Calculating Your ROI once Your SEO campaign is complete is tricky
There are several metrics involved here, but at a minimum you want:
Google Analytics Organic Segment of traffic
GA organic conversions
GA organic Assisted conversions
This is for “Flagpole metrics” or “KPIs” that you hopefully set out at start
3. So you’re looking at your (hopefully accurate) GA traffic, segmented for “organic”.
You’re looking at your (very unlikely but sure hopefully accurate) organic goal conversions.
Wait.. No. Not THAT goal, that just measured the # of times the contact page was visited…
4. Yes, that goal there, that tracked when the submit button was hit on a form.
Hmmm did we set up call tracking? Yes! Great…oh, wait it didn’t connect to Google Analytics? Oooookay.
But hey it did track…for 1/3 of the year>? ok. Great! @mentions5. Oh, don’t forget to review your Assisted Conversions, and see how many times someone combined paid and organic searches in some form before they “converted”.
Ok, so now you can get the average sale rate for those leads from your salesperson, multiply by average revenue and…
Why are you looking at me like that.
Sale rate? Close rate? Yea. How often are the forms, calls, chats or emails from the site turned into actual sales?
What do you mean Salesforce can’t give you that number and the sales guys just yelled at you something that sounded like MQL SQL SAL, and you thought he was having a stroke…
Are you wishing you had an eCommerce client yet?
[Abandoned cart metrics want a word with you]
So if you’re LUCKY – MAYYBE you can follow the thread of organic traffic, to organic conversions, to sale rate of those leads and how much revenue that represented.
Hurray! You now have HALF the data.
So when were you hired and how long are you measuring?
If you were hired to do a campaign for “Nashville Kayak Rentals” do you think working from October to March is enough time to show improvement in organic traffic?
No? Why? Thats 5 whole months? Well, you might know that kayaking is a warm weather activity for sane people. Like tourists. Who would pay to rent a kayak.
So if you’re looking for the increase in organic traffic, conversions, and sales, but are only working from October to February?
You’re gonna cry
Next question: Is anyone in the company creating content, publishing posts or making edits to the site OTHER THAN YOU?
If so, how do you value their input, contributions or value in comparison to your agency budget/in-house salary?
Afterall you have to calculate expenses rite
How do you value the return on investment from your cross training session with that content writer? Supplying keyword research and strategy to the director of marketing who updated the PPC campaign to match the newly optimized content you created?
Ok. So I’m rambling a little bit, but also pointing out alllll of the pitfalls out here when you are CALCULATING your ROI from SEO.
No wonder businesses prefer the “simple” math behind PPC – Pay money, get money, calculate ROAS.