About the author
An enquiry has a person at each end.
That is the detail I try to keep in mind when a conversation turns into a discussion of form totals and lead scores.
I'm Aleksandra Stasica, a PPC specialist. Campaign Margins is my notebook on the information that helps a customer ask a useful question and a business give a useful first answer.
I like the edges of the process: the request sent to the wrong team, the required field a visitor cannot answer, the price question that arrives after a long exchange when it could have been explained earlier.
Those edges are rarely glamorous. They can make a surprising difference to the way a campaign feels to the people using it.
When reviewing a form, I try drafting the first reply. Which details let the receiving colleague understand the request? Which details would they ask for immediately? Which questions can wait until someone has explained the situation?
That exercise helps me resist adding another field simply because the information might be interesting.
I am quite capable of designing a form that knows a great deal and asks far too much. A practical first reply is a useful corrective to that instinct.
Some information should already travel with the request. The service page, the offer and the invitation tell us part of the context. Making the customer repeat those details is not always necessary.
Other details need careful prompts. If a reference or photograph helps, explain what the team needs. If someone isn't sure, give them a way to say so.
Guessing an answer to satisfy a required field does not improve the quality of the conversation.
A suitable request can reach the wrong desk. I want to distinguish that from a request that doesn't fit the business at all.
The remedy may be a clearer route or a better handover, rather than changing the advertisement to attract fewer people with the same useful need.
This is why I like involving the colleagues who actually receive enquiries. They can describe the problem with more precision than a general label such as “low quality.”
The customer shouldn't need to understand our internal team names to ask about an ordinary service. Where a choice is necessary, the public labels should explain the situations those services handle.
Price context interests me because it can change whether someone should begin. A range, an example or a description of how a quote is prepared may help, where the business can provide it accurately.
I wouldn't apply that idea to every service by rule. The actual variation and the conditions matter. A neat figure that misleads somebody is worse than a longer explanation.
I would ask what the team can honestly explain before the first conversation and make that information easy to find.
There is a thoughtful reporting question here too. If clearer information helps unsuitable visitors decide against an enquiry, a smaller total may be sensible. We still need to inspect the remaining requests before declaring that the quality improved.
The writing in this blog is semi-professional and conversational. It uses invented examples, small practical exercises and occasional mild language when a simple handover has become a bloody maze.
I like a little self-deprecation because these mistakes are rarely evidence that somebody doesn't care. Often we have been trying to help and have added one question too many.
My aim is to let the customer explain their need once, reach the appropriate person and understand the next step.
A good campaign can make that first exchange kinder as well as more useful.
The visitor has a price question. The form has questions about their company, team size, budget, telephone number and preferred time for a call. It is an impressively thorough conversation with someone who has not
A request can fit the business while missing the receiving team. Better context and clearer routing can save the customer from repeating the opening conversation.
Ask for the detail that changes the first answer. Additional questions should earn their place in the enquiry, especially on a phone.
Where a service can explain its typical cost and the reasons it varies, a clear range may help people decide whether to begin an enquiry.
