Pay Per Click User Journeys

A Pay Per Click user journey is the journey a user takes from finding a product initially to purchasing the product. They are an important part of Pay Per Click campaign because they determine the value of each keyword. Looking at individual keyword performance in isolation can give a distorted value of that keyword.

For example looking at brand terms they will always have the highest ROI, as they are the best converting keywords, often with lowest CPC. But a user clicking on a brand term may have already come to the site through other PPC keywords, possibly more generic ones or from another source such as natural search, directly, from a press release or from a banner on another site.

Being able to track these journeys is even more pertinent if you are spending a large amount on generic keywords. Below is an example…

1st Click “Loans” CPC £4.53
2nd Click “Superloans.co.uk” CPC “0.03

Here we see a simple user journey involving the keyword “loans” and a brand term “superloans.co.uk”. If a lead was worth £50 to this advertiser than the CPA would be £0.03 on the brand term looking at them in isolation.

To measure users journeys you need to have some form of advance tracking solution such as DC Storm, dart search, bid buddy etc. If your spending over £300 per day on adwords it is probably worth utilising one of these packages.