 30 2016: Maximus attends the webinar.
- May 1st:: Maximus gets an email “Webinar juice offer ends in 24 hours.” He clicks on the link and buys.
For customer path #4, which ads report conversions?
Facebook conversion tracking gets this one just about right. It will report that the April 25th ad for “Super Juice Webinar on April 30th” got a conversion. This is because Facebook detects a click within seven days and the person who clicked on the ad also ended up on Wicked Good Juice’s conversion URL.
In this case, the ad did get Maximus re-engaged enough to optin to the webinar. And the webinar led to the sale. So while the conversion actually took place a week later, the webinar attendance would not have happened without the Facebook ad.
Even so, Wicked Good Juice does not have the conversion data that tells them where to find more Maximus leads.
What will you do to find more customers?
Based on the same reasoning as Path #3:, you won’t be able to answer either of these questions
- How did the customer first hear about you?
- How did the customer first join your email list?
Facebook does tell you, however, how people got to the webinar. In this case it’s due to the April 25th ad for “Super Juice Webinar on April 30th“.
If you have a large existing list, and path #4 happens, you will be tempted to dramatically scale your spending on the Facebook ad campaign. I've been there, and I am sure I would increase my spending also. After all, you finally have a clear lead gen-to-conversion path. Congrats!
It would be more Jedi-like to know where those leads came from, and then go find more of them, but point them to the webinar.
