Advanced Google Tag Manager(GTM) options and your application

and a second fragment is an event pixel that helps us to measure specific actions of the user and is located only in the pages that the action happens, in our case the sending of a contact form. The script will look like this:

Once we have created both tags (page view and conversion) and we check through the GTM preview that both pixels fire correctly where we have specified with our activators (this is covered in another post), we can find cases in the that the console gives us the following error:

What does this mean? Well, this is telling us that the conversion pixel (event script) has not been defined and is not collecting information. If we go to our administrator of facebook ads we can check how the pixel state tells us that there is no activity, and therefore it is not working. Why does this happen? If, when doing the preview check, does the tag fire correctly? How can we solve it? This happens because you are executing the conversion tag after the pageview tag. The asynchronous loading of the Java Script means that there is no order in the execution of the scripts. This is when we need to utilize  the advanced configuration of GTM, sequencing of tags, to give an order to the tags and mark when we want to fire the tag, that is, what sequence we want the tags to follow to solve the error.

What we have to do is go to the conversion tag, which is what we have to tell us to activate after the pageview tag, go to tag sequencing, within the advanced options and configure the tag to activate the tag page seen before the conversion tag does. After saving the changes, we would have to do the test again and check that the console error has disappeared and that in our Facebook ad manager the pixel is active. Although the advanced options of labels are not used regularly, knowing their functionalities can help us to solve certain errors and be very useful in many occasions.

The micro objectives, drive your macro conversion in the long term.

Every website worth its salt has a very defined main objective. To achieve this goal we measure it as conversion – macro conversions. Macro conversions may well consist of a transaction that entails income or the generation of a lead. Normally we put is the greatest effort in time and investment  to achieve the macro conversion and in many cases produce a forgetfulness of all that traffic that is in an initial phase of the conversion funnel. All the web site visitors enrolled in the awareness or consideration phase, we must consider as a micro objective / conversion target in order to measure and act on their progress in our funnel. At Making Science we consider the optimization of these minor objectives as fundamental and enable  us to interact greatest extent possible with users that visit the sites of our clients. We are able to identify and define the micro objectives and  conversions using our vast experience in web optimization. A simple example, a customer enters a computer store, he knows he is not yet to buy a computer, he is just window shopping, but he does decide to sign-up for the computer store loyalty program, a micro-conversion. A week later the computer stored visitors gives the store a like on Facebook, a second micro-conversion. Two months later the visitor  decides to acquire his computer from the computer store, in part due to the computer store keeping the visitor in contact via the sales funnel micro-conversions.  These micro-conversions are critical to help drive a prospect through the purchase decision process, to reach the final buy decision.

One of our clients in the hotel sector needed to get more records to launch a new customer loyalty program. Making Science took the registration part, which involved a direct discount on the reservation, one step closer to the conversion. A page in which the user paid more attention to what he read and the results have been magnificent as you can see.

Another improvement in  micro targeting at a Making Science client, in the education sector, was also very successful. The customer’s web site was focused mainly on the achievement of new leads. In conducting our user experience analysis as aligned with micro conversion objectives we noted that “planning a campus visit” was a bit difficult to find  which was determined to be a critical step in the decision process of a new student. We extracted data to measure the fact that 50% of the prospects that visited the university ended up converting to enrollment (macro conversion), vs the 5% that enrolled directly on the web without making the campus visit. The approach was clear, strengthen this micro objectives to improve the final conversion. We converted a hard-to-find link link into a powerful CTA by conducting various rounds of user experience testing to ensure it’s most optimal position on the web site. This improvement multiplied by 8 times the visits to the university that came from the site.  Taking into account the earlier correlation regarding campus visits to macro conversions these improvements delivered the university big success on new enrollment.

These are two clear examples of how small(micro objectives) changes in things that seem at the surface not to be significant can have indeed have long-term improvements for the business (macro conversions). From Making Science we encourage you to focus on these micro objectives, either by stimulating visitors to view a video on your website, or to download a report or information-pack in pdf, subscribe to your newsletter, sign-up for your loyalty program or follow you on a social network. The little things count when trying to reach your macro conversion target.  Keep in mind many times a new customer is not a buyer on their first visit,  your micro objectives with interactions on your website need to nurture the prospect to the buy decision. Ask yourself does your website have micro conversion actions designed to interact with your visitor to get them to the final decision?

How are you using digital marketing specialists to grow your business with social networks?

In such a competitive environment for companies in the digital media, social channels are gaining more and more weight year after year within the marketing plan. The professionals are increasing the confidence of this channel to achieve their objectives. Both in sales, treating it as one more channel in performance as in notoriety, increasing its activity by generating content in an organic manner. This evolution is reflected in the latest study of the Social Media Examiner, in which they analyze the results of the questions  made to more than 5,700 marketing specialists on how they are using Social Media to grow and promote their businesses. The main conclusions reached by the investigation are:

The uncertainty in Facebook increases: only 49% of marketers consider that their Facebook marketing is effective and 52% said they have seen decreases in their organic Facebook reach in the last year. However, 62% plan to increase their organic activities in the next year.

Marketing specialists focus less on developing loyal followers: for the first time in years, generating leads has become a goal for marketers to cultivate a loyal following base. This could be a sign that metrics and automation are becoming more important than commitment. The domain of Facebook is still strong: 94% of marketing specialists use Facebook (followed by Instagram with 66%). Two out of every three marketers claim that Facebook is their most important social platform. Facebook ads reign: Facebook ads are used by 72% of sellers (followed by Instagram at 31%). Almost half of marketing specialists increased their advertising activities on Facebook in the last year and 67% plan to increase their use of Facebook ads in the next 12 months.

In such a competitive environment for companies in the digital media, social channels are gaining more and more weight year after year within the marketing plan.

87% of all marketing specialists indicated that their efforts in social networks generated more exposure for their businesses. The increase in traffic was the main benefit, with 78% reporting positive results. These two main benefits have remained virtually unchanged in 4 years.