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Is this Agency acting in an Ethical way?

by StewartJ
1 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I do online marketing analysis for a company which outsources PPC. The business is lead generation.

Based on lead to conversion data, we know that organic traffic outperforms PPC conversions by a factor of 3:1. Since the PPC agency makes their money based on the "total budget" they manage (they charge a 6% fee); they always push for "more budget".

Lately, the marketing director of our company (key decision maker) analyzed the lead to conversion #s and indicated that if the ppc agency wanted more money they would have to prove they can improve the lead to conversion numbers.

Here is where things start to go a bit "Gray" in my opinion.
Right now: organic traffic is tracked by a lead from on the main site, this lead form is tagged with the source code for organic traffic. PPC traffic is tracked by a lead form that is tagged with the source code for ppc traffic on the landing pages.

The agency knows that a significant percentage of their traffic bounces off their landing pages and ends up converting in the main site because visitors simply find the info they need on the main site rather than on LPs. Based on that idea, they are now setting an indefinite cookie (or so they claim) that will attribute leads generated on the main site, to PPC; just based on the claim that "they came from a landing page"

Their landing pages are set to generate leads on the page itself. There is no "referral link" to the main site other than a link to disclaimers (very small in the footer)
Currently, leads which bounce from landing pages and convert on the main site are attributed to our main site organic source.

The questions I have are: if the lead is generated on the main site, is it reasonable to attribute that lead to PPC just because it "bounced" from a landing page? Also, if the main site is not setting organic tracking cookies, is it not reasonable to say that "if the ppc agency cookies all of the traffic" which comes from the SERPs, eventually; a high percentage of all the traffic that hits the main site will be "cookied" thus, whipping out "organic SEO" leads as a source?
#acting #agency #ethical
  • Profile picture of the author Dan Grossman
    It's a complex problem and deserves a better analysis than attributing sales to the last way someone found the company. You should be measuring all of the traffic sources that assist in generating new leads. If people are coming in through PPC, then later coming back through organic/search sources and signing up, that first exposure through PPC may be responsible for the awareness that led to them searching for you again; isn't it equally irresponsible to write that off? What if a large portion of the "organic" leads would never have occurred if they didn't first find out about the product/service through the PPC campaigns?
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