Most digital ad campaigns for banks and credit unions are not underperforming because of budget. They are underperforming because of how conversions are tracked. In this episode, Meredith Olmstead and Ida Burr break down a simple but powerful tactic using custom goals in Google Ads to improve campaign accuracy, optimize for real results, and better understand the full application journey.
Key Takeaways:
1. Custom goals create more accurate campaign optimization. Instead of relying on default conversions, custom goals allow financial institutions to define exactly what success looks like for each campaign. This ensures Google is optimizing toward the right outcomes, such as completed applications rather than unrelated actions.
2. Tracking the full application journey improves performance. By including multiple stages like application start, mid-point, and completion, marketers can better understand user behavior and guide campaigns through the learning phase before narrowing optimization to high-intent conversions.
3. Conversion value helps measure real ROI. Assigning value to completed applications allows teams to clearly track performance and understand return on ad spend. Whether using a set value or estimated revenue, this creates better visibility into what campaigns are truly delivering.
Transcription:
Meredith Olmstead:
Hi, there. I'm Meredith Olmsted, CEO and founder of FI GROW Solutions. We are a digital marketing and sales consulting agency. We work exclusively with credit unions and community banks. And I am here with Ida Burr, our director of digital ads. Say hi, Ida.
Ida Burr:
Hi, everyone.
Meredith Olmstead:
Ida and I were just talking about some digital ad results we were going over with a client. And we were talking specifically about custom goals and how she's been using those for our clients. And I was like, Ida, it might be worth it to just let's hit record on this, because this isn't something special, but it may be just a really quick little tip or trick for people who might be new to the game in credit unions and community banks around pay-per-click, and making sure that people are setting up their campaigns in the right ways. Because sometimes when you're getting into pay-per-click for your financial institution, you'll see that a lot of your campaigns come out of the box with just preset conversions. And I know I'm not saying that right. So this is why I wanted to hit record, because I wanted Ida to explain this to you guys.
So Ida, so let's talk about this. So we wanted to make sure that everybody's pay-per-click campaigns are as efficient and as effective as possible for credit unions and banks, when we're talking about trying to drive as many conversions as possible. So, what do they have to do? What does a marketing person, or somebody who's driving digital ads, want to drive digital ads to say drive, as many applications for auto loans or for a personal loan? What do they need to be doing in order to make sure that those ads are running efficiently and effectively?
Ida Burr:
Yeah. So, this is something that I have discovered a few years ago. Google allows you to set up custom goals for campaigns. And the funny thing is, when you're building out the campaign, I have not found a way to assign it a custom goal until it is completely published, and you go back into the settings and update it. So, I feel like this may be something a lot of people haven't realized is a possibility yet.
Meredith Olmstead:
Interesting.
Ida Burr:
Yeah. These custom goals allow you to assign specific conversions to specific campaigns.
Meredith Olmstead:
So you basically have to make the campaign first, and then go back in and recreate the goals, or redo the conversions once the campaigns are fully created.
Ida Burr:
Yes.
Meredith Olmstead:
Okay. So tell us all about it. How does this work?
Ida Burr:
So, in these custom goals, you can pick as many conversions as you want to add into this custom goal. You give it a name. So, if I was creating a campaign for auto, I would name this auto conversion goals. And depending on what the objective is that we are trying to accomplish with these ads, you can add several different things. If they're wanting foot traffic, or if they're wanting phone calls, you can add those conversions in. If you're looking for people to fill out a specific form on the website, you would create a conversion for that and add it. A lot of the times too, I'll do the person makes it to the middle of the application, and I'll add that goal in. So getting higher and higher quality goals. And then ultimately, a completed application. And then you would just put all these into that bucket, and assign that conversion goal to the campaign.
Meredith Olmstead:
And you can have more than one. So that's what I thought was so interesting about this, is like, so you can have, starts an application, gets halfway through an application, completes an application. You can have all those goals in one campaign, and you could even have calls the branch about an application in a campaign.
Now, most people don't want people calling. They want you filling it out, but you could add something in about that if that was a goal. Say you were at a local event or something and you wanted to drive some foot traffic alongside a local in person event for a day or something like that. So you were trying to drive people with their smartphones or whatever to try to get them to go buy a local branch or something like that. I mean, that would rarely ever happen. But you could potentially do something, a use case like that.
Ida Burr:
Absolutely.
Meredith Olmstead:
So you could add in some very creative combinations of custom goals. Okay. And so then to add all these in, and then you can track multiple different kinds of custom goals within the same campaign.
Ida Burr:
Yes. And you know all the conversions that are being tracked in that campaign are directly related to the product, because with the account default conversions, you can be getting conversions because people search for an auto loan, and then end up calling the branch, and opening a checking account. Or they apply for a personal loan instead. So this gives the campaign a very, very specific, we want people to complete this auto application. We don't care if they complete a membership application, or if they go to a branch, if that's not something you want to optimize for. So then you know all the results are exactly what you want the campaign to do.
Meredith Olmstead:
Okay. Okay. And then you also said something about conversion value. So, in order to be able to really optimize and understand what you're spending versus the value of what you're getting from that spend.
Ida Burr:
Yes. So the way I usually set these up at first is I'll make multiple conversions that kind of track the person, because with new campaigns, you need to let it go through a learning phase and generate results. So Google has a better idea of the ideal person you're looking for. So, I'll have it the first page of the application, the middle page of the application, the end of the application. And then as that campaign starts generating more and more results, I'll drop the first page of the application. So now I'm only looking for people to get middle and end. And once you get even more results, you can have it just the end of the application. The tricky thing with that though is, when you have all three, you're not sure how many people are actually completing the application, which is obviously the main thing we want to happen. So, they have what is called conversion value. And for that completed application, I only assign a conversion value for that conversion.
So, all of the conversion value you know is a completed application, and it just makes it really easy to see on the main dashboard how many completed applications you're driving.
Meredith Olmstead:
And you calculate that value based on the value, what per the actual revenue generated for an average loan? Or where do you get that value number?
Ida Burr:
You can assign it just one, or you can assign it the actual value. So, sometimes if we don't have an estimated value, I'll just make it one, so we know every time it counts that's a completed app.
Meredith Olmstead:
Okay. Or you could put an actual dollar amount on it to do the math for you. Either way, you can easily do the math yourself by just taking those total number of values and doing the math outside of Google.
Ida Burr:
Yeah.
Meredith Olmstead:
Got it. Interesting. All right. So this is a really creative way to be able to track this conversion path, the buying journey through multiple places in their path through all the different touchpoints through the buying journey. So, very good to know and understand how this can work. Thank you so much, Ida. I appreciate this insight. I know this is kind of a very technical tip for people who are definitely playing in that ad space, and in the Google Ads environment on a daily basis. So, I'm not really sure that I could make a lot of use out of this tip or this trick, but I'm sure there are lots of people out there in credit union and bank, in the bank world that could definitely use these tips.
So, I appreciate you sharing it with us. If you're interested in learning more about credit unions, or digital ads for credit unions or community banks, please visit us at figrow.com. We have lots of other great podcasts, blogs, case studies. We would love to have you join us. And otherwise, let's just all get out there and make it happen.