Bizible Emerges as Replacement as Salesforce Discontinues Adwords Integration

On May 1st, Salesforce pulled the plug on its Google Adwords integration widget. Salesforce had already put this widget on life support for a long time, so the world’s largest CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system discontinuing support for the world’s largest search advertising platform surprised no one.

According to the guys at Salesforce, the reason why it no longer tracks Google AdWords in its Web-to-lead forms is so that it can focus its efforts at innovating and improving core areas of its application. It’s effectively handing over the control to third-party developers and partners who can offer users new and improved apps that track AdWords campaigns, which will be made available through Salesforce’s AppExchange.

There are two ways of looking at this.  You can trust this reason implicitly and pat Salesforce on the back for choosing to focus on enhancing the core features of its CRM platform; or you can disbelieve it and say to yourself, “Salesforce was just not interested in investing in Salesforce for Google Adwords any more, for reasons unknown.”

Whatever the reason you choose to believe, the fact remains that this widget is dead and buried and you still haven’t answered five important questions:

1. How will I now use Google AdWords as a lead generation tool?
2. How do I correlate clicks on Google advertisements with my Salesforce leads?
3. Will I still be able to track the results of Google Adwords campaigns from Salesforce?
4. Can I still identify which keywords and advertisements are bringing in leads, new sales opportunities and customers?
5. How will I monitor the efficiency of my Google Adwords Campaign and optimize them when necessary?

Five Questions, One Answer – Bizible

Salesforce has a list of partners on its site who are offering similar solutions to Salesforce for Google Adwords. Out of these, it’s Bizible that comes the closest to offering features very similar to Salesforce’s Google Adwords integration. It’s the closest contender for the throne abdicated by the Salesforce widget. Not because it offers a similar solution, but because it has improved upon the features or the old app that it seeks to replace.

There is no doubt in my mind that Bizible has emerged as a replacement that will help you manage the integration of your AdWords spending and the leads and opportunities generated from Salesforce.com

I know you are “dying to know” why Bizible is such a good option for tracking and making sense of your Google Adwords campaign, but let’s digress for a bit. What happens to your existing Google Adwords Data if you move to Bizible?

Here’s what will happen to it:

• Your dashboard and reports remain unaffected if you haven’t uninstalled Salesforce for Google AdWords.
• Your lead activities and custom objects will be unaffected only if you haven’t uninstalled Salesforce for Google AdWords.
• Your AdWords ad URLs will remain as is, as will your Web form JavaScript track code and so will the hidden custom field that has your organization ID in the customer webworms.

In a nutshell, all your data will be transferred to the replacement app you are going to use.

Now let’s get cracking on Bizible.  Bizible has two versions; the 1.0 which is currently available and the 2.0, which is on its way.

Bizible Version 1.0

Bizible Version 1.0 is out and can be downloaded now. It is for those who had sunk their teeth into Salesforce for Google Adwords and are looking for a replacement along similar lines. So, you have 30 pre-installed reports (Déjà vu anyone) that help you visualize your campaign data and its performance. Custom reports can also be built using your Salesforce data.

Apart from report generation, you also get to find out how your leads found your site, the Google Adwords details, the organic keywords used for search and the referral social sites. Another critical feature is that it allows you to correlate your Google Adwords data with your Salesforce data.

With this, you know which ad attracts the best clients. But there is a subtle improvement made to this feature as compared to the existing SFGA service. You can pre-define a field and ensure that every Adwords data lands in that field. It makes data analysis simpler.

Bizible Version 2.0:  Advance Cookie Tracking Feature

Let’s go back to the reason why SFGA service was discontinued – Salesforce expected third party developers to come up with Google AdWords tracking breakthroughs that when combined with Salesforce leads and opportunities, data will help businesses get access to better and much improved sales and customer data as compared to what they were getting earlier.

Bizible has come good on this expectation by telling you which keywords were used by the people who walked into your store and made a purchase. Yes, you heard that right. It helps you track and make sense of your offline sales as well. Of course, this is a feature that will be made available on version 2.0, which is still not out. But you are definitely going to get it. So credit, must be given where it’s due.

Let’s take a closer look at this feature with an example:

Your client has 5 furniture stores and all their sales and customer data is synced in Salesforce.  This means you can now identify which keywords drove online sales, Web form submissions and phone calls. But what about the customer that walks into their store front and buys a chair? This is an offline sale. How did they come to the physical store front? Was it by clicking on the link to the furniture store’s site made available through SERPs or through something else?

Version 2.0 answers this question through “cookied” tracking.  Website visitors are “cookied” when they access the furniture store website and “cookied” again when they receive an email from the furniture store after they have made a purchase from the store. This is critical because the Bizible Salesforce plugin can only drop a cookie into the customer’s computer through an email.

In the long run, this helps you identify the keyword that motivated the customer to walk into the store to buy a product.

It May Revolutionize ROI Tracking

Just the fact that it tells you how your offline customers are coming to your store means Bizible is not just a complete replacement for Salesforce for Google AdWords customers – but something much bigger and better.

The scope of ROI tracking has been redefined and this isn’t a hypothesis. All you need to do is wait for the Version 2.0 to be released and implement it when it does. The resultant Google Adwords Tracking will provide some startling clarity on the physical (offline) purchases as well, which is great news for businesses that have both an eCommerce and physical store front.

Images: Bizible

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