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Each Path To Conversion Is Unique


By: Genius Monkey

Genius Monkey has always believed whole-heartedly in the importance of being in front of potential customers every step of the way, on every screen and through every speaker.


There has never been a time in Genius Monkey’s history that we haven’t believed whole-heartedly in the importance of brands being in front of potential customers every step of the way, on every screen and through every speaker. We help marketers hit their targeted crowds, from the first sign of interest to the final purchase. We guide them along their entire path to conversion, and we continue to track them even after they convert, depending on their needs.

If you are a regular reader of the Genius Monkey email, you’ll already know that we’ve provided a great deal of content that explains the importance and relevance of our attribution tracking, and the rich data it provides. Unless you’ve seen this process in action, it’s difficult to comprehend the effectiveness. However, the proof is in the pudding, and a glance at a couple of our case studies provides all the pudding you need! 

As an example, let’s take a look at a case study for one of our auto dealership clients. This involved a shopper who met the required indicators of a prospective buyer, so we began placing our dealership-client in front of him. In fact, from the 1st to the 27th of February, 2019, we pelted him with multiple daily ads.

Now this dealership, as with all of our users, was set up to pay on a cost-per-click basis, so this prospect got hit with our ads for three months straight — at a cost of absolutely nothing, nada, zilch! 
According to Jeremy Hudgens, Genius Monkey’s CRO and Director of Client Solutions, “It’s part of our philosophy to build your own economy. Don’t Get caught in the ups and downs of the world economy. Build your own now, because if you have a big enough following, you won’t be affected by the those zig-zags of a regular economy.”

Just like the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so in order to get a better understanding of how it all works, let’s take a gander at a couple of actual client reports. One of them is an example of a shopper that took plenty of time to make a decision, while the other case went rather quickly. 

You will notice that we have not divulged the name of the clients in order to protect their financial privacy. What we CAN divulge is the magical effect that our digital platform has on marketing results. We know this because our proprietary technology allows us to track the progress of a shopper—from the first impression, all the way to the conversion.



EXAMPLE 1

This first report was initiated when the customer filled out a contact form in which he asked for more information about a particular vehicle. As you can see in this first example, Genius Monkey was the first one to bring them to the dealership’s website, and we were the last ones to get them back in, right before they converted.
Because of our technology at work, you can look at the report and see the date and time, every day, starting in February, the car shopper saw an optimized display ad, and continues to see ads right on down the line.







On February 27th, three weeks after they saw the first ad, they clicked an ad (not ours). It was a Facebook ad that the dealership was running (not us). So they got branded like crazy for a month, and then all of a sudden they see an ad on Facebook and they click it. But WE were the first ones to make them aware of the company.
The next thing that happened is that they viewed the Vehicle Description Page (VDP) with parameters, so they basically looked at different vehicles, and that’s the first conversion because that was one of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) … that they look at a specific Vehicle Description Page (VDP). 




They evidently left the website and then clicked another ad, into another vehicle. You will see that it even has the VIN and everything for the specific vehicle they looked at.
Another conversion occurred when the car shopper was on Facebook, and from there, clicked his way to another Vehicle Description Page. It was a dynamic Facebook ad. The fact that there were a number of different clicks on various vehicles is a good indicator that Facebook performed! However, we still take pride in the fact that it was our ad that they first clicked on ... three weeks earlier.





Next, they clicked on another Facebook ad, checked out a parameter, and in just a few seconds, they’re once again looking at that same car with the same VIN. Then they converted from the same Facebook ad, so this indicates that they kept clicking different ones from the same dynamic ad (dynamic meaning they had set it up to where it would show different ads based upon what the person is looking for). 
After all that effort, the customer-to-be leaves the dealership. So we start bombarding him with ads. We placed an optimized display ad in front of him for two days.





Next thing we know, they’re back on Facebook clicking on another ad, but then they disappear again.
Next, we see that our guy is still clicking, but NOW he’s looking at a Jeep Wrangler … then he skidders away. So, of course we start showing him ads again.
It took from February 28th to the middle of March before he finally clicked on one of our ads. He left again, so we started throwing more ads at him ... again, and we did so until March 21st.




The next thing that occurs is stupendous ...




The report indicates that they browsed the dealer’s website, but how did they get there? They didn’t need to click on an ad because they had already been to the site enough to get there on their own. We didn’t have to guide them in.





Looking at this, we can see WHY they’re there on their own.:




We can see that he went first to the home page, then to New Cars, where he eyed a certain RAM 2500. Because he viewed new inventory, that was another conversion. The next conversion happened when he looked at a RAM 1500.
The next place our guy clicks into is the All New Inventory, where he checks out different vehicles, colors, etc. We know they were all different because they all had differing VINs.
The next time he browsed, he ended up back at that RAM 1500, went to a different VIN, viewed the VDP and then, after looking at several vehicles, he took off! 
We were NOT done with him yet. We began to place ad after ad in front of his face. We did this continually from March 21st to March 26th. He didn’t click on the ads, but he did go directly to the site, where he surfed the pages, looking at different cars.
Then he goes to different pages on the site and for 16 minutes, he does all these little micro-conversions, KPIs, and looking at different VINs. During that short span, he even checked out the pre-owned vehicles, which led us to believe that this guy is an aggressive hunter. But then he departs!
It’s good that at Genius Monkey we have a whole lot of tenacity, because on March 27 through mid-April  we’re back to hitting him with ads again.




Now, it probably seems like we served this guy a thousand ads, but the only Genius Monkey ad that the client paid for was the one single ad the car shopper clicked on. Because we deal on a cost-per-click basis, all of this interaction and tracking to this point had only cost the client a measly $.80. Yes, you read that right … eighty cents!
The next time the shopper clicked on a Genius Monkey ad was on April 14th. He clicked directly into one car, but then browsed a few more pages and split!
We’re not losing this guy, so we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and start to fire ads at him again, all the way into March 23rd, when he does a keyword search using the  name of the Chrysler dealer. He then hopped back into the website where he looked at financing, vehicle specials and all new inventory, only NOW he’s looking at Dodge Ram 3500s. Then he goes to the specials page, afterwhich, you guessed it, he went away.
We didn’t like the fact that this guy hadn’t converted yet, but we weren’t about to give up on him. He began going to the site on his own all the way to May 25th. It turns out he had bookmarked a vehicle he was considering, and would go directly to it. But the kicker here is that now it was a Jeep!




One notorious issue with many of the auto-sales mentality is this: A dealer sees that this guy has been looking at 
This is the problem with so many auto-sales mentalities. Dealers see that a customer has been looking at Dodge RAM 3500s, so they feel like they should pound him with Dodge Ram 3500 ads. But, in light of the fact that he’s been looking at RAM 2500s, RAM 1500s and Jeep Wranglers, too, maybe they should (as Genius Monkey has always preached), “Let the customer decide what he wants to buy on HIS time ... just stay on top of him with relevant ads and branding.”
Now you’re about to see why it pays for us to be tenacious …




Our guy leaves the site but then sees two more ads, so he navigates his way back. Now our shopper is looking at a 2013 used Ford Explorer—what? It is obvious that this guy is unsettled in his choice. He sees an ad, then he leaves. Then he sees an ad in June, and he returns to the dealer’s site and starts to browse. He then established a maximum price, which was 9,999. In other words, less than 10K! 
On June 19th he continues to visit the site, gazing for an hour at different cars that strike his fancy. He began his browsing at 1:23 p.m., then took a break and came back at 3:12 p.m., at which time he started car-looking again. He ended up leaving at about 7:34 pm. He then clicked on a social ad and checked out more inventory.




It was on June 18 when he FINALLY decided to fill out a contact form, indicating that he’s contemplating that vehicle, and to have a sales rep call him. Mission accomplished! That’s exactly what the goal was; to get him to fill out a form to have a salesman call  him. THIS is the kind of conversion that we try to track. The others are just key performance indicators.
Now you can somewhat get a grasp of how far we will go to get our target. It took an entire journey to finally get that significant conversion. But, we did it, and the reason we know that we did is because of our attribution and tracking methods. Oh, and as I mentioned earlier, we DO NOT give up. We stick with the prospect until we get the conversion. It can take a long time. In this case, five months!

EXAMPLE II

Now let’s take a look-see at another example of a clear path to conversion. This one was a quickie. It was for an educational institution:
On the 6th of June at about mid-day, our targeted prospect saw one of our Genius Monkey display ads and began to browse the site.
It was approximately three minutes later that she converted by filling out the Thank You Page.




These are two examples of our conversion tracking in action. They are two very different scenarios; both with the same goal … to convert.
In closing, whenever anyone asks us here at Genius Monkey how many impressions it takes to get a conversion, we will always offer the same answer ... “AS MANY AS IT TAKES!”



This article is provided by Genius Monkey.

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