How do you deal with latent conversion tracking?
Scenario: if people are deleting cookies, and you don’t know that they came and visited you six times and then purchased. You only know that this particular visitor showed up this one time.
My favorite example is, shopping for a baby carriage. You look online and you see what’s available, and then you go to the store and you see what they look like in person and kick the tires. Then you go back to the Internet to see what the different features are, and what the different price ranges are.
Then you go to the store to find exactly the model and if it really will work and that it really is good. Then you go to the Internet and you find the best price, but then you go back to the store because you want it right now.
So, how does the web analytics tool explain that behavior, especially if we’ve got cookie deletion?
You know in one case they show up, they look around for a while, they come back later, and they look at different things into different depth. They come back another time and it looks like they are about to buy, but they don’t, they disappear. It’s a big challenge.
That brings up the whole issue of sale crediting which is also hard. Actually impossible. Somebody drives down the street and sees a billboard; then they see an ad in the newspaper. Then they hear an ad on the radio and they talk to their neighbor about it. Then, they go on line and they see a banner ad and they click on the banner ad and they buy the product. Which should get the credit for making the sale? It’s an unanswerable question.
