Measuring Lead Generation with Google Analytics

Measuring Lead
Generation with
Google Analytics
to Improve ROI
A marketing executive’s guide to Google
Analytics and campaign metrics.
NuSpark Marketing, 2016
Paul Mosenson
Founder and President
NuSpark Marketing
February 2016

Introduction to
Measurement
Setting the stage to monitoring lead generation via marketing
channels

Welcome to Lead Generation Analytics
Thanks for downloading our latest ebook. You are probably one of many who have
a somewhat clear understanding of all that Google Analytics (or GA) has to offer,
but maybe you don’t really understand all of the opportunities you have to analyze
the results of lead generation programs with the free tool.
So the focus of this ebook is lead generation measurement via marketing
campaigns pure and simple. With GA you can do so much more with it (i.e.
website page analysis, set up retargeting, visitor demographics) but again, the
focus here is website traffic and conversions. Your goal is to make better, more
efficient, marketing decisions (channels, tactics, spend, offers) that increase your
ROI. This ebook will help shed some light on how to make those decisions.
We also touch on tools such as Google Tag Manager (for ad and event tracking)
and also a framework to measure your content marketing. Consider this ebook a
primer, and a stepping stone to deeper analytics understanding. For now, enjoy,
and learn something!
Paul Mosenson, Founder, NuSpark Marketing

The Cycle of Lead Generation
Measurement
Improvement
Action
Measure
Analyze
Insight
Analytics must constantly
be reviewed before, during,
and post campaigns in
order to optimize current
and make better marketing
decisions for future
campaigns

The Lead Management Ecosystem
Courtesy Dan Fineberg
Inquiries enter the funnel,
and are nurtured into leads
until handed off to sales.
Measuring the marketing
pipeline is the focus of the
ebook, with an emphasis on
Google Analytics as a
measurement tool.

Lead Generation Objectives
According to the survey from
eMarketer, improving lead quality is
far and away the number one
objective, followed by increasing
sales revenue and number of total
leads.
Companies need to consistently
assess and optimize their strategies
in order to achieve these goals, and
that means careful analysis of data,
including what Google Analytics tells
you.

Planning to Measure
A lead generation measurement program should be carefully laid out with
goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each campaign. It should
answer what you’ll be measuring, when, and how. Goal examples:
• Quantity of inquiries, and cost-per-inquiry.
• Quality of leads, which denotes MQLs or marketing qualified leads, and a
cost-per-MQL.
• Increase in annual marketing ROI.
• Increase funnel conversion rates (session-to-inquiry, inquiry-to-MQL, MQL-to-
SAL (sales-accepted leads), and sales opportunity-to-close).

Defining Analytics Data

Introducing the Inquiry
An inquiry is purely that- a prospect who has taken such an interest in a
content or offer that he has agreed to offer an email address in exchange for
the content. Inquiry insights:
• For a content inquiry, he has carefully determined that your content was
valuable, knowing that although he may not be ready to buy, there is some
company problem that your content may help solve, and he is prepared to
receive follow-up nurture emails and or qualification calls.
• For a bottom-funnel inquiry; a request for a quote, consultation, assessment, trial
or demo, this inquiry is more valuable and should be followed-up with within a
timely manner.
• Measuring inquiries is the foundation of all lead generation programs at the
outset; your business depends on utilizing the right channels that attract quality
inquiries more likely to buy.

The Marketing Qualified Lead
MQLs began as inquiries, but through a mix of continued content
engagement, audience demographic segmenting, and other qualifications
defined by marketing and sales together (timing, budget, industry), these
leads are sent to inside sales by marketing. Some MQL insights:
• Inquiries need to be convinced to engage with sales. They begin as researchers,
but if your content is relevant and problem-solving, these inquiries will click and
read more frequently, and return to your website. The concept of lead scoring, or
assigning values to prospects based on who they are and what they do is
typically what transforms an inquiry or top-funnel lead to become an MQL.
• With the use of marketing automation linked with CRMs, there is capability of
measuring “cost-per-qualified” lead which is the better metric to measure
performance if you are able. Otherwise you should have an “inquiry to MQL”
conversion rate prepared for planned analysis.

Website versus Landing Page Goals
Your website
• Traffic typically comes from organic
search or referral sites; and less from
advertising. (SEO is in play here)
• The goal of website traffic is to engage a
prospect to dig deep and learn about a
solution.
• Top funnel lead generation comes into
play with compelling content offers or
newsletters.
• Bottom funnel leads are generated via
consultations, demos, trials, but after a
prospect is convinced to submit their
info.
A landing page
• Landing pages are designed purely
for lead (or inquiry) capture.
• Traffic comes purely from
advertising, email, or paid search
• Offers can be a mix of top and
bottom funnel themes, but need to
be planned accordingly in your
offer plan.
• Key metrics are conversion rate
and cost-per-conversion
Google Analytics can measure both websites and landing pages; much of the reporting
examples in this ebook focuses on website measurement, but can be applied to lead
capture landing pages as well.

What is a Session
• A session is simply a visit to your
website that encompasses a one
or a mix of page views,
interactions or transactions.
• If a prospect visits your site 10x in
one day, that is recorded as 10
sessions. Thus sessions take into
account users who visit the site
more than once.
• A session ends after 30 minutes of
inactivity, at midnight, or if the
prospect returns via a unique
marketing campaign.
Next we review key metrics in Google Analytics,
as a foundation to lead generation
measurement.

% New Sessions
• New sessions are the
percentage of all sessions
during a predetermined time
frame.
• New sessions are always good
as you are attracting new
prospects to your site.
• A growing percentage of
returning users are even
better, as returning users
denote prospects are
interested in your
content/blogs and more likely
to become leads.

What is a New User and What are these
Cookies?
• A new user is defined as the first
time a device (PC, mobile phone,
etc.) or browser loads your website;
Google Analytics then creates a
unique ID called a client ID and
sends it to their servers.
• These users are delivered cookies,
and thus are identified as a unique
person. Cookies are small pieces of
data sent from a website and stored
in a user’s browser. Users are not
necessarily new to your site, but new
during the time frame being
analyzed. Cookies track every data
point reported on GA.
Source: http://analyticsdemystified.com/general/cookies-demystified/

Clicks versus Sessions (for Advertising)
• Clicks are how many times an ad
or promoted link was clicked by a
user, which is different from a
session.
• A new user may click an ad
multiple times in the same
session. So if a user clicks an ad
3x within 30 minutes, ad reports
will show three clicks, but Google
Analytics shows one session.
• A new user may click on your ad
from website X, then return a day
later via a direct or organic visit.
Google Analytics will record the
click as a new user, but track that
user as two sessions

Bounce Rate
• A bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that visit one page during the session,
then exiting.
• If your bounce rate is over 40% (our goal is under 40%), then many of your visitors are
leaving after just visiting one page, and that’s cause for concern. However blogs are
usually one page long and can affect site bounce rate. It’s best to create a filter,
whereby blog visitors are not counted. This is implemented by creating a custom
audience segment within Google Analytics (more on this later).

Two other engagement metrics
• Pages Per Session and Average Session Duration: These two metrics measure
how engaging your website is to prospects. Pages per session may be less
important nowadays depending on site design, as many Wordpress themes
focus more on the scroll than the link-click. Additionally a mobile site is typically
less engaging than a desktop site.
• It may be best to look at site engagement with Google Analytic’s built-in
audience segments. Below shows example segments non-bounce visits and non-
converters. Looking at these segments alongside general Google Analytic
reporting can give you better insight on how your website is working to attract or
not attract prospects that become conversions or leads.

Campaign Tracking
Tagging URLs

What is Campaign Tagging
• Campaign tagging allows you to add special tracking code to your destination
URL (where prospects go to after clicking ads or links), aka a tagged URL, to
identify in more detail the source of your website or landing page traffic.
• When a visitor comes to a site that has the Google Analytics tracking code
installed, Google Analytics captures a lot of data via cookies: the medium
(organic, referral, direct, etc.), source (site the visitor came from), browser,
screen resolution, country, metro, etc. With campaign tagging you can overwrite
the cookie data with your own custom tags for more granular campaign
tracking.
• Without campaign tagging, you have to rely on Google default definitions of
traffic, which often is not enough data to make marketing decisions on.
• By default, Google AdWords and Google Display Network URLs in ads are
automatically tagged by campaigns and ad groups, but can be overridden if
need be for more specific campaign tracking needs.

Why Campaign Tagging
• Consolidates all marketing campaigns in Google Analytics
• Traffic from 3rd party sites from advertising or social media show as
referrals by default on Google Analytics. Tagging URLs identify more
specifically.
• Email clicks by default show as direct traffic on Google Analytics. Tagging
URLs in email campaigns allow you to track email clicks, by campaign or by
message, for more granular email marketing analysis.

Google’s URL Builder Form
Google’s easy-to-use form for tagging website or
landing page URLs.
• Campaign Source: The specific source of a
visit to your site or landing page
• Campaign Medium: The type of media
campaign (search, display, retargeting, email,
social-ads)
• Campaign Content: Offer or ad name
• Campaign Name: Identify your campaign (ROI-
white paper, product name, offer name)

Campaign Tag Strategy
At NuSpark we use spreadsheets to list our campaign variables and create tagged URLs. As you see below,
there are a number of mediums and sources we can use to track lead generation campaigns. Mediums are
grouped categories of sources. We use the content variable to organize the content or offer type. The
campaign is the specific offer.

Implementing Campaign Tags
• http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/?utm_campaign=ROI-white-
paper&utm_medium=Publisher-display&utm_source=Tech-
Target&utm_content=Content&utm_term
Finally, we use these tagged campaign URLs for all channels we need to track.
Below example is what we would send Tech Target for a display campaign.

Measuring Offline and Direct Mail
• You can measure offline media, like print publications and direct mail, by
doing the following:
• Create a “vanity” URL that is unique to the campaign source (i.e.
nusparkmarketing.com/download).
• Create a campaign tag for Google Analytics, per previous slide, and use as
Medium: “Offline” and as Source: “Directmail” or “TradePubName.”
• Have your IT contact prepare a 301 redirect from the vanity URL to the actual
URL that includes the campaign tag. Now we can track traffic from these offline
media sources.

Goals: Conversions and
Events
Tracking Website and Landing Page Activity in Google Analytics

Lead Generation Mechanisms
You should have some form of content/offer lead generation
mechanism in order to capture a mid-funnel prospect interested in
your message.

Conversion Goal Strategy
Conversion goals need to correspond to your business objectives and contribute to
your marketing efforts.
For lead generation websites, any opportunity to capture an email address (or
phone call) in exchange for something of value to a prospect is a conversion,
whether that prospect is ready to buy now or later. However that name has shown
an interest in solving a business problem, and that’s where your content nurture
begins.
As you’ll see, not all lead conversions have equal weight. As a business, it’s up to
you (with our help if needed) to determine how to route a lead. A transactional
conversion, meaning a quote request or a free consultation, can bypass the
nurture process as that audience is already a qualified lead and thus have the
highest value. Your top-funnel content conversions require nurture, so the value of
these engagement conversions will be less, but still a valuable component to
building a prospect database.

Conversion Tactics
Below is an example of an offer plan for a website. These plans help us
determine which specific goals to track, and what value to give them. More
on values in a bit, but in general a value is a measure of how much a lead
from a specific offer is worth to your business.

Destination Goals
• Destinations are specific URLs that represent
a page that follows a form submission on a
website or landing page; meaning a lead
conversion has been confirmed.
• It’s best to have unique URLs for each
conversion type for tracking.
• Thank you pages offer the opportunity for
upsell/cross-sell, blog subscriptions, social
media follow invitations, or even another
offer. In summary, it’s an opportunity to
further engage prospects.
• Thank you page conversions can be easily
excluded from retargeting campaigns offered
by ad networks and social media ad
platforms, so that we only retarget those who
do not convert.

Other Goal Conversions
• Other conversions to consider are
an e-newsletter sign-up, or even a
blog subscription. These two goals
support the quality of your content
and will bring people back to your
site via email promotion, social,
and other channels if your content
is relevant.
• You can set up unique Thank You
pages for these activities; a
redirect after a form submission,
or as an event conversion.

Tracking Website Events
Events are website activities that do
not involve a click to another website
page.
Event tracking is not a lead
generation measure directly when it
comes to forms, but offers other
engagement analysis, and can be a
good barometer to determine what
content or other click elements work
best on a website
Examples of events that can be
tracked; and some can be set up as
a conversion goal as well.
• PDF downloads
• Outbound links (like to LinkedIn)
• Mobile phone calls
• Email submissions
• Form button “submits” when no
Thank You page exits (set up as
conversion goal in this case)

Enter Google Tag Manager (GTM)
• GTM is a Google tool that allows marketers create events, track
conversions, or optimize advertising activity by adding custom HTML and
java script codes without involving IT or website managers every time a new
event or ad tracking pixel is needed.

Events with GTM
Here are some examples of events
we can set up with GTM
• Form submit buttons (when no
Thank you page)
• Mobile calls (since they require
clicks)
• Email clicks
• Video clicks
• Content downloads

Events with GTM
Here’s an example of creating an event to measure the
number of times an ROI white paper gets downloaded (since
there is no form gate). First we create a trigger (an action that
causes Google to track an activity) for when the event should
occur; then create the actual event so Google Analytics can
measure; the event is counted only when a PDF is downloaded
that contains ROI in it’s title.

Advertising Tracking with GTM
• The goal of implementing tracking
pixels is that when they fire, the ad
platforms become aware, and serve
ads based on click and conversion
behavior.
• In the example:
• AdWords conversion pixel fires on
“thank you” pages.
• Facebook, Twitter, and retargeting
platforms track visits for retargeting
and conversion optimization
purposes.
• Most ad networks, DSPs (Demand
Side Platforms), exchanges offer
pixels for websites and landing
pages, so that they can optimize ad
delivery based on click-through rates
and conversions.

Example 1: Adwords Conversion Tag
“Fires” the tag when page URL
contains Thank-you
Then, AdWords can optimize bidding
based on conversion data

Example 2: Demand Side Ad Platform
(DSP) or Ad Network
Tag fires when applications are submitted or purchases
are made (checkout success). This conversion pixel
allows networks to optimize ad delivery towards websites
or audience segments most likely to convert
The same ad networks offers a pixel to track all
pages of a website; to optimize on click-through-rate
and also serve ads for retargeting campaigns

Example 3: Facebook
Facebook’s pixel tracks every page on your
site or landing page. Once set up, events
can also be tracked by including a unique
conversion code to track specific actions.
These are listed to the right. For lead gen,
the bottom two conversion events, lead and
complete registration are most common.

Facebook Conversion Process
Facebook has an alternative method to track
conversions as well. Called custom conversions,
these are based on various page URL rules.
• The purpose of setting up
conversions on Facebook is to
allow the platform to optimize
campaign performance based on
website or landing page
conversion goals.
• To the left is an example of a lead
conversion, because the URL
contains “thank” for a Thank-You
page conversion URL (confirming a
lead capture).

Example 4: Other Media
Twitter has its own tracking pixels for
Twitter ad conversion optimization and
retargeting
Many default tags are available on GTM
from trusted partners. Facebook is an
example of a custom HTML tag

Goal and Lead Values
ROI and Conversion Measurement with Google Analytics

Goal Value of Leads
• The value of a lead is an essential metric in order to compute ROI with
Google Analytics. Values help determine how conversions impact business.
• By assigning different levels of values to conversions, you can weight which
conversions are more important, if actual cost per lead values aren’t
available.
• Determining a Goal Value
• Have the average value of a sale (including lifetime value) handy and a lead-to-
sale conversion rate. If your average sale is $5,000, and your close rate is 5%,
then the goal lead value is $250 (Average sale x close rate)
• Google Analytics measures value of ALL leads, whether qualified or not, so be
sure to calculate the value for all leads.
• If you do not track lead to sale conversion rate, you can estimate value by the
type of conversion as we have shown earlier.

Setting Up Goal Values
• You can give your goal conversions a
value, especially if you have various
conversions to track.
• Let’s say 10% of inquiries become
MQLs, and 10% of MQLs become
sales; and your average sale is
$5,000. This means that 1% of
inquiries become sales, so a goal
value for a content download inquiry
could be $50.
• Or, you can use value to weight an
inquiry. For example, a contact-us
inquiry could be worth $100; a
content download lead $20, and a
newsletter sign-up $10.

Event Values
• You can give specific key events
values as well, again depending on
estimated sales conversion rates
and value of a sale.
• This is an example of an Email
goal event tracked as a
conversion, using the event value
as a goal value.
• When measuring media
performance, you may wish to also
give small values to items such as
pages per session (like over 3),
duration (over 2 minutes), or non-
gated PDF downloads (no form)

Calculating ROI with Conversion Goal Value
Calculating ROI with Google Analytics using goal values:
• ((Goal Value – Advertising Cost) / Advertising Cost) x 100 = ROI
• Example: Goal value of a lead conversion goal is $500, and the advertising cost
per lead was $250 on average, the ROI would be (($500 - $250)/$250) x 100 =
100%, meaning for every dollar spent, two dollars were generated in revenue.

Using Goal Value; Example 1
To measure ROI of lead generation campaigns over a given time period, we
create an Excel chart with all of the channels and lead values, with the ROI
calculation ((Goal value x leads) – Cost)/Cost)
For the below example, paid search has broken even, and content
syndication has doubled the investment. Below assumes all campaigns
were promoting the same offer (and thus same lead value).

Goal Value Example 2
• Here’s an example of measuring results of an ongoing eblast program with
CIO.com’s opt-in newsletter recipients. Four different offers were promoted.
Each eblast cost you $1,000. For this example, white paper 2 generated the
highest ROI. The free assessment has a higher goal value (as those leads
have higher closing rates) but because there were fewer leads, the ROI
wasn’t as good.

Goal Value Example 3
• Here’s an example of a paid search channel, comparing three ad groups
and four campaigns. Two of the white paper campaigns rotated in the
Researching solution keywords Ad group. In this scenario, the free trial
shows the best ROI, and white paper #1 performing better than white paper
#2.

ROI and Google Adwords
With Adwords, we can now track revenue per click and ROI based on
compiled goal values from your campaigns.
Advanced alert: You can upload cost data for non-Google search campaigns,
email, or social campaigns by uploading cost data as a CSV. See link for
details: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2803329?hl=en

Summary: Two methods for computing
lead value

Goal Values on GA Reports
Remember, goal values can be measured for non-advertising channels. Thus, they can give
you a measure of how each paid and non-paid source contribute to lead generation by
tracking values for each conversion goal on your website

Measuring Website Leads
with Google Analytics
A look at reporting
NuSpark Marketing, 2016 Photo source-
Megalytic

Conversion Reporting with Google Analytics
• Channel
• Medium
• Source
• Campaign
• Landing page
• Ad Content
• Keyword
• Referral
• Social Media
Google Analytics provides a number of primary and secondary dimensions to
provide marketing campaign analysis. We Can Track These Dimensions:

BY Secondary Dimensions
Above are a sampling of the many available. By combining primary and
secondary dimensions, conversion analysis is much more meaningful,
with better decision making the goal

Google Analytics Default Traffic Source
Dimensions: More Detail
• Source: The origin of your traffic (Google, Facebook, Newsletter, Ad
Network, Publisher, Blog)
• Medium: Every source has a medium; which is defined as the type of source
Google defines the traffic (Organic, cpc or cost per click campaigns,
referral, or “none” which is direct traffic to your site)
• Keyword: If prospects aren’t signed into Google (a Google email account),
keywords can be tracked. Most keyword traffic comes from when secure
search occurs and people are signed into a Google account, and show as
“not provided”
• Campaign: Names of campaigns from AdWords or custom campaigns from
tagged URLs.
• Content: Identifies specific content links in campaigns and can only be
tracked via campaign tagging.

Segments
As a third level of measurement, you can combine primary and secondary dimension
reporting with up to four audience segments. Below are the default segments available

Custom Segments
Or, you can create custom segments, and save them for more granular analysis
along with your dimension selections. Below example shows four segments, which
can be defined as a mix of OR and AND. Below shows sessions that include a PDF
download event label, mobile traffic only, excluding any sessions that contain a
conversion, and sessions do not include pages with LP in the URL (or landing page
for advertising purposes). We create custom segments based on client need. It’s
fun!

By combining dimensions and segments very detailed (or
a bit overwhelming) analyses can be done.

At the end of the day..
• All the data you can measure is great, but you really want to have a plan of
what reports are meaningful that lead generation decisions can be made
on. We help clients define these goals and develop custom reports that
make data analysis easier. Example analyses:
• How do mobile conversion rates compare to desktop? Does the mobile site or
lead gen tactic need to be tweaked to improve conversion rates on mobile
devices?
• What sources and channels generate the best conversion rates, conversion
values, and ROI?
• Do some campaigns perform better than others over time; or do some
campaigns perform better on display channels than social channels?
• Do people who visit blog pages move on to other pages and perform conversions
or events?

Advanced Conversion
Reporting
A look at goal paths, multi-channel funnels, and attribution

Reverse Goal Path
Here’s a report that shows what pages lead up to a conversion (leading up to
three pages), and which conversion goal occurred. It helps to know the order of
pages lead up to lead-submit conversions. The paths can give you a clue on
what pages are most valuable that lead to the lead capture.

Goal URL Report
This one simply tells you on which pages conversions occur. Thank you pages
are lead submits, but for blogs we offer free ebooks and track them as well. On
our site ebooks are offered in page sidebars.

Top Conversion Paths
Google Analytics includes some special reports
to address the effect of a channel’s (and a
source/medium’s) role within the conversion
process.
• The Top Conversion Paths reports answer
these questions and others by showing how
your marketing channels work together to
create sales and conversions
• This basically measures the prospect’s click
journey to conversion, and what channels are
used to research, then perform a conversion
at the end.
• The default path defaults to 30 days, but can
be adjusted up to 90 days. Unfortunately with
long buying cycles certain older paths won’t
show. But nevertheless this does give some
insight into the effect of display and social
channels, which typically do not generate
“impulse” conversions on websites.

Assisted Conversions
• The Assisted Conversions report
summarizes the roles and
contributions of your channels. A
channel can play two roles in a
conversion path:
• Last click conversion is the
interaction that immediately
precedes the conversion.
• Assisted conversion is any
interaction that is on the conversion
path but is not the last click
conversion.
• So this gives another look at how
channels (and sources/mediums)
when clicked, contribute to a
conversion via another channel.
• And this is all because many of
those who click on display ads,
email, or social ads are in attention
or interest mode, but not convert or
buy mode.

Time Lag
• The Time Lag report shows you
how many days it takes a user
to perform a goal. It’s
interesting to compare same
day visits with future visits, all
the way up to 90 days. Again,
nurture programs can take
longer with long buying cycles
in B2B, but at least here we
can measure 90 day decisions.
• This is more of a website
report rather than a landing
page report, so it takes into
account how your content and
retargeting can bring prospects
back to convert on your
website.

Path Length
• Path Length is similar to Time
Lag, except that instead of
measuring days to conversion,
Path Length measures the
number of visits (via various
channels) to conversion. The
sample to the right shows a
majority of the conversions
occurring after two visits which
is really good.
• After three visits, it is taking
people longer to make a
decision to convert. The best
way to increase shorter visit
conversion paths is to have
more compelling website
content and more opportunities
for lead capture, especially
within blog pages.

Google Analytics Report
Notes
A few “keep in mind” slides

Direct Traffic and non-trackable data
• Direct traffic is typically website visits with no identified source; usually a
visit directly from a typing the URL of your website into a browser. However,
if there is no identifiable source of traffic, like an untagged email click, then
this is also put under Direct traffic. Again the importance of campaign
tagging.
• Source = None, when the medium is Direct Traffic
• “Not Provided”: As stated elsewhere, this phrase shows as a keyword if a
query is done on Google’s engine and the user is logged into Google at the
time of the search.

The dreaded “Not Set”
• This usually denotes an issue with
tracking, as Google is having issues
with determining the source of the
visit.
• If you see “not set” showing up as
the source or medium, it is likely
from a mis-tagged link. If “not set”
shows up for campaign or ad
content, it is likely because these
traffic sources did not have
campaign or content information.
• If you see “not set” in your Paid
Keywords report, this is a sign that
something isn’t configured correctly.
You’re getting Paid Search traffic
from somewhere, but you’re not
getting the details about that traffic.

Attribution Modeling
Giving credit to multi-touch campaigns

Why Attribution Modeling
So you’ve read about goal lead value for each conversion on your website or
landing page, and about analyzing goal value with primary/secondary
dimensions and segments, AND you recently have seen reports that show
how channels work together to generate a last-click conversion.
BUT as you can surmise, is that all of those other channels that generated
non-converted clicks or assisted conversions do have value, and attribution
attempts to put a monetary lead value on these channels that contribute to
final last-click conversions.
Depending on your business model and how important first, middle, and last
interactions are, attribution modeling attempts to give these other channels a
value weight as compared to the current default of 100% to the last-click to
conversion channel.

The Seven Default Attribution Models in
Google Analytics
• Last Interaction Model
The Last Interaction model attributes 100% of
the conversion value to the last channel with
which the customer interacted before buying or
converting. It’s the best model if your campaigns
are purely designed for impulse decision-making
• Last Non-Direct Click Model
This is the default model in Google Analytics.
Use this model to compare to other models. The
last non-direct click model attributes conversion
credit to the last channel in the conversion path
that is not direct.
• Last AdWords Click Model
The Last AdWords Click model attributes 100%
of the conversion value to the most recent
AdWords ad that the customer clicked before
buying or converting. Use this to analyze
AdWords’ effectiveness no matter at what point
a click happens in the conversion path.
• First Interaction Model
The First Interaction model attributes 100% of
the conversion value to the first channel with
which the customer interacted. This model is
appropriate if you run ads or campaigns to
create initial awareness of your brand.
• Linear Model
The linear model provides equal credit to all
channels involved in a conversion path. If there
are five channels in the conversion path, each
will get 20% of the credit for the conversion.
Thus, you give equal credit to each touch point in
the buyer’s journey.
• Time Decay Model
The time decay model most heavily credits the
touch points that occurred nearest to the time of
conversion. This is a great model when
measuring promotional campaigns and you
want to give more value to clicks closest to a
conversion rather than earlier.
• Position Based Model
The position based model provides more credit
to the first and last channels in the conversion
process while distributing the rest of the credit
equally to the channels in-between. Use this
model to give the heaviest credit to first and last
click conversions.NuSpark Marketing, 2016

Attribution Examples
Note how the three models below vary and how the goal values are distributed by
model. By giving Channel X credit in the buyer journey, the value of the channel
increases as compared to the last-click conversion attribution

Content Marketing &
Nurture
A brief overview of content measurement
Source: Newscred

Measuring Content Marketing: A KPI List
• Enewsletter subscription growth
• Content consumption via downloads (via event tracking and form conversions)
• Formats and media type engagement (text, video, audio)
• Event registrations
• Social media engagement (likes, retweets, shares)
• Email opens and clicks; comparing blast with nurture email metrics
• Pipeline influence; sales-leads, opportunities, revenue
Eloqua’s KPI grid
These are some of the
items worth measuring
in order to evaluate
content success. Below
is a good chart from
Eloqua showing many of
these KPIs.

Content Measurement Grid; Metric Pillars
What to Measure Content KPIs
REACH • Impressions
• Traffic
• Subscribers
• How many readers of
pages and content
assets?
• How many blog and
newsletter
subscribers?
ENGAGEMENT • Time on page
• Bounce rate
• Social sharing
• Are people spending
time with your
content?
• Are they sharing and
interacting with it?
CONVERSIONS • Lead generation
• Opportunities
• Sales lift
• Are you driving
quality leads?
• Are you increasing
sales?

Stages of Content
For B2B lead generation, customer
acquisition takes time. Content
needs to be strategically planned
throughout the buying cycle.
Each buying stage has its own set of
metrics:
• Awareness
• Consideration
• Purchase
• Post-purchase.

MQL Report Cards
Using a mix of Google
Analytics, Marketing
Automation and your CRM,
you should be measuring
your MQL results
consistently, and optimizing
based on trends
Source: Newscred

Back to Google Analytics: Content
Groupings
• An optional primary dimension within Google Analytics, Content Groupings lets you group
content into a logical structure that reflects how you think about your site. In other words, you
can aggregate content into themes, and measure conversions by these themes. The analysis
can give you clues on what people like to read and engage with on your website.
• The objective of this approach is to determine what keywords in URLs or page titles contribute
to higher site engagement and conversions. Although a popular ecommerce approach, lead
generation sites can take advantage of this feature as well. Next page for examples.

Content Grouping Examples
• Content Groupings are in the
Admin section of GA. Here are
examples of some content
groupings that you may wish to
measure (up to 5)
• URLs contain (or do not contain)
“blog”
• URLs contain (or do not contain)
“PDF”
• URLs contain “Services” (to track
service page visitors)
• Page titles contain “About”

Nurture Metrics
• Many marketing automation platforms include robust reporting features that can help measure what occurs
after initial inquiries are generated due to marketing campaigns. Some of the key nurturing metrics to be
analyzed:
• Open rates: Measures the relevance of your message, offers and subject-lines as it relates to the quality
of your list segments
• Click-through rates: The percentage of email recipients who click on a link within an email. Content
relevancy as promoted in the email is the biggest factor here.
• Lead-to-conversion time: If lead scoring is implemented properly, and content relevant, prospects should
engage within their buying cycle and when appropriate, be sent to sales for follow-up. If lead scores
aren’t increasing over time, you need to address messaging, offers, as well as proper list segmenting.

Analyzing Nurture Campaigns
By carefully analyzing nurture flows, including email
metrics, what content worked the best, the number of
MQL’s generated, and how many of those become sales,
insights can be shown, and future campaigns optimized.

Multi-touch Analytics
Marketo’s (Marketing Automation Platform) includes a first-
touch/multi-touch pipeline report, but not all platforms have this
level of reporting. This shows how nurture campaigns affect sales
opportunities

More Information on Marketing
Measurement
• For more information on measuring media and various other lead
generation topics, visit our website to download ebooks such as:
• A Strategic Guide to Lead Generation using Pay-Per-Click
• The Great Online Display Advertising Guide
• Convert! Optimizing Website and Landing Pages for Lead Generation
• And More.
• http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/ebooks-webinars-b2b-content/

About NuSpark Marketing
We are a team of marketers who craft and implement online B2B and B2C marketing
programs focused on a single goal…generating demand for our clients.
Our Approach: We start with the end in mind…leads and sales opportunities…and work
from there using the three building blocks of a successful marketing program…
• Create
We craft your buyer personas and content strategy. Then, we create compelling content that
attracts prospects, converts leads and shortens your buying cycle.
• Connect
We connect your company with your target audience and build relationships via social
media, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and online display.
• Convert
We convert your online traffic into leads through website and landing page optimization,
marketing automation, and lead nurturing.

Contact Us
• NuSpark Marketing
• http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/
• (610) 604- 0639
• Ask for Paul Mosenson, Founder and President
• Mailto:pmosenson@nusparkmarketing.com

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