Author: Matt

Posted on by Matt

Everything You Need to Know About GA4 Migration

Many of you have probably been receiving notifications for more than a year about migrating your Google Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). On July 1, 2023, Google will discontinue Universal Analytics, which means none of your website analytic data will track through that property anymore. In December 2023, all data from Universal Analytics will be erased.

What that means is that you must make the switch if you want to have consistent – or any – website tracking information. But LeadPoint Digital clients don’t have to do a thing. (We’ve got you covered already.)

What to Expect

To break it down simply, the data we review with our clients monthly will change for the better and be more expansive. The largest change from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 is that your website data will be tracked through events, rather than pageviews.

The Good News: Google Analytics caught up with LeadPoint Digital! Long before Google Analytics 4 was announced, LeadPoint tracked your website data through events. Most of the data we review with you on a weekly or monthly basis has been events-based since our relationship began. Event metrics that we regularly review with our clients are form submissions, document downloads, clicks to social media, video viewing rates, clicks to call, clicks on email address, and clicks to important outbound websites.

The Bad News: All the data we tracked for your website to this point will disappear in December 2023. LeadPoint Digital is taking measures to download all historical data for comparison under the new Google Analytics 4 tracking. We have also been tracking Google Analytics 4 data over the last year, so we should have data to compare immediately.

Smarter Marketing with GA4

  • User-ID Tracking
  • Customer Data Integration
  • Data-Driven Lead Tracking

User-ID tracking will better measure websites that have registered users, such as e-commerce or login areas. This will enable you to track your registered users as one journey whether they visit through a mobile device, laptop, or tablet. In the past, these visitors were viewed as three separate visits. Now we can measure the cross-device behavior between registered users.

Customer data integration will allow you to upload customer and prospect data from your point of sale, customer relationship management, or other offline data collection. The benefit to this is to track your overall business performance in a unified view and match website behavior for all users. This will help with full-funnel tracking for offline sales. For example, if a user submits information through your website, but purchases offline, the closing sale data can be incorporated and tied to the initial lead, providing more accurate return-on-investment data and customer journey data.

Data-driven lead attribution was recently released on Google Universal Analytics. LeadPoint Digital has already been using the data-driven lead attribution and it will be automatically migrated to your Google Analytics 4 environment.

In the past, lead attribution for digital marketing campaigns has been tracked by last click, which means the digital marketing campaign only gets credit if that’s the last source a website visitor comes from before taking a conversion action on your website. The problem with that is a website visitor may interact with multiple marketing campaigns such as social media, email, organic search, and/or paid search. Data-driven lead attribution now weighs the lead based on the campaigns the visitor interacted with. This will allow you to see the true performance of your digital marketing campaigns by getting a holistic view of the customer journey.

What You Have To Do

Nothing. LeadPoint Digital has it all covered for you. We’ve successfully migrated all clients to the new Google Analytics 4 and have been tracking data. There are a lot of buzzwords being thrown around and new naming systems of metrics. This does not affect our clients; this is all behind-the-scenes information that is important for your LeadPoint team. We can educate you on the meaning of these changes if you desire, but we’ve taken care of everything so you can focus on your regular business activities and trust that LeadPoint has your digital marketing campaigns and reporting covered!

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Posted on by Matt

The team was also honored with Lin Chaff Award for Creativity

LeadPoint Digital won six awards in five categories in the 2022 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Blue Ridge Summit Awards. The honors were handed out on Feb. 16, 2023, at a luncheon and were for work done between October 2021 and September 2022. One campaign also won the Lin Chaff Sward for Creativity.

The PRSA Blue Ridge chapter is a professional association serving Central and Southwest Virginia public relations practitioners. With awards for six different client projects, LeadPoint Digital stood out at this year’s Summit Awards for excellence and outstanding contributions to the communications field.

“We’re honored to be recognized for the quality work we’re able to produce for our clients,” said Brad Timofeev, LeadPoint Digital Managing Partner. “We strive every day to collaborate with our clients and exceed their digital marketing expectations.”  

LeadPoint Digital, a Roanoke-based marketing agency, submitted client projects in five categories: paid media, PR campaign, website, earned media, and marketing products and services. Each sample is an example of a results-driven strategy.

Here’s a look at each winning campaign.

PAID MEDIA
Bug Man Exterminating, Gold Award
Bug Man Exterminating’s Google Ads campaign strategy was designed to increase pest inspections, pest control revenue, termite inspections, and termite control revenue. The strategy included keyword research, grouping of related keywords, Google responsive search ad writing, and integration with promotions and brick-and-mortar locations, and enrollment in the Google Guarantee program. As a result, Bug Man saw an 81% growth in leads, 14.4% growth in pest control sales, and 21% growth in termite inspections.

Carter Machinery, Silver Award
Carter Machinery is Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbias Caterpillar dealer with four different business divisions and a heavy focus on increasing online parts sales through their website parts.cat.com/carter. To increase online sales, LeadPoint Digital recommended a search engine advertising campaign through Google Ads, in effort of turning a positive return-on-investment. If the campaign was successful, the campaign would be a permanent fixture in their marketing efforts to increase online parts sales. The results of the campaign generated 404 transactions, resulting in a 3,945% return-on-investment.

PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN
Franklin County Economic Development, Silver Award
Franklin County Economic Development is tasked with promoting the opportunities and abundant resources of Franklin County. To create a more positive social media sentiment, we launched Franklin County Shines, a blog series profiling citizens who thrive in Franklin County. Each profile was posted to improve messaging and drive positive engagement and sentiment online and on social media. When compared to the previous year, the campaign generated 257.7% more clicks, 235.7% more engagement, and no negative comments on any Franklin County Shines content.

WEBSITE
Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, Silver Award
Under new leadership and with new goals, the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council wanted a new website with a modern design that could appeal to members as well as wider technology audiences in the region. With imagery that shows who the organization is and prominent event listings and calls to action, the design needed to create user paths to help members and the technology community better find niche resources. In the first two months following launch, the website averaged more than 3,000 unique visitors (up from 500), A 69% year-over-year increase in website unique visitors, 58% increase in total visitors, while direct traffic leaped 300%.

EARNED MEDIA
Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, Silver Award
The Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center PR & Marketing campaign was designed to launch and promote COgro Labs, a major economic development project. The campaign included a press conference, website landing page build, search engine optimization, social media marketing, earned media mentions, and was designed to generate support for lab funding and biotech development in the region. Measurable campaign goals were to create media attention and website traffic while increasing local and national awareness of the project and potentially attract future business. 

The press conference, SEO optimization, social media campaign, and emails helped generate significant awareness and buzz. It also helped solidify interest from local government officials that lobbied on behalf of the region for General Assembly funding in the January session, that led to approval of a $15.7 million budget request to build a second facility in Roanoke.

MARKETING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Yancey Bros., Silver Award & Lin Chaff Award for Creativity
Yancey Bros. is Georgia’s Caterpillar dealer and the oldest Caterpillar dealer in the United States. Yancey Bros. has worked with LeadPoint Digital to improve search engine visibility and attract Yancey’s target audience via search engine optimization. The goal of the program is to increase Yancey’s search engine visibility year-over-year and continue to attract a target audience that will most likely turn into a lead for rental equipment, new equipment, used equipment, and heavy equipment repair and service.

The results of the campaign increased year-over-year by every metric including a 53% increase in Google keyword rankings.

The campaign also received the Lin Chaff Award for Creativity, a premier award from the PRSA Blue Ridge chapter that recognizes unique challenges and creative ways to overcome them.

“We want to create great user experiences at every touch point, so our clients and their customers have seamless online interactions,” said Carrie Cousins, Director of Digital Marketing. “Meaningful results that help grow their businesses is at the heart of everything we do.”  

LeadPoint Digital marketing agency specializing in digital marketing and website design, located in Downtown Roanoke. A deep understanding of online behavior allows LeadPoint Digital to develop and execute practical strategies that drive results. If you are looking for a marketing partnership that is rooted in strategic and operational values, contact us.

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Posted on by Matt

SEO, SEM, PPC?
What Does Search Advertising Mean for You?

On January 17, LeadPoint Digital’s managing partner Brad Timofeev is set to discuss the importance of search engine advertising and how it can take your digital assets to the next level.

Search engine optimization is a must-have for website owners in 2023. Brad Timofeev of LeadPoint Digital will help you understand the terminology and importance of search and some strategies you can start implementing today to make a difference in search engines.

View additional resources and download presentation.

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