Keith Perhac on Calculating the Actual Value of Your Leads

Who Is Keith Perhac? (3:15)

Keith Perhac is an entrepreneur and the co-founder of SegMetrics. For 15 years, he made Japan his home, though he’s since returned to the United States where he now lives with his wife and family in Oregon.

These days, Keith is known for his work in technical conversion rate optimisation. In particular, he helps product creators and personality brands get a better handle of their marketing funnels.

The Problem with Marketing (6:30)

Keith says that the greatest problem he has with online marketing — whether it be SEO, Facebook ads, etc. — is that it’s really difficult to track where users are coming from and which path they took to become customers.

If you can’t track their steps over that path, you won’t be able to calculate the actual value of those leads.

Here’s why this is problematic:

“The value of a lead is not determined in the first 7 to 30 days. That’s your first touchpoint and discussion with them. The real value of a customer comes 90 days or even a year later when you’re continuously generating revenue from them.”

Unfortunately, the tools you use to analyse your marketing efforts don’t have this information — Facebook doesn’t and neither does Google Analytics. You’d have to marry a number of different platforms together to tie the revenue piece to your marketing campaigns.

Best Practices for Funnel Tracking (12:55)

According to Keith, this is the hardest part. Because even if you’re able to capture the pertinent details whenever you get a new lead or make a sale, your CRM isn’t smart enough to put it into the context of your customer’s journey.

For instance, your CRM wouldn’t connect that Jane Doe clicking on an ad for a new blog post correlated with the purchase of a WordPress care plan three days later on your site. Nor would it calculate the ongoing subscription fees generated from that initial contact as part of the value of that lead.

It would see:

Ad Clicked = Blog Post Read

When, in reality, it should be:

Ad Clicked = Blog Post Read = 12-month Pro Maintenance Plan Purchased

The value between these two funnels is significantly different.

So, Keith suggests that you start by mapping out these journeys by hand. You can use a tool like Lucidchart or just sketch it on paper. This type of long-term charting and segmentation is the first step to calculating the actual value of your leads.

A Tip for Using UTMs (17:30)

A UTM is a tracking code you append to a URL for the purposes of tracking.

For example:

https://get.wpelevation.com/webinar/?utm_source=wpe-blog&utm_medium=wpe-website-inline&utm_campaign=webinar

This is a tracking code for a WP Elevation webinar on how to charge better fees. There are a number of parameters defined by the UTM code:

• Source: WP Elevation blog
• Medium: WP Elevation website (in-line)
• Campaign: webinar promotion

So, if you were to follow that link in any of the posts I include it in, the WP Elevation team would immediately know where you were in the funnel when you decided to take action.

Now, just because UTMs are universally understood by marketers and the platforms they use to manage campaigns, not everyone uses them correctly. So, if you’re going to use UTMs to create a better system for tracking leads, take heed of Keith’s advice and create a simple and consistent naming convention for your UTM parameters.

Using SegMetrics to Calculate the Actual Value of Your Leads (21:20)

If you’re frustrated by Google Analytics and other super high-tech and difficult-to-use analytics systems, then SegMetrics would be a great solution for you.

With SegMetrics, you’ll stop looking at your marketing campaigns and think:

“I spent $1,000 on this ad and got X amount of leads.”

Leads don’t mean anything if there’s no further engagement. Listen to Keith’s own story about this at the 26:50-mark.

Instead, with SegMetrics, you’ll have a clearer picture of where your leads went and what that total journey actually means for your business over the long-run:

“This person clicked on this ad, visited this opt-in page, watched my webinar and also caught the replay. Initially, this lead was worth $7. After 90 days, they’re worth $50.

Even better, SegMetrics helps you identify the most valuable opt-ins so you can stop wasting your time with ones that bring you leads without any value.

Use Quantification for Better Lead Qualification (28:30)

Keith explains that there are a number of errors people make when creating their first funnels. One of the most grievous ones, however, is ignoring the quality of leads.

It doesn’t matter how many leads come in from a Facebook ad if the conversation ends there. You want leads that are on their way to conversion.

That’s why you need a tool like SegMetrics to point out where the good leads come from, so you can turn your attention towards optimising that experience and steer clear of the bad funnels.

If you’d like more tips on how to market to the right leads, check out Keith Perhac’s website. And if you’re ready to elevate your marketing efforts and spend time on leads of great value, give SegMetrics a go.