In this lesson
A simple measurement plan and a weekly scorecard you can trust.
Analytics tells you what happened on a website. Your enquiry and booking records tell you whether that activity mattered. You need both. A visitor pressing a telephone button is a useful signal, but it does not prove that a conversation happened or a holiday was booked.
Keep the first version simple. Measure a small number of meaningful steps, test them and review them regularly. You can add more detail once the basics are reliable.
Before you start
Who this suits
Every business promoting a website, especially before starting paid campaigns.
Have these ready
- Access to Google Analytics and Search Console, or your website team
- A secure enquiry or customer relationship management system
- Someone responsible for consent and privacy configuration
Measure the journey that matters
Each stage should represent a real action, not a wishful interpretation of a click.
- 01VisitA relevant website session
- 02EnquiryA successful request or conversation
- 03QualifiedA trip you can realistically help with
- 04QuoteA proposal sent and followed up
- 05BookingA confirmed sale and contribution
What this looks like in practice
Read the example, then use the numbered notes to see why each part is there.
A scorecard that separates cheap leads from useful ones
Illustrative figures from the lesson — not customer results or a forecast
ENQUIRY QUALITY
1Which campaign deserves another look?
Both example campaigns spend £300. The lower cost per raw enquiry does not identify the stronger source of suitable customers.
£60 · £300 spent ÷ 5 qualified enquiries. Total raw enquiries: 30.
£30 · £300 spent ÷ 10 qualified enquiries. Total raw enquiries: 15.
Not yet established. Review which enquiries book and how much contribution remains after campaign costs.
- 1Ask a commercial question
The headline focuses the review on a useful decision instead of celebrating traffic totals.
- 2Compare like with like
Use the same definition of a qualified enquiry and the same cost basis for both campaigns.
- 3Follow through to bookings
The figures justify investigating Campaign B; booking outcomes are still needed before declaring a winner.
Paris photograph by Wan Chen / Unsplash. Photograph is illustrative, not a specific advertised trip.
Your step-by-step guide
Define the stages before installing anything
Write down your sales stages: visit, enquiry, qualified enquiry, quote and booking. Define a qualified enquiry in terms the team can apply consistently: a real person seeking a trip you can supply, with enough detail to progress. Keep spam, duplicate forms and supplier sales messages separate. Decide who updates each stage. Your definitions matter more than the visual appearance of a dashboard.
Travel example
An illustrative qualification rule: genuine request, suitable product, plausible timing and sufficient contact details to discuss the trip.Give each tool a clear job
Google Search Console reports how your site appears and receives clicks in Google Search. Google Analytics 4, often shortened to GA4, helps measure website activity and traffic sources. Your enquiry system records contact and sales outcomes. Ask your website team to connect the right accounts and verify ownership. Keep the accounts under the business’s control and grant appropriate access to staff or agencies rather than sharing one password.
Agree the consent setup
Ask your privacy and website teams which technologies run, what they do and which consent or exception applies. Current UK rules include a conditional exception for statistical purposes, so the answer depends on the configuration and purpose. Do not assume an ordinary advertising-enabled analytics setup qualifies. Advertising tracking and remarketing need their own assessment. Test that the site respects choices. A consent tool is only useful when the tags actually follow it.
Measure successful actions
Ask for an enquiry event after the form has been accepted successfully, rather than when the button is pressed. Google recommends the event name generate_lead for a submitted form or information request. Keep phone clicks and messaging clicks as separate signals. Record completed bookings only when your booking system confirms them, avoiding duplicate counting. More advanced lead-stage imports are possible, but you do not need them to start recording outcomes securely in your sales system.
Label campaign links consistently
Add campaign labels, called UTM parameters, to links in newsletters, partner placements and social campaigns. They identify the source, medium and campaign when measurement is available. Use lower-case names consistently and keep a simple naming record. Do not add them to links between pages of your own website. For connected advertising systems, check auto-tagging before adding competing manual labels. Never put a customer name, email address or sensitive trip detail in a link.
Travel example
Illustrative link: https://example.com/first-cruise?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=first_cruise_guideTest handovers and data privacy
A visitor may move from your main site to a booking engine on another domain. Ask your technical team whether cross-domain measurement is supported and needed; it requires appropriate implementation on the relevant domains. An embedded booking widget may need a specific event integration. Do not assume installing one tag solves both. Check that form fields, page addresses and event values do not send names, email addresses, passport information or other prohibited personal data to ordinary Analytics collection.
Join marketing results to sales outcomes
Store the campaign source against an enquiry where your setup supports it. Add a simple “How did you hear about us?” question when helpful, recognising that memory is imperfect. Review booked, lost and still-open enquiries by the period they first arrived. Allow for the time between enquiry and booking. Different platforms may each claim credit for the same sale. This assignment of credit is called attribution. Do not add their claimed bookings together as if each were a different customer.
Review the numbers and the missing information
Use one weekly scorecard: spend, visits, genuine enquiries, qualified enquiries, quotes, bookings and contribution. Consent choices, blockers, devices and offline conversations can create gaps. Mark unknown sources honestly. Check unexplained jumps before celebrating or cutting spend. A drop in recorded leads might be a broken tag; a rise might be spam. Use the reports alongside actual enquiry quality and the sales team’s notes.
Why cheap enquiries can be expensive
Illustrative figures only; these are not Travelgenix customer results or industry benchmarks.
Campaign A costs £300 and creates 30 enquiries, but only five qualify. Its cost per qualified enquiry is £60. Campaign B costs £300 and creates 15 enquiries, of which ten qualify: £30 each. You still need booking outcomes before declaring a winner, but enquiry volume alone would have pointed you in the wrong direction.
Week / campaign / total campaign cost / website visits / genuine enquiries / qualified enquiries / quotes / bookings / booking contribution / unresolved enquiries / notes and changes
Your action checklist
Ticked items are saved in this browser. Download your checklist to keep a separate copy.
Avoid these common mistakes
- Counting one customer repeatedly across several platforms: reconcile against actual bookings.
- Optimising for the cheapest form submission: assess suitability and eventual contribution.
- Treating missing attribution as zero impact: keep unknowns visible and investigate.
Measure what matters
Cost per qualified enquiry
Campaign cost divided by qualified enquiries; use the same cost definition each week.
Enquiry-to-booking rate
Bookings divided by genuine enquiries from the same starting period, after allowing enough time for those customers to decide.
Contribution after marketing
Booking contribution minus associated marketing costs, with cancellations and changes accounted for.
Sources and updates
Reviewed 20 October 2026. These official resources support the platform and policy guidance in this lesson. Worked examples illustrate the method; they are not promises of results.