What are assisted conversions and why are they important?

PPC advertising has never been a standalone medium when it comes to generating leads and sales for an organisation.

Pay-per-click campaigns use a “last click” conversion model, regardless of the medium – whether that be Facebook, Google, Bing, Linkedin or Twitter (to name a few). A last click model assigns 100% credit to the final touch points, which in this case is a PPC platform.

A multi-touchpoint buying journey

Clients want to understand their total return on ad spend. Part of this is about continually optimising a campaign to improve KPI’s. But it’s also important for us to demonstrate the value of PPC in what is now a complex, multifaceted digital buying journey.

A PPC campaign isn’t just about last click conversions, a PPC campaign creates a journey for your target audience, supports other marketing channels, and also compliments any existing marketing material.

What are assisted conversions?

So, what are assisted conversions? As described by Google, an assisted conversion is the following – “This is the number (and monetary value) of sales and conversions the channel assisted. If a channel appears anywhere—except as the final interaction—on a conversion path, it is considered an assist for that conversion. The higher these numbers, the more important the assist role of the channel.”

Reporting on assisted conversions is vital for a business to understand the true value to pay per click advertising. Here at The SEO Works we have various clients who sell high ticket items, where the decision to purchase isn’t made via a single touchpoint on a paid ad.

A real world example

A real world example of an assisted conversion would be searching for the term “Iphone x” on a search engine and then clicking the top result, which was a paid search ad, then not purchasing. You would then later see a social post later that week from the same company (perhaps as a result of the initial site visit) promoting an Iphone X. If you converted and purchased the product after clicking the link in the social post, the PPC ad would be the first step in the customer journey. Leading to an assisted conversion for paid search in Google Analytics and a last click conversion for organic social media.

Reporting on assisted conversions

At The SEO Works we offer extensive monthly reporting which details the number of assisted conversions, the revenue generated and the user path to converting. See below a detailed example of our essential reports, which highlights the number of assisted conversions received and the paths of the customers.

At The SEO Works we believe that assisted conversions are just as important as last click conversions, that’s why our experienced account managers always include assisted conversions in their monthly reports.

To learn how a fully integrated PPC campaign can help grow your business contact us or call our experienced team on 0800 292 2410.