Evaluating the Performance of a Google Ads Campaign

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There are many metrics and reports available to help manage your Google AdWords Campaign. In this post, we are going to give you an overview of the resources Google provides to aid your campaign to be the most effective it can be.

The key with this process is to be patient and to slowly change your campaign over time. Allow Google to compile data over the course of a few weeks to provide you with suggestions of how to improve, as well as measure how the changes you made are affecting your campaign.

 

Google Ads Overview Page

This will be the first page you see once you enter your Google AdWords account. This page will provide you with a basic performance synopsis of your account, campaigns and Ad Groups. Once data is compiled over time, Google will also display important insights and patterns that may be valuable to your campaign tactics.

You will be able to view many different types of reports with relevant metrics to guide your process to maximize your budget and time spent within the Google AdWords analytics functions. Now, let’s get into what these metrics and reports are and what they do for your campaign evaluation.

 

Google Ads Metrics

CPA: Cost Per Acquisition

This metric provides valuable insight into how much it costs you to gain a customer. Once you gain this knowledge, you are able to determine your ROI. Thus, make important adjustments to your budget and bidding strategy to enhance the effectiveness of your Google AdWords campaign.

ROI: Return on Investment – How effective your Ad spending is Profit – Cost / Cost = ROI%

By understanding your ROI, you can adjust your budget and strategy to fit the particular business model and revenue stream that you want to achieve. Furthermore, when enough data is collected you will be able to analyze your campaign and focus in on areas to adjust and optimize going forward.

Clicks: Shows how many clicks your Ad received

Since clicks are the metric that provides insight into who and how much traffic your Ad is generating, it is helpful to review and track this data. Over time, you will be able to see patterns and make adjustments, and in turn, track how those changes affect performance.

CTR: Click-Through Rate – Percentage of people who could see your Ad and also clicked on it

The data you collect here will allow you to analyze how well a keyword is performing. Moreover, it can provide insight into how users responded to the Ad and their past interactions when viewing it.

Conversions: How many people clicked from an Ad to your website and did something you valued (purchase/sign-up/phone call/download)

This metric is the bread and butter of your business model. It is vital to know and understand what your customers are responding to. From there, you can make many adjustments within your Google AdWords campaign to optimize desired outcomes for your goals.

Conversion Rate: Conversions/Clicks

Important data metric to track progress and effectiveness of your Ad. This can help you determine if you need to edit your Ad content or format. Additionally, this information helps inform you about the effectiveness of your Ad. Using the data collected from Google, you create necessary changes to enhance your ad.

Impressions: How often your Ad was shown on the search results page/website on the Google Network

This tool is a must for any business owner focusing on branding. Impressions provide valuable feedback for what is or is not working with your Ads.

Average Position: How your Ad typically ranks against other Ads

This allows you to evaluate your bidding strategy and make adjustments within your budget to increase your chances of the Ad ranking higher

ROAS: Return on Ad Spend – Measures Ad effectiveness not pertaining to aspects of cost

With this information, you will be able to gauge the overall effectiveness of your Google AdWords campaign. This insight will help guide you in making effective changes to key areas of your campaign that may not be performing well.

 

Understanding Google Ads Reports

Search Term Report: Lists the searches and terms people used before seeing your Ad and clicking on it. This can help you make sense of the process and allow you to see alternative keywords you can add to your keyword list to help attract even more customers.

Attribution Report: Details the digital path customers took to complete a conversion. With this type of tracking, you can potentially adjust your campaign settings to target any trends you may notice, such as a specific partner site that people go to before ending up on your website. Thus, you can increase bidding to be shown more often on that platform.

Auction Insight Report: Helps you understand how your Ads compare to your competitors. With this insight you can adjust your bidding strategy to outbid them or find specific keywords that are less competitive but more relevant to your specific products or services. In turn this would optimize your budget and thus your conversion rate.

User Location Report: Specifies their specific physical location. With this data, you are able to format your campaign tactics to target a certain geographic area. For example if you are a bakery with a special dessert or promo coming up, you can target a specific radius to your location to increase chances of people nearby coming into the store to check it out.

Geographic Report: Tells you the user’s physical location as well as their locations of interest throughout their searches and the content they viewed on the Google Network, along with partner websites. Within your campaign settings, you can focus your budget on specific locations as well as sites that your customers frequently visit. Being seen in relevant locations and places online help you position yourself better to make conversions.

Landing Page Experience Report: Shows you the quality of your Landing Page for the user. This report lets you see how your web page is experienced from the user perspective. Knowing how they interpret the content you are presenting helps you make the changes needed to enhance their experience with your company. Moreover, Google will tell you if your Landing Page is not optimized and give you insight into how to change it so that it can enhance your Ad position ranking.

Paid and Organic Search Report: Gives you the details on how customers got to your website. If they are getting to you via your paid advertisements, that information will be reflected in your clicks, conversions, conversion rate, etc. If customers are getting to you via organic search results, you will obtain insight into if it is even worth paying for Ads within that segment. It may help you figure out what is ineffective within your Ad, causing people to not click on it, or for it to not be listed in the paid search portion of the search results. Therefore, you can make valuable changes with the insights you gain to optimize your campaign strategy and tactics.

 

Importance Of Frequent Google Ads Campaign Evaluation

The reason for frequent or continuous evaluation is because the market is always changing. By keeping an eye on trends, customer attributes and actions you can stay ahead of the curve. Something that works today might not work in a few months. Additionally, when you gain insight and make changes to your campaign you must be patient for new data to be collected and then reflected in your next evaluation. Typically this takes a few weeks.

Evaluating your campaign is a valuable and necessary part of your digital marketing campaign. In order to maximize your budget and optimize your goals, you need to track your data. The metrics and reports we reviewed can be valuable assets to your business goals if properly utilized and understood. Here at PPC Guru, we make it our business to understand your goals and market from your perspective and incorporate our expert knowledge to enhance your marketing results.

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