Mobile App Metrics: Attributed Install vs. Assisted Install

To stay ahead of the curve, mobile app marketers need to be looking beyond top-level metrics. One of these top-level metrics is the install.

Looking at which marketing channels and advertising partners convert installs doesn’t give you insight into what engagement helped drive that install along the path to conversion. Mobile marketers should look at attributed installs versus assisted installs to better understand the impact of channel and campaign performance along the conversion funnel.

Before explaining more about the importance of an attributed installs versus assisted installs, let's review some terminology.

• Installs: New users that open the app for the first time.
• Attributed Installs: Publisher with the last click, within the attribution window for the publisher.
• Install Assists: Publisher(s) with a click prior to the last click, within the attribution window.
• Publisher Install Contributions: The total number of installs for which the channel was involved (Attributed Installs + Install Assists).
• Install Rate: The percentage of installs occurring from the total number of unique clicks.
• Assist Rate: The percentage of assisted installs occurring from the total number of unique clicks.
• Install Contribution Rate: The percentage of install contributions occurring from the total number of unique clicks.

Measuring attributed installs makes complete sense. Marketers need to know which channel and campaign converted that install. However, the assisted install metric makes it possible for marketers to measure the performance of the channels, campaigns, and advertising partners that focus on promotion and awareness (not only the ones that convert the last click).

This data is particularly useful for marketers that have campaigns running with a variety of channels and advertising partners simultaneously. Campaigns and advertising partners that focus on promotion and awareness – typically via banner and video ads -can re-engage users at a later time to install your app. These campaigns and advertising partners typically generate attributed installs, but generate a large number of assisted installs. If you have campaigns and advertising partners with varying business goals (for example, awareness vs. installs), then the assisted install metric gives you insight into how well each partner is achieving their goal.

Measuring assisted installs in addition to attributed installs also gives mobile app marketers insight into the duplicate (overlap) rate between campaigns and advertising partners. If an advertising partner or channel has unique traffic, then they likely have very few assisted installs. If an advertising partner or campaign has many assisted installs, then they are interacting with many users via ads that your other advertising partners are also interacting with (not unique traffic).

As a data-driven marketer, do you differentiate these metrics and measure the performance of each individually?

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14 Top-Notch Resources to Help You Become a CRO Expert

Even those considered to be CRO (conversion rate optimization) experts had to start somewhere. Nobody knows right away how to optimize websites as soon as they walk into the digital marketing world; we've all had to learn some aspects.

Thankfully, mastering the art of CRO is considerably easier now than it was several years ago, and for a very good reason: more learning resources are now available online.

Over the past few years in particular, we've seen an explosion in the number of CRO guides and tutorials. Many of them are helpful, while others were created by inexperienced CROs claiming to be veterans just trying to make a fast buck.

To help you know which ones are helpful and which ones aren't, we've collected a list of 14 CRO resources that are sure to help you become a conversion rate expert. Study up on a few of these, and you'll be up to speed with the rest of the industry in no time at all.

1. The Beginner's Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization (Qualaroo)

This lengthy 12-chapter monster is a great guide to kick off our list. Qualaroo, a premium vendor of a CRO tool that's been used by Yahoo, Vimeo, and Intuit, provides a basic yet comprehensive overview of what CRO is really all about.

In the early chapters, you'll get definitions for some CRO jargon (if you haven't yet figured out what MVT, CTA, or A/B testing means). Chapter 4 – my personal favorite – teaches you how to create an optimization plan.

At the end of each chapter, you're also given links to 3-5 complementary blog posts on other websites that are sure to help you as well.

2. Conversion Rate Experts Blog

The resoundingly obvious domain name aside, Conversion Rate Experts is one of the top CRO service providers. Work with them, and you'll be working with the guys who helped Apple, Google, Sony, and Facebook increase their website revenue.

Their blog, although infrequently updated, has numerous advanced conversion rate tips and case studies, besides more general digital marketing advice.

KISSmetrics and CRE teamed up to create this infographic on nine steps to better conversions. The graphic itself nearly merits a sole spot on this list. You can't go wrong about checking out the resources available from Conversion Rate Experts.

3. ConversionXL Blog

Two and a half years ago, Peep Laja started blogging about practical conversion advice. But his blog was different from almost every other "mainstream" digital marketing blogs. Peep gave specific instruction and direction for marketers and CROs, backed up by both his own testing experiences and the results of his extensive research.

Today, Peep is one of the most respected bloggers in the industry. On his YouTube channel, Peep does detailed reviews of the optimization levels of his readers' websites every week. Advice from an experienced consultant for 100 percent free? Sign us up for that.

4. The Definitive Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization (QuickSprout)

If there's one thing Neil Patel's QuickSprout blog is known for, it's the series of 30,000+ word guides he produces on a regular basis. Neil's already covered SEO, content marketing, growth hacking, and consumer psychology – one of his more recent guides is on CRO.

Neil and I teamed up to create a thorough, eight-chapter guide to increasing conversions. It's one of the most thorough out there, but I'll let you be the judge of how helpful it is since I'm obviously biased.

Not only is the content helpful, but the format is also aesthetically pleasing, with tons of visuals and custom graphics to help you digest the info.

5. Which Test Won

Which Test Won releases a summary of an A/B test every week. On the homepage, readers can test their conversion optimization knowledge by voting on whether the control or the variable had a better performance.

For an additional $25/90 days, you can get access to their library of 453 conversion case studies.

6. Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization (SEO Gadget)

SEO Gadget created a beautiful infographic detailing both the good way and the bad way to get started with conversion optimization.

The infographic can currently only be viewed on Moz, as SEO Gadget is rebranding to Built Visible and hasn't yet had an opportunity to post the infographic on their website.

7. The Small Business Guide to Conversion Rate Optimisation (Simply Business)

This Simply Business resource presents a step-by-step guide to CRO in unique fashion. Tailored for small businesses, the guide provides an in-depth introduction to the technical aspects of optimization testing: the basic tools required, and how to use them.

8. 100 Conversion Optimization Case Studies (KISSmetrics)

They say that the best way to learn is by example. While that isn't always true in conversion optimization (you need to test everything before blindly applying the tactics that worked for one website to your website in a different industry), there is a good deal of information to be gleaned from CRO case studies.

In this KISSmetrics blog post, 100 case studies (yes, that many) are listed with accompanying pictures and key takeaways for each.

9. Visual Website Optimizer Case Studies

One of the most popular A/B and multivariate testing tools around, Visual Website Optimizer has a huge archive of case studies run by VWO customers.

What's more, the case studies listed can be filtered by the business's industry and the element that was tested, so you can get advice tailored to your business.

10. Unbounce Blog

Unbounce is a popular distributor of landing page optimization software. Their blog is a priceless resource, with literally hundreds of CRO-specific posts that help you boost your digital marketing ROI.

One of my favorite blog posts on Unbounce is their curation of 666 conversion rate optimization tips. Oli Gardner, the brain behind the post, went out of his way to read each tip listed. What's more, you can be sure that the advice is relevant to you today, as almost all of the curated posts were written within the last year.

11. WiderFunnel Blog

WiderFunnel is a popular marketing optimization service provider. And they know what they're doing.

Their blog – although very rarely updated (think less than once a month) – is a must read for anyone serious about CRO. The blogger, Chris Goward, brings a wealth of digital marketing expertise to the table and has done landing page optimization for several Fortune 500 companies.

He raises controversial points like your conversion rate doesn't matter and why too much segmentation is bad for your marketing.

Whenever they publish a new post, rest assured that you'll be hanging onto every word.

12. Content Verve

The Content Verve blog is especially helpful for learning how to write better-optimized copy. Again, posts are few and far between, but each is so well-written that you won't be able to refrain from signing up for email updates.

13. LeadPages Blog

LeadPages is a provider of landing page templates of all varieties: you can pick up sales pages, launching soon pages, squeeze pages, upsell pages, and much more.

Their blog is consistently updated with split testing case studies for their customers.

14. Optimizely Blog

Optimizely's blog is one of the greats in the A/B testing and CRO niches. Between blog posts written by the guy who made Obama $60 million in the 2007 elections (Dan Siroker) and controversial items that spark extended comment threads, you'll fall in love with the "conversion rate optimism blog you'll actually read."

Wrapping Up

Two metrics ultimately define your marketing success: the cost to deliver visitors to your website, or cost per click (CPC), and your conversion rate. Improving these metrics will obviously improve sales, cost per acquisition, cost per lead, and most KPIs that matter to marketers and business owners. You don't always have control over the CPC, but you're 100 percent responsible for your conversion rate.

Bottom line: it's becoming increasingly expensive to drive traffic to your website. The only way to maintain or improve results is to increase your conversion rate. There is a huge opportunity to help companies improve conversion rates and position yourself as a CRO expert.

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5 Content Questions to Guide Your Site Redesign

There's a lot to consider when you decide to redesign your website, and there are even more people who want to be involved when it happens.

Designers want to talk about building a better user experience. Development wants to upgrade the technology for mobile. And your SEO team wants to keep as many of your rankings intact as possible.

But there are also important content questions to consider before revamping your website. Below are five important ones to keep in mind.

1. What Content Currently Exists on Your Site?

This seems like such a simple question, and one that should be easily answered. However, depending on the age and size of your site, you truly may not know.

Are Digital Dead Ends Sabotaging Your Conversion Rates?

By conducting a site audit as if you were an outside user, you can identify the dead ends in your website, fix them, and improve your conversion rates.

Digital dead ends are conversion killers. They act as obstacles, making it more difficult for your customers to end up where they (and you) would like them to be - clicking the button. Whether you're measuring by number of downloads, email newsletter sign-ups, or units sold, eradicating the dead ends in your brand's digital universe is a major key in optimizing conversion rates.

Matt Walsh, founder and experience director for Green Stone, defines a dead end as "any touch point that doesn't intelligently encourage a consumer's journey down the funnel through personalization and/or immediate engagement opportunities."

Audit Your Marketing Universe

12 essential PPC landing page success factors

Landing pages are an integral part of paid search. Effective pages mean you convert more visitors to the outcomes you need and in quality-score based search engines they make your ad more competitive.

Securing the click is only the start of the conversion journey. The quality of the user journey after the click will determine your ability to convert paid search traffic into desired outcomes.

A common mistake in paid search programmes is for the focus to be entirely on keyword targeting and CPC management, ignoring the vital role that landing page optimisation plays in converting visits into actions.

I'm referring to PPC landing pages here, as some of these tips are taken from our PPC Best Practice Guide, but many of these factors apply equally to email and other landing pages...

1. Deliver relevance

Relevance is key to successful marketing communications in all media, but especially online where we decide how relevant a website is to us in the blink of an eye.

Whether it is a result in the natural search listings or Google AdWords. We need to not only measure visitor volumes and conversion rates but to really understand where and why we are failing to deliver relevance.

That can be indicated by low click-through rates on an AdWords ad, high bounce rates from a site landing page or high abandonment rates from the shopping basket funnel.

Unlike casual visits by browsers, paid search visitors arrive on a landing page with a directed goal or intention in mind. So the first thing you have to do is instantly show relevance to help visitors achieve that goal. Manage expectations accordingly.

Clear headlines quickly show relevance and also invite the visitor to scan down the page. You need to show the visitor they have selected the right place to find the brand, product, deal, information or experience they are looking for, so the headline must clearly indicate this.

7 Ways to Get More Out of Your Conversion Confirmation Page

Improving your conversion rate is one of the most important tactics in your SEM toolkit. The conversion optimization discussion focuses (and rightly so) on getting visitors to take an action on your website or landing page.

However, one step in the conversion optimization process often gets overlooked: your purchase/lead confirmation page.

To grow your business and improve your SEM ROI, you need to change your perspective on conversions. When someone visits your website they are exhibiting an interest but these first few exploratory clicks on your website could be considered simply flirting. Once a visitor takes an action, they are committed to something longer term, and it’s up to you keep the relationship alive and healthy.

One of the best ways to solidify a relationship quickly is your purchase/lead confirmation page.

When someone converts on your website they are filled with hope, and that is a precious commodity. Whether someone purchases a new gadget, or requests additional information about a service that could change their business, or snags a free trial for software that could cure a specific woe – they are in a heightened state of excitement. And you are the source of that excitement!

Here's a short list of ways to get more out of your confirmation page, and possibly grow your business.

1. Show Your Gratitude

Your new customer/prospect has taken the time to review your website, consider their options by checking out the competitors and online reviews, and finally they chose you. If you were talking with this person face-to-face you wouldn’t neglect to say thank you.

This may seem basic, but it’s surprising how many businesses don’t display proper appreciation for their audience’s time, attention and trust. A little courtesy goes a long way.

2. Confirm Your Coolness

Your confirmation page should mirror the tone of the entire website. If you take a humorous, quirky approach to your business, then the confirmation page should also have a similar leaning.

3. Plant the Seed for Future Purchases

Display other relevant products to someone who has just completed a purchase.

In a perfect world, your new customer would discover a secondary product right after they made a purchase (or ideally before so they can add it to their cart!) and order it on the spot. This is rarely the case.

Displaying these products plants the seeds of interest for future purchases as it shows your customer that they should return soon.

4. Deliver Awesome Supporting Content

A new customer/prospect is filled with hope. You need to nurture that hope!

After someone makes a purchase, you may consider displaying testimonials for that product on your confirmation page. This tactic can solidify their decision to purchase from your company.

If someone requests a white paper or demo, on the confirmation page provide additional information. Make sure this supporting content isn't locked behind a registration page because most folks won't want to fill out another form.

This tactic also provides additional support to your sales team. Most companies follow-up via email or phone after a prospect has requested information. Ask your sales team which questions or concerns they discuss frequently on the phone, and go ahead and start addressing these topics on your confirmation page.

5. Set Proper Expectations

Your confirmation page can provide supporting content for your sales team and it can also set the proper expectations on the purchase process. Go ahead and tell prospects when they can expect a follow up and what they can expect from the next touch point.

In tandem with displaying this content on the confirmation page, your auto-respond email should also provide a similar experience.

6. Provide Orientation

This tactic is geared toward software companies. When someone requests a demo or free trial, the confirmation page can provide instructions or orientation to get started with your software.

One challenge with software clients is adoption rate. Sure, someone can request a demo or even purchase the service, but if they don’t use it frequently they are less likely to stay a client. Every touch point for software companies is a chance to remind customers how/why to use your product.

7. Retarget with a Precision

The way you retarget existing customers vs. non-customers should be very different. Businesses frequently exclude previous customers from their retargeting campaigns, and rightly so.

A tactic that is often forgotten is retargeting your current client base. Sure, for some business this doesn’t make sense – but for many this could be a great way to deepen your client engagement.

Summary

Now is a great time to review and re-think your confirmation page strategy. This is one of those elements of your SEM campaign that could be optimized quickly with great returns. Plug that leaky bucket!

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3 Social Media Metrics Your Business Should Track

Metric #1: Share of Voice

You may already be tracking the brand mentions on social media websites, as well as whether those mentions are positive, negative or neutral. And this gives you some useful feedback about your social outreach efforts.

But how would you to know how your company is doing compared to the available market?

You can take things to the next level when you measure the share of voice (SOV).

Your website’s SOV measurement helps you discover what percentage of mentions within your industry goes to your brand—and what percentage goes to your competitors.

Fortunately, there’s Social Mention, a free tool to help you measure and compare your company’s mentions to your competitors’.

This screenshot shows the number of mentions that exist for the phrase “social media examiner.”

Here’s how to see why this measurement is important. Imagine you track only the number of times your brand was mentioned on Twitter. As the result of your social media marketing efforts, you see this number go from 10 mentions per day to 20.

On the surface, this might seem like a win, but what happens if the total number of brand mentions across all of your competitors is closer to 1,000 per day?

Now you realize you’re only receiving a drop in the bucket of brand mentions in your niche. This highlights both the number of potential customers who have yet to be exposed to your brand and how far you have to go in terms of overall market penetration.

To calculate SOV, conduct a search for each of your competitors and then divide your company’s number of mentions by the total number of mentions in your market.

Metric #2: Referral Traffic

It’s one thing to build up a thriving social community on sites like Twitter and Facebook. But it’s another thing entirely to entice these visitors to leave their social spaces and head back to your company’s website.

Good social media marketing campaigns aim to increase on-site website results. So it’s only natural that measuring the amount of referral traffic sent by social sites should have a place in the savvy marketer’s tool chest.

Fortunately, Google Analytics makes this process easy. To view the amount of referral traffic your website receives from social networking sites, log into your account and navigate to the Referrals section found on the Traffic Sources menu.

From there, you’ll be able to view the social sites that send you the most referral traffic, as well as the relative bounce rate, average time on site and pages viewed per visit of each social site’s visitor base.

In this example, LinkedIn provides the most social traffic, compared to Twitter (t.co) and Facebook.

You’ll want to pay special attention to the traffic metrics from your social sites. They may show you significant differences in the performance of one social network versus another.

If, for example, you see that your Twitter visitors have a significantly higher bounce rate than readers who arrive on your site from Facebook, you might decide to allocate more of your marketing time and budget to connecting with followers on Facebook.

Metric #3: Conversion Rate

Finally, here’s the most important social media metric—conversion rates!

This is the metric that tells you what’s working for your business.

And this assumes that you’re utilizing social networking sites in order to generate some type of measurable activity on your company’s website, whether these activities (or conversions) occur as product sales, newsletter signups, lead generation form completions or other action.

If this is the case, it’s important to ensure that you aren’t spending time on social media marketing if the referral traffic you’re able to procure from these sources doesn’t ultimately convert on your home site!

To measure conversions, you’ll need to set up two elements within Google Analytics: Goals and Advanced Traffic Segments.

• Google Analytics Goals enable you to determine when a specific action occurs on your website. There are four default types of Goals made available within Google Analytics, though these can be customized to measure any of the conversion activities described above. For more information on setting up Goals, check out Google’s help documentation on the subject.
  

  This sample Goal measures the number of website visitors who visit at least three pages on the site.

• In addition, Advanced Traffic Segments allow you to break out your analytics data by individual traffic source. As an example, by creating a segment that looks at the on-site activities of your Facebook visitors, you can split up your Goals data to determine which social sites are sending you the most eventual conversions.
  

  The conversion data pictured above has been filtered with an Advanced Traffic Segment that measures the number of conversions that occurred from LinkedIn visitors.

At least once a month, take the time to measure the number of conversions generated on your site by visitors from different social media websites.

You can then use this information to allocate future marketing resourcesaccording to the social sites that provide the biggest impact on your website’s bottom line.

By taking these measurements and adjusting your social media campaigns, you’ll ultimately ensure that your social media investment will bring more value to your business.

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A Call To Action For Calls To Action

Every single tome on the subject of copywriting will tell you that your ad copy requires a singular call to action – the idea that in order to make your copy more successful, you should tell the consumer exactly how and when you want them to interact with your offer. We all blindly attribute a portion of our copywriting success to this idea and never look back. As it turns out, we may be falling prey to the classic “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra.

Is the traditional call to action really as effective as we think it is? Are consumers really as simple-minded as we think they are? Is there a better, more data-driven way to validate (or invalidate) our blind faith in the Call to Action?

In an age of character constrained ad messages (95 for Google/Bing, 140 for Twitter, even fewer for Facebook), something as simple as “Buy Now!” still requires 8 characters, while something longer and nearly as meaningless such as ‘Shop and Save at Target.com’ requires more than 20!

You know what else requires just 8 characters? Flexible, Boot Cut, Near LAX, 0.9% APR, or 1 Day Sale. These are all the things you could be saying about your products and services to provide relevant information and to better qualify your customer.

Do your consumers relate better to points of interest? Are they more concerned about the cut of the jean vs. the color? Is APR a driving factor in whether they’ll submit a lead?

These are all questions you could answer instead of “Does ‘buy’ work better than ‘shop’?” If that is indeed the question, this is a great piece on how to get to the heart of that matter.

As search marketers we need to be able to succinctly highlight to consumers what we have that deserves their attention. If you give consumers the right reasons to buy now or shop today, they’ll arrive at that conclusion themselves.

Collecting data about which reasons are the right reason should be the focus of ad tests. Calls to action in PPC ads can often seem spammy, lazy – desperate even.

Now that our data collection and processing abilities enable very granular analysis on how nuances in ad construction impacts results, our focus should be on improving the overall message we’re delivering. We have an opportunity to relate, rather than just advertise, to consumers.

The following example seeks to demonstrate the difference between an ad with a textbook CTA and one that is informative.

Ad A

2.7 percent CTR, 0.5 percent conversion rate

Ad B

4.6 percent CTR, 1.0 percent conversion rate

Ad A checks the box in that it includes the keyword and has a distinct call to action. The ad asks the consumer to buy the product and gives them an incentive to do so.

However, this is an ad for a $1,000+ item. You aren't pushing someone closer to purchase with a CTA and an offer of free shipping. If I am buying a $1,000 purse I am going to assume its going to ship free and would rather have more pertinent information to my decision making process.

This is not to say that you should all go out and remove all the CTAs from your ad copy to improve performance. Try to be more measured and strategic about it than simply using those precious characters to fill space.

If you want customers to take a test drive of the Honda Accord, don’t just say, “See a Dealer for an Accord Test Drive” – consider telling them to “Experience the All-New 2013 Accord.”

All the while, be testing those new CTAs to ensure that the ones that are driving the most desired actions on the site are being leveraged in the right spots. Listen to what aspects of your offer resonate with the consumer rather than telling them to just buy your product. You will ultimately get more informative data about which elements of what you have to offer resonate, and the consumer gets exactly what they want.

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